Holy shit.
I just got an email from Matthew Cardinale, editor of Atlanta Progressive News (and, incidentally, one of our first Mostly ITP interviewees). He was fucking stabbed while walking in Midtown. And the attendant at the Exxon station that he ran into afterward, asking for help, ignored him and refused to call 911, even though he was bleeding from the abdomen due to a 4-cm deep wound.
I’m reprinting the email in full; you can also read the story on APN’s web site.
APN Editor Recovers from Stabbing in Atlanta’s Midtown
By Matthew Cardinale, News Editor, Atlanta Progressive News (May 19, 2007)
(APN) ATLANTA - APN News Editor released the following statement today:
Dear APN Friends and Readers,
I am writing to share with you a tragic incident which occurred this Tuesday.
I was stabbed in an attempted robbery only two blocks from my house in Midtown, Atlanta, as I was walking to the Exxon gas station on the corner of Monroe Drive and Ponce de Leon Avenue.
I’m okay now as far as we know, and recovering from the wound. I stopped bleeding Wednesday night finally, and was able to take small steps at the John Edwards dinner on Thursday.
It is important to share what happened not only as it relates to my experience and recovery, but so people understand the violent dangers which abound in Midtown.
I now believe there is an unspoken crime wave in my area of Midtown, one the powers that be in the City do not want you to know about. Rep. Thomas says she believes the wave is City-wide.
I was walking to the store down Monroe Drive, as two young Black men came toward me, looking kind of rough the way they were walking.
Both of the men were about 21 years of age I would guess. What was also suspicious was they were on opposite sides of the street, although it was clear they were walking together. They were walking at the same pace. One was wearing a white t-shirt.
I tried to walk around the guy on my side of the street. He blocked me by going left when I went left, towards the street. I then went right and he mumbled something.
“What?”
“Give me your wallet,” he said as he seemed about to grab me and attack me. At this moment I looked and the other guy was now coming across the street to gang up on me.
“No!” I shouted, running into the street. There were no cars.
The young man on my side of the street then reached as if to try to grab me. I didn’t see a weapon. But at that point he apparently stabbed me in right side of my abdomen. They didn’t get the wallet.
I ran to the Exxon gas station. “I’ve been stabbed! Please call 911!”
The Exxon attendant ignores me and continues to help the lady in front of me.
“Are you going to call 911?”
“You can use the payphone outside.”
“Why can’t you call?”
“Our phone doesn’t work.” Yeah right.
So then I went running across the street-bleeding out of my abdomen-to the other gas station in order to get help.
The police came shortly followed by ambulance.
I have not followed up with the police yet to see if they found the perpetrators, but I doubt they did. They asked me what clothing they were wearing but all I could remember was the white t-shirt.
At Grady, they did an x-ray and found no problem. Decided not to do a Cat Scan. They looked inside the wound-which was horrible-and couldn’t see all the way down but said what they saw looked okay. They cleaned the wound.
They asked me to stay for 24 hours for observation but, hating hospitals, I replied I would observe myself, thank you.
Susan Keith, APN Board Member, and our friend, Tim Wood, came to the hospital.
I have been on pain medication and just resting a lot as the wound heels.
OBSERVATIONS
My first observation is that the stabbing had nothing to do with the attempted robbery.
In other words, it should’ve been clear that he was not going to get the wallet at that point, so stabbing me did not help him with his goal to get money (if that was his goal).
Thus, the preferred theory about this-that they were trying to get money for crack-is insufficient.
I believe, and many people have also suggested, I would’ve been stabbed even if I gave him the wallet probably. Rep. Thomas said she believes it’s part of a new culture of street violence where it’s not just enough to rob somebody, but the goal is to hurt another person.
My second observation is, you can’t assume you’re safe because you’re in a safer part of a mixed neighborhood. People can cross over into the other side by walking.
I urge people to use extreme caution. Stay away from borderline areas at night, particularly alone on foot. If something looks suspicious, please turn the other way and run. (Relatedly, don’t wear sandals.) I thought I had learned this lesson in New Orleans a few years ago, but when I moved here, I didn’t think Atlanta was like this. I’m certain now Atlanta’s worse.
I was worried even though I felt suspicious about these young men, that maybe I was wrong and I would hurt their feelings if I turn and ran. But here’s an idea, maybe I could’ve pretended to have gotten a really important phone call or something and then ran.
Also, as I’ve spoken with my neighbors about this, it turns out there are a lot more stories of attempted robberies and car breaks ins that I don’t even know about. And I live on a nice residential street. So, there’s more violence out there than many Atlantans might think, and only by having dialogue will we understand the nature of this problem.
My third observation is, Exxon needs to be held accountable. This is a community store. The fact they wouldn’t call 911 for me, when I got robbed on the way to their store, is an absolute collapse of the compassion one human being is supposed to have for another human being.
I may call a community protest of this Exxon store. Stay tuned for details.
My fourth observation, when I went to Grady the ER people said, “You’re lucky you’re a big guy.”
The wound was 4 centimeters deep.
Therefore, if I hadn’t put on some weight recently, I might have had serious organ damage from this wound.
Not exercising for a few months probably saved my life!
(Now that’s deep. No pun intended.)
Obviously, we’re still not sure if there was maybe a little organ damage they couldn’t see. But so far it’s been like 4 days with no strange signs.
I’m also a bit worried if maybe they stabbed someone with HIV before stabbing me, so I’ll be getting tested in a few months.
Atlanta Progressive News will continue. The news will not be stopped, although I hope our readers will understand if the publication of new stories slows a bit for the next week or so.
It’s obviously difficult to understand why a person would do something like this to another person. I wonder if it was mis-placed rage. I wonder if these young men were angry about poverty and inequality, about a messed up world where it seems there’s nothing you can do to change it.
Why can’t all this rage be channeled into something positive? Into voting and community organizing?
The guy who stabbed me doesn’t know, obviously, about any of that. What do we do about people in our society who seem so lost they’ve resorted to nonchalantly hurting people, cultivating a gangster image, at the risk of murdering another person?
Let’s spread the word about this and hold the proper people accountable. There are probably countless incidents like this that have been swept under the rug, and that cannot continue to happen.
READ ME: Disclaimer
24 Responses to "Meanwhile, the APD is doing what, exactly?"
A mugging at the corner of Monroe and Ponce? I am shocked. Shocked! That guy should think about moving to Alpharetta.
Realistically, he can call all the community protests he wants on that Exxon store and it won’t matter. Have any of you ever been there, especially at night? Or do you just drive by on your way to Whole Foods? The people that go to that Exxon are either not from this community and therefore don’t know any better, or are the guys that stabbed the writer. I find it doubtful that Matthew has lived in that spot for more than a couple of weeks and doesn’t know that much.
And what did the police do wrong? I read, “The police came shortly…”.
The title of my post was an admittedly somewhat nebulous dig at the police dept. in light of the recent shit they’ve been in w/ the mayor’s office… all the scandals w/ Pennington… etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Who, exactly, are you referring to by “any of you?” And why are these “any of you” assumed to be Whole Foods patrons, and what does that have to do with anything anyway?
I, for one, live right down the street from Ponce and Monroe, on Ralph McGill Blvd. But this isn’t a pissing contest or anything. It’s bringing attention to a fucked-up thing that happened.
Welcome to the hood. It’s not the best area to live if you like to visit the corner store after 9pm. Luckily, I have the Midtown Market to keep my belly full of Ben & Jerry’s when, as it so often does, that craving hits at midnight.
It’s shitty that the Exxon dude didn’t help him out. It might even make Creative Loafing’s blotter or whatever next week. Apart from the fact that he seems genuinely surprised that this could happen, it didn’t make me all tingly until I read, “The guy who stabbed me doesn’t know, obviously, about any of that.” Obviously. “Any of that”, I took to refer to, “…angry about poverty and inequality, about a messed up world where it seems there’s nothing you can do to change it.”, and well, it kind of made me chuckle. What makes this guy think that obviously these young, black men aren’t aware of their poverty and inequality and how the power to change that seems so out of reach? But then, “any of that” could have been referring to “something positive…[like] voting and community organizing”. Hmm, not as odd that “obviously”, a couple of young black street dudes wouldn’t know about that. But a little assuming. But, I’m willing to shrug that aside and give Matthew a month window where he has a right to be angry at young black dudes that stab him for no reason. I’m sure I would be also.
I know I don’t *really* have to spell out the “Whole Foods” jab. Come on, I shop there too. Like you and most of your readers, (and most likely Matthew), I’m a privileged, white, relatively well-off yuppie that lives on the border of housing projects. I drive by that shit almost every day. But I’m not surprised that I might get fucking stabbed if I walk down Boulevard at night. My point was, we move into these neighborhoods, and we convert the warehouses with stainless steel appliances, and build our starbucks, and our Whole Foods, and our sushi bars and think everything’s just like it was in the burbs and our college towns, except “urban” and “gritty”! But come on, we still live in a dangerous town. Midtown isn’t safe, downtown isn’t safe, Grant Park isn’t safe. Hell, Roswell isn’t even that safe. Let’s stop pretending we’ll all be ok as long as we pay $1100 for a one bedroom apartment.
Agreed about the “obviously” line. That stood out to me too, though I read it as referring to the voting and community building thing. Still fairly presumptuous, but like you said, I decided to let it slide, because for fuck’s sake, the guy just got fucking stabbed. I can’t say I’d give two shits about offending the people who stabbed me, either.
Now as for the rest of it. You know I can’t get on board w/ the gentrification hating. (And boy do I hate that word, too. Talk about loaded.) I disagree w/ the sweeping generalization that everyone who lives in-town wants it to be like the burbs. I live in-town because I don’t want to be in the burbs. If in-town were like the burbs, I imagine I’d have to find somewhere else to move. Yeah, there are people who’re moving in from Gwinnett and shit now, and do expect it to be like that, but well, fuck them. The thing is, they’re not all of us. They’re not you, right? They’re not me, either. Anyway, I also wouldn’t go making assumptions about who most of my readers are. A lot of ‘em are white folks who live in Atlanta, but I’ve come to realize that there are a hell of a lot of people reading who never comment, and I have no clue who or where they are.
Anyway, back to the whole “safe” thing… ya know, I really don’t think it’s unrealistic to want one’s neighborhood to be safe. Now, if one uses “safe” the way David Cross did in that bit about growing up in Atlanta and seeing people move to the suburbs - “it’s safer out there” really means “it’s whiter out there” - then fuck that. But if safe means not getting stabbed, then what’s the problem with that? I’d like to not fear for my safety when I walk to Fellini’s on a Friday night. I don’t think it’s a lost cause and I don’t think it’s asking too much. The crime rates are up in the city, and something’s gotta give.
So that’s my 2 cents on that.
P.S. Gimme my chair back.
Keep a little street smarts about ya’self down there. Is that Fellini’s near that Kroger? Cause that Kroger is pretty damn sketchy. Oh, no I’m thinking of the Publix. Which is the second sketchiest Publix on Ponce.
I got you on the address pissing contest. Next month I’ll be on motherfuckin’ MLK. Literally, the other side of the tracks. The whiteys keep moving in, messing up that neighborhood though. Driving up prices and rent, the bastards. Seriously though, think I won’t be watching my ass walking from the parking lot, much less walking to the store?
Come get your chair. I’ll just hop in my Mini, drive over to IKEA and pick up another one and grab Doc Greens on the way home. Hah. See, I don’t hate gentrification. :)
Keep a little street smarts about myself? No prob. I’m not sure why you’re talking to me like you’re a hardcore hood rat and I’m a sorority girl from the burbs.
THUG LIFE.
Because it’s funny? I shoulda put a smiley there. This is why I hate the internet.
Could Carissa possibly make a point without being a giant bitch? I’m just curious. I’m no APN fan by a longshot, but even I got through the whole written piece without being annoyed by anything he said. Maybe that’s just ’cause, as a privileged white guy in the ‘hood, I finally felt some vindication for being inherently afraid of random young black men walking toward me near Ponce without it necessarily meaning I’m a dyed-in-the-wool racist or something.
Let’s go protest that Exxon. That’s seriously douchey of those bastards.
Heh, and I’m moving to that area myself. Well, not exactly that area, more around North Ave., but close enough.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I faintly wonder — although I tell myself the chance is probably 1% — if someone commissioned this due to his political affiliations. It’s not an unknown tactic among intelligence services in the past.
I don’t mean to suggest some sort of elaborately orchestrated far-reaching conspiracy, or that this is even remotely likely, or that even if it were, the agent is necessarily government. This type of reprisal is sufficiently violent so as to usually be attributable to a private entity involved in some sort of political or commercial dispute with him.
In any case, it’s not that someone would hire or persuade these two dumb brutes to seriously rough him up. That’s not how these things usually work. It’s possible to otherwise “incentivise” this chain of events several levels removed and make it more “probable” than normal.
Just throwing it out there. Most likely I’m just being paranoid.
Otherwise, I fully and completely agree with your perspective and his.
shelbinator, I’m totally with you on not being afraid to be afraid of scary dudes in sketchy neighborhoods, whatever color they are. Which is why I advocate things like not walking to the Exxon on the corner of Monroe and Ponce at night. I sat in the relative safety of my locked, running car for 5 minutes while my friend went in that store to buy cigarettes. That was enough for me to learn my lesson.
Nah, I could be bitchier… “Hay guyz, I was walking in a shitty neighborhood and I got stabbed and some guy was totally an asshole about it! What a dick! Let’s protest!”
But hey, that’s your right. I stand by my theory on why a protest there would be a waste of time.
Okay Shelby. If you’re wanting a show of racist solidarity here, you’re not going to get it from me. Can’t speak for anyone else though.
Personally I get nervous when any man walks toward me in a creepy fashion if I’m by myself. Skin color doesn’t really factor in. As a woman that’s unfortunately the culture of fear I’ve been taught to live in.
Valeko:
Um.
…
Yeah, “paranoid” would be putting it lightly.
That’s fair, and I realise that.
But you would not be a very discerning student of history to suppose that there is no precedent for things like this in general, if by “things like this” it is meant seemingly pedestrian events happening to relatively inconspicuous and uncontroversial and unwealthy people … that do not turn out to have such pedestrian ultimate origins.
However seemingly psycho it may seem to apply to this situation, it’s something you should keep o n your mental radar when bad things happen to someone, and especially when a few of the details (like the clerk not calling 911) are so insanely irrational so as to seem inexplicable.
Valeko,
I’ll assume that’s a general “you,” rather than assume you’re being insanely condescending toward me.
Carissa,
This is all starting to sound way too “blame the victim” for my comfort level.
Hah! My god, valeko. You’re a fucking idiot.
That notwithstanding…
I was trying to cut the guy some slack since, yeah. He just got fucking stabbed. Horrifying, traumatizing, all things bad and evil. But…I was cringing throughout his letter. I’m not going to pick it apart because that just feels bitchy under the circumstances, but I wish he would have waited until, perhaps, he was in a calmer frame of mind.
And I hope that someone has since educated him about how HIV is and isn’t transferred. That’s all I’m gonna say…
Jenny, I thought the same thing about the HIV thing… and I cringed a bit. Although, ya know, maybe if I had just been stabbed, I wouldn’t exactly be the poster child of logical thinking.
For that reason, I am also going to cut (bad word choice?) him some slack. I see problems w/ some of what he expressed, as I mentioned above. But now is not the time or place to take him to task over ideology. He was stabbed. I’m sure he doesn’t give a shit about choosing his words oh so carefully. I wouldn’t.
On a completely unrelated note, I still feel bad that I couldn’t fix your wifi. :(
And I still haven’t mailed your birthday present. Ergh. Sorry for sucking.
I originally took the “doesn’t know about any of that” to mean something to effect of, “this kid who poked me with a sharp pointy object does not know I am a proponent of aforementioned things and just thinks I’m a honky encroaching on his hood,” or some such. On 2nd read I can see it as being something other than that.
Re: the HIV thing - I would think, honestly, that since you can get HIV from sharing needles that it’s not completely out of the realm of reason to think you might get it from being stabbed with a dirty knife. Clearly it’s not the same risk but I don’t think it’s a sign of the crazy.
But you have a lot more diseases to be concerned about with dirty knives than HIV. Especially when it enters past the flesh.
Violent crime has gone up all over the country ever since Katrina, and that’s an unfortunate fact. A small but very active number of the evacuees took their life of more serious crime to areas that had been relatively stable in their criminality, which pushed everyone involved in crime to become more serious themselves in order to keep it profitable and to stay alive.
Yeah, that came out wrong. I was trying to get at something about being bred into a culture of fear and something, but uh, yeah, it was late and I was thinking slow. And now I’m hungover and thinking slow.
Don’t protest Exxon w/ a hangover!
Yes, that’s a general “you.”
And no, I’m not a fucking idiot.
valeko, honey, it wasn’t a question. That was a statement.
In case anyone is truly concerned about this, let’s all clarify. There have been no, count them NO, documented cases of HIV being transmitted environmentally. According to the CDC, “drying of HIV-infected human blood or other body fluids reduces the theoretical risk of environmental transmission to that which has been observed–essentially zero.” So…unless the knife is already dripping with blood, there are plenty of other things to worry about when stabbed, but HIV isn’t one of them.
End: Public Service Announcement.
Oh! And “past the flesh” is a fabulous band name.
[...] Ren would say… “Humans, the other white meat.” Maybe try to prevent people from being stabbed instead; thought of that, have [...]
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