My roommate and his friend were riding downtown (5th and Nicollet) around 5:30pm yesterday. A large group (roughly 20) of teens attacked them, pulling them off their bikes and beating them 8 vs 1 style in the street. They managed to steal one of the bikes. Luckily no serious damage was done due to his helmet absorbing most of the blows. They basically fought their way out of the situation. Fucking thug high-school fucks.

Stay safe...

*edit- The bike has been recovered.*

WTF...That's crazy for 5:30 on such a busy road. Did they report it or couldn't the cops find a group of 20 kids running from Nicollet?

They did report it. The Police didn't do much, it's hard to get descriptions when it's such a large group and you're getting punched/kicked in the face. Black frame, white bars, white fork, 4 pegs, whitewall tires, SNAX sticker on the top-tube. I'll post a picture when I get it loaded to imgur.

*edited for better description.

what in the hell is wrong with people.

also, if they were able to take out ulocks and lets say break somebodys jaw, that is not a crime....right?

When 20 people jump you it's legal to kill them, ok? How is merely trivia. I bet money they just came from the DT library which closed at 5 Sunday.

I like you castiron

Seriously uncool. And yes, sounds like that many were leaving a place that closed. Library sounds as good as any - using the internet there maybe?

I am sorry to hear when anything like this happens. chances are that those kids jumped on the no.5 or 22 bus right after it happened. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for your bike. I work at both the downtown library and the one on fremont & lowry, many (presumably) stolen bikes end up abandoned with us so there is a chance I might see it. do you have any physical descriptions of the teens involved? the local cops I know have told me that in response to teen violence they've been ordered to crack down on curfew violations. but unfortunately that's just made it more likely for this kind of stuff to happen between 6 and 11 pm.

http://imgur.com/PnlY9

That's the bike. If you see it, just report it to the police.

A very distinctive looking bike, I'll keep an eye out.

Sorry that happened.
The city refuses to do anything with these thugs--the burden is on ourselves to stay safe. Don't be afraid to do a quick U-turn when you see a mob up ahead. You won't hurt their feelings.

Posted this on the facebook feed, as a joke:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... =3&theater

Not saying anyone should ever consider doing this...

What could the City do? Put CCTV, a block lieutenant, and a citizen brigade on every street corner at all hours of the day? Profile the hundreds of teenagers that descend upon Downtown? Place policemen outside of every civic building when it closes like bar close at 2am on First Avenue? Ask officers to push along crowds of young people? Enforce a strict 10 feet distance between every individual?

People in dense places can easily go from individuals to a "flash" mob and disperse in a matter of minutes. So yes, use your street smarts to know a bad approaching situation and alter your movements accordingly. That or carry protection in any extreme you deem necessary.

If you really want to blame someone, try working in a poor achieving school first.

.......?

I have to believe this person is trolling considering they joined the forum and posted a comment in the same minute.

I wonder if an admin could do an IP search and see if this user shares a distinct IP with a single other user. Trolling does nothing to help out the community, so banning people/IPs for that isn't a bad thing. I believe metafilter, along with many other sites, have a "if we find you have more than one account we will close both of them and ban you" clause.