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Comment by jjallen | Hacker News Reader

This is what I do. I've personally witnessed a laptop being stolen from a cafe in SF, but only from the very front very close to the door, and the guy had walked to the back to go to the bathroom.

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I didn't actually see the guy run out. I'm usually buried in the back heads-down focused, as Bezos would say. But I heard some screaming, turned around, and a woman actually ran after the guy (not her computer!) for four blocks. Finally the guy dropped the computer and she picked it up and showed up 5 minutes later miraculously with his computer. The guy whose computer it was only then came out of the bathroom not knowing his MacBook Air had been stolen!

why didn't you do anything to stop this?

Is a stranger's laptop worth getting your face smashed for? Or stabbed? It doesn't sound like anybody's physical well being was threatened, so why risk your own?

Maybe you could take a picture then tell them, if anything happens to me in the next 5 years, this picture will be sent to the police.

But at any rate, it is better to shut up and give description to the owner.

I agree that it's quite inexplicable why a woman who didn't know the owner of the laptop ran after the thief who was at least a third bigger than she was.

Why was the thief at least a third bigger than the woman?

I didn't actually see him, but he was a grown man by all accounts, and the woman was on the smaller side. So she was something like 120 lbs. max and he was at least 180 lbs.+

It's so weird when people look out for each other. It's like they're actually decent human beings or something!

Interesting. In addition to victim blaming, it appears that all bystanders are also being blamed.

I highly doubt that a person stealing laptops from Starbucks is going to stab you.

Because violent street thieves are unable to walk into a coffee shop?

If you live in a city where violent crime is not uncommon, don't assume that a thief is a nice person just because you've caught them in the act in a coffee shop.

Have you been to San Francisco? I don't know the rate of stabbings, but I have seen plenty of violently unstable people here that I wouldn't want to provoke.

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