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Cambridge urges late-night pedestrians in Kendall Square area to be wary after two armed holdups

Cambridge and MIT Police report two recent early-morning holdups in the area of MIT and the Longfellow Bridge.

Sometime late on Aug. 17 or early on Aug. 18, a man walking in the area of MIT was surrounded by a large group of men and women who went through his pockets. One of them flashed a knife when the victim tried to get his passport back. The suspects were all described as being in their mid 20s and black.

Around 4 a.m. on Aug. 20, a man walking near the Longfellow was held up at gunpoint, by a dark-skinned Hispanic male, 20 to 25, between 5'8" and 5'10" and wearing a turquoise hoodie and yellow sneakers. The suspect ran across the bridge towards Boston.

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Comments

When yuppies and hooligans collide...good luck cambridge lol

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I seem to remember that such an event wasn't even news in the mid-80s.

That was before there were any "yuppies" in the area.

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Its called awareness...internet, maybe youve heard of it....

Furthermore this is a diff breed , the pokemon generation , who are prob more wiley than their 80s counterparts,

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All thugs wear hoodies, but not all hoodies are worn by thugs. Knowing is half the battle.

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Try using it,people. And leave political correctness at the door when your safety is concerned.

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it's hard to have street smarts when the majority of folks are suburban triansplants. they aint in kansas anymore

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You mean "impulse to bigotry which can leave you vulnerable through lack of awareness"?

The last serious stabbings in the MIT area were by white teens, bucko.

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What about the shootings?

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I am a white guy. I also was born in NYC and grew up in the Bronx, Somerville, Boston [no, not the nice parts]. So please spare me any lectures. I've was jumped minimum a dozen time as a kid and teen, once by a group of white kids, never by 'Hispanics' [even though I lived in P.R. and Dominican neighborhoods mostly] never by Asians, that leaves who? Getting jumped by so-called urban youth is a big problem and fact of life in urban America.

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"...that leaves who?"

I dunno, Pacific Islanders?

I'm loving the dog whistling though. Very nice. Also congrats on your history of getting jumped, I guess, it's a very impressive resume.

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When you're so busy patting yourselves on the back for being so savvy as to not have gotten mugged? Common sense? Does common sense dictate you don't walk home at night? What does it tell you to do when you find yourself walking down a street on which other people are walking? Do you run to the opposite side of the street? Seriously, how people can talk like they know what happened, and that it would never happen to them is beyond me. On the other hand, it sure is nice that SOME police departments put out a notice so swiftly. Hell, there are other towns (Boston, for example) East Boston specifically where bodies turn up dead, people are mugged (guess they all lack common sense) and the police instinct is to make sure the word doesn't get out.

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Here's some trivia: I have been jumped...multiple times,actually. I was born in NYC, lived as a kid,teen in Bronx, Boston,Somerville. So yes, I've been jumped, been in fights, been robbed, the whole nine yards. Many white people and others I interact with in Cambridge and among college students in general around Boston automatically think I came from a suburb like 95% of them. It's like it's beyond their comprehension a white dude could have grown up in the inner city.

What do I mean by commonsense? TRY NOT TOBE WALKING AROUND, ESPECIALLY ALONE,AT 4AM IN KENDALL SQ or anywhere in Boston,Cambridge,Somerville,etc., I'm sorry, it's just not a good idea. And if you a group of 'youths' coming in your direction, at that hour when no one else is around, I'd suggest throwing caution to the wind and moving your a** AWAY from them, as quickly as possible. It's almost a guarantee they're up to no good.

People need to be aware of their surroundings, many aren't. And many white and even Asian [especially foreign students] are uncomfortable when encountering townie 'minority' youth, they don't want to be called racist, and the bad guys among townie minority youth know this. They'll try pulling stuff on white and Asian students and yuppies before hassling townies. Yes, white youths can cause problems, but in my wide experience, you're most likely to be jumped and assaulted by 'urban' youth. I'm trying my best to be polite without offending the sensitive among us. Covering this fact of life up because it's un-PC won't help. And black folks are just as likely to get jumped by urban youth as whites or Asians.

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I can see what you're saying.

I was the victim of a violent crime, in another racially-mixed city, a few years back. On may way to a night out, I was held-up a couple blocks from my house by four teenaged African Americans, one of whom had a gun and pistol-whipped me with it.

I ran into an African American friend of mine the next day, and after I told him about it, he asked "What the hell were you doing walking through that neighborhood at that time of night?" I told him that I've always tried not to make any assumptions, and that I didn't think it was fair to stereotype young black males generally, or young black males in a particular neghborhood, as being inherently violent somehow. He responded as follows: "It's great that you try not to judge people--I really appreciate that--but you've got to realize that kids in your neighborhood hanging around outdoors at 1:00 a.m. aren't there to do anything positive. It's sad, but to be safe around here, you need to make some assumptions now and then. I wouldn't have been walking through that neighborhood alone myself 'cause those kids are no good." To be fair, he was from a neighborhood much like the one I was living in at the time.

It's a tricky issue. On the one hand, everybody needs a good self preservation instinct, but on the other, no decent person wants to slip into latent racisim and ugly assumptions. Every time I feel a bit nervous on the street, I can't help but start an immediate analysis of the situation to ensure that it's a healthy suspicion and not the beginnings of something worse.

To some extent, it makes me think of women on college campuses and the delicate balance between taking sensible steps to prevent sexual assault and assuming that every guy walking across the campus at night is a potential predator.

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I was born/raised in Cambridge and was jumped twice, in broad daylight. Thankfully police responded quickly both times and caught the suspects (teenagers) who were still in the area. Cambridge is a pretty safe considering it's size, but I think a lot of the transplants and college students feel too safe and completely let their guard down.

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was the knuckleheaded mugger whose escape route was over a relatively long bridge from which there are only two viable exits (you won't get away by swimming). The only shame here is that the victim wasn't able to alert the police before that ass made it to the other side.

Boy would I have liked to have been the State or Boston cop waiting on the Boston side for that schmuck.

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