To start with I want to say that I'm VERY pissed off as I am writing this, so much so that I am not able to sleep even though its 5 in the morning. I also want to say that I apologize to any of you who live in North Surrey but after last night I will now be referring to it as "North Scurvy or Slurry". I went to hang out with Emcew, Chris. Lenare and Shim for the evening and left to come home at midnight. It's possible that some of you will say that I probably shouldn't have been walking from 96th Ave and 128th to King George Blvd. so late at night, well you are right and I'm not likely doing it again. I had to do so to catch the bus home and I had to get to KGB in time to take the southbound tuna can back home or I would have been stuck there for a long time. In the past year I have had 3 other drive by incidents like the one below but not as bad as this 4th one, this was a whole new level of suck!
I admit to making one key mistake in my haste to get to the bus stop, I walked with the traffic coming up behind me on the geographic south side of 96th. I should have walked on the geographic north side looking at oncoming traffic. However, based on how determined these cowardly little needle dicked bug fucking social germs were to start trouble with anyone they saw walking I don't think it would have made much of a difference.
I made a tactical error in not keeping my enemy in sight and being on the side of the road that is more difficult for them to attack me from. . . I would have seen approaching trouble more easily.
Long story short, I was walking east on 96th from 132nd when a light tan 4 door with two females and a male drove by shouting at me, "Look at the fuckin loser walking, you fuckin fag" Then they laughed and sped away as I replied with a "Screw off you lousy jerks!". A couple of minutes later after circling around the block they returned and threw several rocks and eggs at me, only one egg caught my backpack and got on my jacket. I shouted a rather angry 4 letter retort to their cowardly attack and the car slowed almost to a crawl. A female and a male on the passenger side of the vehicle were babbling excitedly to the driver as the male partially opened his door, maybe he was getting out?. I noticed that he was smaller and thinner than I as I took off my backpack, stood in a fighting stance and shouted at him to "come get some you fucks!". The female from the back seat window, the male from the front threw what looked like a couple of small rocks at me, he closed the passenger side door and the car sped away eastbound until turning south on King George. All I got from the license plate were the letters "VS" as I was in a fury, I could not catch them and there were no witnesses as the avenue was empty. I believe that the male was going to come out and fight until he saw how big I was and decided against it. These guys were out looking for trouble, honestly, who drives around North Surrey at midnight with eggs and rocks in their car?
Here are two images that go with this incident.
Image 1 Description - This small map has a red X showing the exact location of the incident mentioned in this journal entry.
Image 1 - http://pics.livejournal.com/lope/pic/0007sxt2/g9 (http://pics.livejournal.com/lope/pic/0007sxt2/g9)
Image 2 Description - This is a picture of the back part of my jacket showing the egg stain and the corner of my backpack which was where the egg hit.
Image 2 - http://pics.livejournal.com/lope/pic/0007r8ta/g9 (http://pics.livejournal.com/lope/pic/0007r8ta/g9)
We refer to Surrey Central and North Surrey as New Delhi due to its obvious cultural affiliations. Like New Delhi, in many ways North Surrey is also a cesspit of all forms of human waste. :-\
It's a shame you couldn't get the license number.
Dude. I used to live right where you got egged!
But yeah, that place is pretty bad. The only place in my entire life where I had a close call being hit by a car, is right there.
I lived in Vancouver, I lived in New West, I lived in Coquitlam, and now I live in Langley. Anywhere near the heart of Slurrey is bad news. Even the landlords suck.
So glad I don't live in Surrey anymore. My family moved right before it started going bad.
Wow, Lope. That's horrible. I hope you're ok. It's really too bad you didn't catch their license plate number. I'd love to see the justice hammer brought down upon them.
It's stuff like this that is why I pay a premium to rent in Vancouver. I could save a couple, three hundred bucks a month if I wanted to rent in Surrey, but then I'd be paying more to get to work and I'd have to deal with that kind of worry. Sure, it doesn't happen every day, but it happens enough. Sorry to hear you had to deal with that. =/
I used to live in Whalley (136st and Whalley Ring), and saw some scary shit. Lucky I never got jumped or assaulted, but that really sucks to hear man. I live on 84th and King George, if you need a lift or think you do, message me on here. Rather spend the gas picking someone up then see this shit.
Answers to replies below...
Renwaldo - I wished I had manged to get the license plate, if I had done so then I would have called the police and had something they could have put into their computer to find out who they were and deal with them.
Felix McKline - Now I have some understanding as to why you probably didn't stay in Slurry for too long, bad neighborhood thats for sure! I'm fairly sure if I had been on a bike they would probably have tried to run into me.
Zenia - *Nods* which is good because you don't have to deal with this kind of random stupid stuff anymore.
Sikkab - Im okay physically but it was suuuuper maddening to say the least, not just because of the incident but because I made a mistake during the situation that caused my attention to be diverted from not getting the LP number.
Tony Greyfox - Thanks, its true that the extra expense of living where you do is like paying for piece of mind. I have been going in and out of that North Surrey neighborhood for several years now and it has only been in the past year to 18 months that bad things have been regularly happening when I am going there.
Mediar - Thanks for the extra offer, I'll remember to keep that in mind the next time I find myself in the same situation. But there will be two people with cars there in the next couple of weeks so I should be good for now.
First off, sorry that this happened to you Lope. People can be real assholes, and no one should have to deal with being harassed just because those assholes think they're hot shit cause they have a car. I'm glad it was just an egg, though, and wasn't a lot worse!
96 and KGB is a shitty area to be any time of night. Right in Whalley and a few blocks from the dangerous area. (Was called Ring Road, but it's Whalley Blvd now I think?) That's Slurrey and stupid teens in general. I hate being in that area and trying to commute because it's just dangerous the closer you get to the Skytrain and KG. One of the reasons I'm glad I live on Scott Road now, I don't have to deal with KG and Surrey Central.
I volunteered at cinemazoo for few weeks when it was still in Whalley back in '07. By far the sleaziest neighbourhood I've ever seen.
I even got pickpocketed one night at the skytrain station there. Luckily at the time I was only carrying a couple bucks worth of change, and the only card I kept in there was my student id which is easily replaced. The thief was a big guy so I didn't pursue it.
Anyways, Whalley has always been a scary place. Though i've heard the local government there has given several developers permission to build there with the plan of raising the improving the micro-economy in Whalley. I don't know if it's working or if people are still building around there, last thing I heard was they were finishing a new set of townhouses a block from the sky train and the bank tower there.
There is new development in Whalley, which is good... however it's causing all the undesirables to squeeze into a smaller area. Making the old bits of Whalley even nastier.
Answers written below...
To Zen - Fortunately it was just an egg and not a knife, broken bottle or a Molotov cocktail, but my trust in the future of our civilization has dropped a bit as a result of this incident. If we are supposed to hand over the future of the planet to ignorant bigoted drugged up retards then we as a species will self destruct and probably in my lifetime. Scott Road is far enough from the main transit routes so that you don't have to deal with these trailer park rejects too often. From here on I will have a new policy of "gtfoasap" from now on.
To Renwaldo - Whalley was a hell hole as bad as the downtown east side in the late 1990's up until recently buts its still got a long way to go to improve. The new towers going up around KG station to Gateway are part of the Surrey town center project. Even the Surrey RCMP headquarters is supposed to relocate from where it is now up to the new town center but the build up is a long term project. As for the pickpocket, if the guy is bigger then you then its probably not a good idea to take him on... thats why I don't carry cash when going through there anymore... panhandlers and thieves.
To mediar - Constable Farron told me a while back that the development thats going on in Whalley has pushed some of the drug dealers from there southward into the Newton area and further. Some of the drug dealers and dial a dope couriers that I have been seeing down here are probably displaced from the Newton to Panorama Ridge district.
Wow.. that really sucks -hugs lope-. I didn't think this kind of thing happened in Canada, I mean sure nothing's perfect but the image Canada has out there is this perfect nation where nothing goes wrong and everything is amazingly organized and safe... Why must there always be a group of assholes causing trouble >:(
I'm glad you're ok and nothing too serious happened that's the most important part! Hopefully this never happens again :-[
I live nearish 88th and KG... and now you have me real paranoid with walking on my own. darn..
@Lope: Unfortunately that's what I actually recommend to people. Either go around to Scott Road, or GTFO fast. Taxi, bus, ride, anything but walking near Whalley. I spent a year commuting from downtown van to Newton. Late nights at Surrey Central were very ... memorable ...
@Zinny: I've been yelled at and had things thrown at me in board daily light, simply because I was walking. This mainly happened when I was in HS and the kids with cars would throw their empty McDicks garbage at us as they drove back to school. We threw back occasionally, even got a half-empty pop container back in a window once! But yeah, morons do this all the time, it's just a matter of how badly they want to cause a problem.
@Blue: I wouldn't go into Bear Creek in the middle of the night, but walking the street at night is no worse than other areas. It's when you're closer to the transit hub ... amazing what a few blocks does in terms of safety.
Hey Lope, sorry to hear about your experience. I've had people call out things to me as I walk at night, but never to that extent, though I usually do pursue in the same manner, or in other words, I don't take it like a submissive mute. I get "fag" pretty commonly around here, as the majority of young men in this town are greased-up truck-driving hicks, thus anything so foreign as a slender, clean, colorfully dressed individual is a challenge to their mental acuity. I've also had trash thrown at me, although I was in a bad mood already that day and I actually chased the car down (for once, traffic was useful) and tossed it back through the open passenger window. Then kept running. Didn't stop to see the reaction.
While it is dangerous, I have to say right now I admire the fact that you challenged them. Pricks like that operate on the "gang" mentality, or power in numbers. They feel like they have control of a situation because there is four of them and one of you, and they totally expect you to run away whimpering from their abuse. The last thing they expect is a balls-out challenge. It knocks them off their basis for considering themselves superior, and makes them doubt their ability to actually effect you. Usually, it causes them not to continue with that kind of behavior at all, as they're not used to someone who will fight back. It may take two or three incidents, but if each person acted like you did, they would likely drop their shtick altogether. That being said, there's also the stance that some people are just nucking futs, and may have any number of sharp objects, blunt objects, or guns in their vehicle, and they may use them with such little provocation, even though they started the altercation. I guess there's no real way to be sure.
I've never been to that area of Vancouver, but we have a similar area in Nanaimo, around Haliburton, Nicol, and Victoria roads. A friend of a former roomate was assaulted (no lead up or confrontation leading to the attack, just open violence) for a bag of McDonald's in that area. Bad part of town.
But yeah, I may take flak for it, but I wanted to commend you on your approach. Hope you're doing well, didn't come to any harm.
Lope - don't blame my generation as a whole for the experience you just had. Certainly there are some absolute fucktards out there (excuse the language), but I can assure you that there are many more level-minded individuals. Surrey's just Surrey. Not easy to say it any other way.
Lope, I'm very sorry to hear that this happened to you. As Drew said, there is a part of town here that...well, isn't very safe for a female like me to walk around in, I suppose. However, I would also argue one point: It's not just that area of town.
I've had a few incidents of something similar, where people have thrown things at me from cars. Unfortunately, they way the sidewalks here work, there is not always the ability to choose which side of the road you are walking on, and thus, you cannot always see your enemy coming.
The first time for me was around 10pm, I was walking with my then-boyfriend, who was quite tall. Car came up behind, and approx. three eggs were thrown at us. Now, you might think eggs are flimsy things that break on impact, but when they are going at more than 40 kilometres an hour, they frigging hurt! One hit the back of my knee, and I had a huge, angry red welt there for a few days. I stopped walking that road at night for a long time.
The second time was when I was walking home, in broad daylight, on a very busy road. It was hot, I suppose, and water balloons seemed relatively reasonable. This was oncoming traffic, which I was facing while walking. Unfortunately, as happens to me sometimes, I was on auto-pilot, just trying to get home, as I was feeling ill. It was quite a shock when a large water balloon hit me in the stomach at about 60 kilometres per hour, and then broke, drenching the lower half of my legs.
I didn't get a description or licence plates of either cars.
Suffice it to say, I think your approach was good for the time and situation you were in, and at the very least you had someone to get mad at...but honestly, I wouldn't encourage thought that this is geographically oriented. Stupid jerks are everywhere. Drew has been yelled at a few times from cars and things while both driving, and walking on busy roads, and in broad daylight.
Intelligent, compassionate people unite, because we don't have to take this shit. :birdy:
Answers posted below...
AMZinthos - Thanks, I am fine albeit quite vexed at the situation and that I didn't get the license plate number. Unfortunately the increasing of lawlessness is becoming a real problem in this country and based on the number of responses and stories similar to mine it looks like drive by prankings are quite common.
Blue - I don't intentionally mean to increase your level of fear but one of my 4 such incidents took place at the intersection of 88th and KG. I had a run in with two guys in their early 20's who were stopped at the light and probably didn't like the way I looked. After making a stupid comment they took off after I challenged them to get out of their shitbox and say it to my face.
Zen - With regards to the comment to Blue, Its a VERY good idea to stay out of Bear Creek Park after dark, someone got bumped off while going through there not too long ago.
Drewdle - I would have given anything to have a chance to throw something back at these guys if they had stopped longer or were at the light ahead of me. Based on what happened I think they thought I was going to be a soft touch and that I probably looked smaller than I was from their car. I could see that they were 2 females and one male, smaller than I was so I would have been able to take them on had they tried to mug me or something. If you ever come over to the Vancouver area there are two places you want to stay away from like the plague, the downtown east side and parts of North Slurry from Whalley, Surrey Central to 96th Ave. I don't think these idiots are going to stop this kind of pranking because of me, but it will probably end permanently if they pick on a someone who happens to be HA,a real gang member and is carrying a gun.
Fuzzy gorge - You don't have to worry about the language, I said some pretty strong stuff as well. Although it'll never happen if I catch up to these twerps again I'll let you slap some sense into them.
Runemist34 - Its ridiculous that so many who have responded have had shouts or stuff thrown at them from passing vehicles. Anything thrown from a vehicle can be painful if it hits in the right spot and at sufficient rates of speed. The idiots who threw at me were pathetic, not just because they were cowards but they were terrible shots because only one out of about 8 or 9 rocks and eggs that they threw had glanced off my backpack. It I hadn't worn the backpack then it would have probably missed, I don't think they would have hit the side of a building if they had a water balloon.
oi.. people are such buttheads. I live in Newton with my boyfriend.. and we have had a few interesting encounters here as well.. I got all sorts of things yelled at me one night passing some townhouses near my place (yaaaaaaay drunk guys!) I was scared enough to call my boyfriend to come walk me the rest of the way home. Thats the worst I've had.. but my boyfriend got jumped by a group of 2 guys and a girl around the bus loop. They probably thought he'd be an easy target because he's not exactly a huge guy.. but they soon realized not to judge a book by its cover.. he's trained in a couple different martial arts XD. He actually ran into one of the guys again at the esso a few days later and unbelievably, the dude tried to start something again. Just stupid kids trying to make themselves feel better.
: Blue September 12, 2010, 07:56:29 -06:00
I live nearish 88th and KG... and now you have me real paranoid with walking on my own. darn..
Hey if you need a lift some time, feel free to message me or Silverrose. We are on 84th and KG. Goes for anyone else too!
Thanks for the concern!
Bee wrote - " He actually ran into one of the guys again at the esso a few days later and unbelievably, the dude tried to start something again. "
My Turn - That was a really stupid thing for the perp to do because it exposes himself to being identified after a possible butt kicking from the BF. A story like this tells me that the guy was not the sharpest saw in the tool shed. After I have told of my incident it is amazing to me how many others have had incidents like this. It says something about the current state of society when a form of entertainment is to go out and commit an act of what could be loosely called domestic terrorism.
Lol livin in second worst place in BC some ppl drove by yelling shit and tried throwing an egg at me but completely missed stuff like that is aight better than actually having guns or knives pulled out on you or even being jumped and shit kicked so in your case your pretty lucky it was just eggs and rocks. Some people can get pretty violent and could care less to what others say.
no offence to anyone but i fucking hate that place everytime im in surry i always run into some kinda shit weather its randoms or pigs cause i forgot i was in the city and spark up a doob at the bus stop, y a theres some good stuff about it but i still hate it
fuckin angry town
: ethan September 15, 2010, 09:05:08 -06:00
....and spark up a doob at the bus stop....
I have a story for YOU.
My friend RoadKill and I were sitting on the corner of 102 and King George, he pulls out a doob and says, "Fire."
So, I pull out my lighter, spark it up, and all the sudden FOUR FIRE TRUCKS SHOW UP!
THATS IT!! Thats what I'm going to call Surrey from now on, "Angry Town" is perfect. Not only is the place angry but it makes you angry when stupid shit happens there.
We have neighbours down the street (138th and Fraser) that like... get out of their houses and scream at each other across the street every other week or so. :p It's actually kind of funny, to be honest, because anything I hear is just horribly trivial shit they get all worked up on and degrade into a cussing match over. Only ever seen the cops get called once or twice, though.
If you're walking west of Whalley Ring Road, yeah, it can be a little daunting at night, especially as you get towards Surrey Central itself, but strangely it feels like Whalley Ring Road is really kind of a border - the road itself and all the houses to the east of it up here seem really calm, but the built-up area around King George Hwy itself is not night-time-friendly. Especially Surrey Central station itself (though King George seems weirdly okay..?).
Honestly, though, this is what happens when recessions get worse, people lose their jobs, and can't afford to make ends meet.