Mugged on Michigan Avenue

An eye opener - if you haven't been paying attention for the last few years:

• Here's what went down: I walked up to the bus stop at the corner of Michigan and Grand to take the 151 to my home in Lakeview. I sat down on the black metal railing that fences off one of the large flower gardens, put down my bag of groceries and pulled out my new iPhone to check my e-mail and send a text message to my wife letting her know I would be home soon.
  
  The sidewalk was packed with tourists and shoppers, but I felt a strange energy when a kid, probably about 14, sat down close to me on my left while the guy he walked up with stood on my right. It just felt wrong.
  
  Then, literally in a flash, the kid on my left grabbed my iPhone and tried to bolt. I had heard all of the warnings about people snatching iPhones and iPods, but because the street was so crowded I never thought it could happen there and then.

Did anyone who isn't reading here right now not see this one coming two years ago? Anyone? Bueller? We didn't think so. This is almost a daily occurrence nowadays.

Now imagine you're Bob or Suzie Yuppie without a newspaper column to bitch about being strong-armed in broad daylight on what is one of the top three pedestrian avenues in Chicago.

But here's the kicker - the writer, someone named John D. Thomas - even after getting attacked and knocked around and robbed, manages to get in a dig at police officers!

• I went after the two kids, still gripping the T-shirt I had torn off one of them. I saw them go east on Ohio Street and I booked it in hot pursuit. When I got to St. Clair, I didn't see them, but my lifetime of watching TV cop shows told me they had sprinted down a dark alley next to the Dunkin' Donuts.

Even though it is Shortshanks that has allowed the number of police on the streets to dwindle to the point where strong arm robbers feel little-to-no hesitation in mugging people in broad daylight on Michigan Avenue, John D. Thomas has to throw in the tired old saw about "Dunkin Donuts" and cop shows.

At least he didn't go with the "poor downtrodden under-privileged youth who don't know what they're doing and I probably deserved to have my personal property forcibly removed from my person" route. That would have been a bit too much.