My girlfriend's upstairs neighbor got attacked last night. The woman, an old friend of Jeannie's, was coming home (from the C train at Washington & Fulton, I believe) around 7PM last night, to her house on Gates at Downing. She walked up the stoop steps and was getting the keys out when some guy grabbed her from behind in a bear-hug.

It was dark and raining pretty heavily, so I guess there weren't any people on the street. He put his hand over her mouth and told her not to make any noise. She could barely breathe with his hand over her face. Then he groped at her genitals. She fought back, trying to push him off. His hand must have slipped because she was able to scream, the effect of which eventually got him to let her go. He ran off after that.

She's obviously shaken up after the incident. She wants to move, but my question is where? Is any place safe? I know the neighborhood has been seeing an upswing in bizarre crimes, not the least of which was the shooting that happened on the very same corner a few months ago. But 7 o'clock on a Tuesday is not a time when you're usually on your guard. But experience seems to show that most assaults around here happen during prime time. Two of my friends were mugged around 9PM on Greene and Washington Ave, I myself was pounded on near my house by dickhead kids around 8:30.

I guess the lesson is we can't ever let our guard down. I'm thinking of getting Jeannie one of those combination brass knuckle/hunting knife things (they're hard for somebody to get away from you), but no amount of weaponry would make me feel any safer in the end. The one punchline from this whole thing is that it appears that the asshole dropped his cellphone during the attack. God I hope it's really his and not just stolen from someone else. That would be so sweet if he gets caught for being such a total dipshit, wouldn't it? Almost a happy ending to this story.

So it goes without saying, please be careful, even of the picturesque streets of Clinton Hill. There are a lot more cops on the streets these days, but if they're even one block away, they're not gonna be able to help when some weirdo goes off his meds and grabs you.