TRANSCRIPT
Hi everyone. So I am back to do a follow-up video, or at least my first follow-up video, on the mugging that I experienced, the robbery that I experienced. It’s been five days since I’ve made a video, so it’s actually five days and fourteen hours since I was robbed, since I was mugged on the street at night. Oh, it’s been a wild last five days, really wild. So I’d like to share updates.
First, I’ve been trying to organize like how am I going to make this video, and then finally I was like, I can’t seem to organize. My brain is still not very organized, so I just want to press start and go. So what I thought I’d first do is at least try to tell what’s happened since I made the last video, and I left a few things out of the first video. One thing that I left out, and this will be key for the story I think I left it out, is that when I was robbed by these two guys, they demanded the passcode for my phone, and I gave it to them. I was afraid that who knows what they were going to do to me. I mean, they did threaten to beat the hell out of me, to f me up, you know, the idea being I could die. I was definitely in fear that I could die, would die. So I gave it to them.
So they left with my phone, with my money, with my debit card, with my credit card, and I left. Well, what happened was I was panicked to get back to my phone. I had to get back to my computer so I could change all my passwords, so I could close everything down, because just the idea of them being in my phone was horrible. I mean, like, I’m so glad that I got my driver’s license back, my identity card back. And I thought about this afterwards, and some people pointed it out to me, some friends pointed out, I think a couple people may have said it in the comments section of the last video that I made. I got my identity back from them. That was something that was so important. I got my wallet, I got my driver’s license back, and like at some metaphorical level, these things in society represent me, and I got them back. So it was a real first stage in getting back my sense of self, and that’s been my process. I’m by no means done with us, but it’s like I’m slowly getting myself back, because in some way they pierced myself. They violated myself emotionally, psychologically, even physically. I mean, I still have a sore shoulder, my arm hurts, and I’d like to talk about that also, physical symptoms, but just specifically with the story.
So when I finally got back to my computer to turn everything off, I could see that they, well, I hadn’t stolen anything from within my phone, PayPal and Venmo and things like this, ways that they could have just taken money. And it was like, okay, well, I don’t know, maybe they didn’t understand how to do this. But later, later that night, or was it the next morning, I realized because I got emails from my bank that they had used my, they tried to use my credit card, it was declined. They used my debit card, and they withdrew a lot of money. Thankfully, this money is covered by my bank’s fraud protection program, so I don’t actually lose the money. Temporarily, yes, I lost the money. It was more than a thousand dollars. It felt horrible when I realized I was going to get it back. I felt a lot better, but I still felt violated. But I’m like, how the hell did they get into my bank card? That requires a pin number, a password. And then I realized when I thought about the passcode, I was like, oops, I didn’t give them the password to my phone. I gave them the password to my debit card. Somehow, just unconsciously or in pressure or whatever, I just gave them the first password that came to my mind, and I guess they figured it out. They never did get into my phone, but they got into my debit card.
Well, this ended up being very good news in a couple of different ways. The first way is my phone was protected. My life, my photographs, my, you know, my emails, everything. They could have seen my whole, they could have taken over everything from my life, controlled my existence through this little computer, aka phone. Well, instead, they got my debit card, and they went to three, I think three different locations, four maybe, and my bank sent me time-stamped fraud alerts for where they went and the addresses of where they went, how much money they got. So, well, I contacted the detectives, and I’m like, these people went these places at this time. This is all on camera. They’re on camera. They basically busted themselves in a way. The problem is they were wearing masks when they got caught on camera. One of them, though, got so excited when the money started coming out that he took his mask down, and he’s literally smiling, flashing gang signs, and smiling and dancing with my money, or the bank’s money, or now actually it’s his money, stolen money. But it was like he busted himself in a way by showing his face. When they robbed me, they were not wearing masks, so I did look at their faces, but it’s pretty tough, and I’ll get to that eventually.
Well, I have been massively second-guessing myself with all my decisions. Literally, this has been one of the big things I’ve noticed. I can’t make a straight decision. I’m like all over the place. Am I wrong? Am I doing the wrong thing? I realize that starting the next day after I made that last video, did I do it wrong? You know, going shopping, should I buy this? Should I buy this? Should I go to this supermarket? Should I walk in this direction? What should I wear? Should I wear a different hat? Should I not shave? Should I shave? It’s like I’m really second-guessing myself, and a big part of that is that, well, I felt I made some mistakes that ended up, you know, setting the stage for me getting mugged by not being so street smart, by, you know, doing some walking with headphones on, walking in a place that wasn’t that well lit. There just happened to be, at the moment they caught me, no people around. I was walking in an isolated location that had trees and shrubbery where they could hide, where they could sneak up behind me when they got me. So I feel like some of my decisions were kind of like poor decisions, bad decisions. I don’t want to blame myself, but [Music] what I’m left with is just like, oh my god, I did something wrong. I can’t trust myself. I feel a lack of trust with myself, other people. I’ve noticed that. But the reason I’m saying all this is because I suddenly realized maybe I didn’t press start on the camera. Maybe I’m not even recording this. So I’m going to come forward and just make sure. Yes, it’s recording. Okay, I feel a lot better right now.
So I’ve been doing a lot of this, a lot of checking myself. Did I do it right? Did I make a good decision afterwards? Running through like I’m normally someone who really has a lot of confidence in a way. I trust myself. I’ve worked really hard to have a self, and now myself is a little shattered and screwed up. Well, the other thing was they never got into my phone. So it’s an iPhone. It’s not a new, it’s an older iPhone, but there were two interesting things about this iPhone. I did share a little bit about it last time, but basically they stole a phone that they couldn’t get into. Nobody can get into this phone. What they stole essentially is a phone that they can’t use. It’s unusable. But they could sell it for parts. I found out apparently you can get about fifty dollars for parts for this phone. But they, so they sold something that’s worth fifty dollars, essentially. They stole a tracking device, a tracker, to one of their homes. So I said that last time with Find My iPhone. The police know where they live, and they got elevator footage. Well, I looked at, so I looked at the footage, the detective and…
I got a really nice detective. I’m really glad for this. Someone who actually is taking my case seriously. He’s told me, I mean, I’m really lucky to be alive. He said definitely these guys, I mean, they didn’t show weapons, but very likely they were carrying weapons. That’s their MO, you know? What part of a crew they’re a part of, et cetera, et cetera. Especially considering we know where one of them lives, they have foot… so I watched this footage of these guys laughing, literally laughing and dancing. One of them, you can see his face smiling so hard with my money. Well, literally the time that he’s laughing and smiling and holding money that’s been withdrawn with my bank card, which is in his hand. I’m ten, eight minutes away with police all around me, literally shaking and feeling like I’m gonna cry, but can’t cry because I don’t feel particularly empathized with, with the police and feeling lost and just wanting to call a friend to talk with, but I don’t have a phone and I don’t feel like the police care about me. Finally, they did let me call a friend, which was nice, but it was a while. My friend, you know, was really upset. But, well, anyways, then what happened is because we have the time when Find My iPhone showed them at home, they had a… the police had a window, the detective, so they went and they got building footage showing these guys coming up the elevator in the building, flashing money, all this money that they’d gotten, flashing. Yeah, they won, they won the contest. And they even see what floor they got off of. So it’s like they honed it down to at least who one of the guys is. So basically, they kind of screwed up. These robbers, muggers, they screwed up. They left a big digital trail back to who they are, and that felt really good for me. It’s like, good, good, because my life got really screwed up by what they did. But now I felt ambivalent. I had to go look at this footage. I felt gross watching this footage, felt horrible. And apparently, the guys have priors, prior arrests for violent stuff. So it’s not like they were testing something out. They knew what they were doing at some level. And guys who… well, I’m gonna get into one other thing now. There’s so many things. I literally have had so many things in my mind, they’re jumbled. I feel like sort of like a rotten egg in my head where everything is just all over the place, fragmented and parts floating around, feelings and thoughts coming out all the time. I just… so this is going to be, again, a stream of consciousness video, though I feel like I’m a lot more put together than I was five days ago. I don’t know if you can see the difference, but I don’t feel as depressed, miserable, unhappy, shut down, horrified. I’m not having constant thoughts running through my mind about the robbery. I mean, they still do come to me, but it’s like especially the day afterward, it was like all day long. I… and that night after when I slept, it was like dreams and thoughts. I did sleep. I have been sleeping not great, but you know, sleeping, waking up in the middle of the night. But you know, I’ve had some violent dreams, but a lot of thoughts repeating, flashbacks of just being grabbed from behind, shaken, thrown around, that kind of thing. Very unpleasant, but it’s lessening. I notice it’s lessening five and a half days later. Oh gosh, and now it’s like where… where am I? Where are my thoughts? But, well, two days ago, the police said they had identified one of the suspects. I needed to go do a lineup, not a photo array, look at six different photos and see if I could pick the guy out. They said the detective told me that they purposely make it difficult, and it’s to sow doubt in my mind because if I can pick the guy, it makes a much, much stronger case. But they’re going to make it hard. They put six guys who look very, very similar, as similar as possible. Plus, all they have, I presume, he didn’t tell me, is a past mugshot of the guy who did it to me. He also said, listen, to keep it even more fair, to sow more doubt in your mind, I’m just going to let you know it’s possible that the guy that did this to you may not even be one of these six people. It’s possible it’s none of these guys. And we, you know, so just so you know. So I went in with a lot of doubt. Could I pick him? Well, I looked at it, and it was hard. It’s like it was not easy. I was very, very nervous also walking over there. There’s part of me that didn’t even want to participate because I’ve been going through this other ambivalent feeling very strongly that’s like, wait, so best case scenario, these guys go to jail potentially for a long time. The detective said before they knew who they were, I already… they think they knew who they were. It’s like he said if they don’t have priors, they may not go to jail at all. So I’m like, wait a second, they don’t go to jail? But then part of me is like doesn’t want them to go to jail. What does jail do? I mean, yes, jail will keep them away from me. That’s part… some part of me that feels like yes, I don’t want these people around me or anybody for a while. But there’s another part that’s like it’s not gonna help them. It’s like I don’t believe in jail. I believe in rehabilitation. What rehabilitation services are out there? I’ve been thinking a lot about this, like what is fair? What does justice really mean to me? So as I’m walking over there, I’m feeling like sort of ambivalent, like part of me doesn’t even want to pick the right guy. And then there’s another thought like, wait a second, from the look on their faces, one guy’s face and their expressions and holding money and just in glee for having gotten that money as a result of robbing me, of effing me up, screwing me up, me a totally innocent person. I thought they would do it again. In a way, they’re getting positive reinforcement. They did this awful thing, and they’re getting money. They’ll do it again. I just could feel that. And then I was like, I’m gonna pick this because I don’t want them… I don’t want anybody to go through this like what I went through. I… I don’t… I want to stop it, you know? Will it stop it, putting people in jail? I don’t know. But anyways, I’m like, I… I’m doing it. I’m going, and I’m going to try. So I tried. I picked out the guy who to the best of my knowledge looked like that guy. I said, I think… I think it’s him. I… I really think it’s him. I felt one of the six guys. They all looked like… it was very hard. Also, the guy looked different. He had some different facial hair. I thought also he was, well, quite a bit shorter than me, you know, seven, maybe eight inches shorter than me. And I, by the way, you know, afterwards I found this out. But I did pick the right guy. He looked different, but a big part is when I… when he was robbing me, I was looking down at him, and then the picture I’m looking straight at him. It’s a different angle. It’s weird. Also, he had rage on his face when he was robbing me. He was terrifying to me. In the picture, he didn’t look enraged. So it’s like almost like a different person. Like me this way, me this way, me this way. It’s like different people almost. And he was younger, presumably, obviously when the picture was taken. How much younger, I don’t know. But also my identification, his age was what I said. His height was I think within an inch of what I said, and his weight was pretty close to what I said also. It’s like, I mean, he was probably wearing shoes that had some padding. He probably was actually the height that I said, and it was a positive identification. So they put out an arrest warrant for one of the guys, but…
It was the guy who I felt was the nicer guy, the more empathic guy. And then I felt like, wait a second, that sucks. I want that other guy. He deserves it more. I thought he was the leader. He was the one who was more aggressive. He was the one—I think, I don’t know—but I think he was the one who grabbed me first, you know, shaking me around first and was definitely like holding my stuff more, holding my wallet. I was negotiating with him, where the other guy was more like backup and help. I don’t know, that was my feeling.
So I was like, oh, so that’s the guy they’re going to get first or rest. Well, then they had guests. They said they thought they identified the other guy, the guy who was the more aggressive, taller one, perhaps older. And so I went in, and it was again like finally narrowed it down to two guys I thought, you know, but maybe it’s like they said it could be none of these guys. But I picked one. I was wrong. I felt awful. I was like just like so disappointed and kicking myself, and I made a bad decision again, and I couldn’t get it right. I felt like I’d let myself down, and I just like I couldn’t do anything right.
And then I’m like, well, I’m actually batting 500. I mean, I’m 50% right. And what I’ve learned since doing a little research is with these photo arrays, apparently it’s like, well, people get about 20% right, which is, you know, not very good. So I did better than average, I guess. But there’s still a part of me that wished I’d really gotten that guy, nailed it, because now they can’t put out a warrant for his arrest. And it’s like these are all things going through my mind. And I really felt—this was yesterday—I felt so disappointed that I was like, but then I was like, wait a second, Daniel, I’ve talked to so many people in the past five and a half days who have been mugged. People have been mugged multiple times. People who have been beaten, robbed, sexually assaulted—horrible things happened. And in almost all of the stories I’ve heard, people have not been caught at all. No justice.
So I’m like, part of me was like, well, that’s life. It’s like you don’t always get the bad guy. And also, it’s like this whole week my goal has been to gain something from this experience, to gain insight, knowledge about myself. And there’s—it’s been a horrible experience, but an incredible opportunity to look deep inside myself. That violation that I experienced, that attack, that went deep into me left me terrified for a moment or two that I was going to die, that I was going to be murdered. And it went deep into me. It ripped into my self, into my soul. And by not just closing it up and shutting it down and moving on and saying, oh, I’m okay, I’m okay, that wound is still open.
And it’s like I get to look into the depths of myself, also almost like into the volcano of myself, to see what’s really inside the center of me. And I’ve been going through the perspective shift. I’m looking at life differently. I almost feel like—and I don’t want to over-dramatize it in any way—but a part of me is like there was life before that mugging and life since that mugging. I think that is going to mellow. I think the time, you know, my before life and after is going to integrate, you know, as I heal more. But I feel—and it is happening already—but I also still feel like something happened that was very profound. That’s the dividing line.
One example, hey, for me, that’s—and that’s been very, very hard, very painful. But one example of this is like I worked hard for the last few months to make a lot of videos like this on all sorts of topics, some topics actually ironically related to this video. And in a way, I feel like I can’t make these videos public. It feels like it’s almost like it’s not me that made those past videos, and that’s disappointing. All my work—and it’s like I want to share those videos. I feel like they’re good, but I feel like it’s almost like made by somebody who’s different, not the person that I’m connecting with, with this new self somehow, this new self that I’m rebuilding.
So this has been very confusing. I’m thinking I’m gonna put some of those videos up, perhaps all of them. I don’t know, maybe I’ll put some up even after this. Maybe I’ll put some of the most relevant ones up. But I shot them before, you know, you’ll see probably from my haircut, it’s different from where it is now. I shot them before I was mugged.
Oh God, so many other things. Oh, I’m going to share another thing. This has been really interesting—me going to the police station. I’ve been there multiple times, looking at videos and giving my story again and trying to identify people, succeeding once, failing once. But I’ve noticed all these different detectives, they refer to me as the victim. The victim! Like, it’s a title. And it’s weird. So weird to be referred to as the victim. And there’s a part of me—I’m going to admit it—I like it because it’s true. It’s like, yeah, I was a victim. I was victimized. I mean, I don’t want to be a victim. I don’t want to stay a victim. I want to heal. I want to become stronger as a result of this. I want to have more wisdom and more insight. No goal of mine to stay in victim status, but I have victim status, and I feel like a victim still, definitely. I feel like a victim.
I even called some victim services. I got called—actually, I didn’t call. I got called by victim services, I guess they passed my number because I was a victim of a violent crime. And, you know, they were talking. It wasn’t very helpful, to be honest. I felt I’ve gotten help from about 40 different areas that are more helpful, more insightful. But being called a victim, the reason I bring this up is because I was a victim as a kid. I was a victim so many times—a victim in my family. I’ve been a victim, and the profoundly pro—most significantly a victim of my parents in so many different ways. Physically a victim by my dad, emotionally a victim by both my parents, sexually a victim by my mom.
And the difference was no one in any sort of conventional societal authority position ever, ever acknowledged that I was a victim. It was like there was no acknowledgement of it. I was always like, you’re just saying that, or you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, or they just overtly said you’re wrong, and they sided with my parents. Or the worst of all, you’ve broken away from your parents. They are the victims, and you’re the perpetrator. You have hurt them so much. My parents certainly have always had that attitude. My entire family system had that attitude that they were the victims of me from having put boundaries down.
And it’s like it’s been very interesting to see a situation where conventional society views me as the victim and them as the perpetrators, these guys. And I don’t want to conflate it because these guys who victimized me and robbed me and mugged me and terrified me, terrorized me even—they didn’t cause my childhood problems. So I’ve been working really hard to try to separate the two, not wanting to play out my childhood rage, my parents on them, not act out or not forgive them because I was forced as a child to forgive my parents. I’ve really had to do a lot of sorting this out, and it’s still definitely an ongoing process.
But just the feeling of what it’s like to be told, yes, you are right, you were harmed, you were victimized. These people did something bad to you. You’re right, they were wrong. It’s like it’s very heartening. I’ve had a lot of ambivalent interactions with the police in my life. I thought about making a video about that—just all these ambivalent, some positive, some negative, some very negative interactions with the police. Some very—this has been in some okay. It started off mostly negative, but they did come and help.
Me right after I got robbed. But the detectives have been largely excellent, and it’s been like good. And it’s so, this is confusing, but to be seen, to have people fighting for my cause, it’s like so often for so many years, decades even, when it came to like the primary traumas that I suffered in my life, by the way, which were worse than what these two guys did to me five days and 14 hours ago. What I went through as a child, when I was more helpless, more powerless, terrorized by my parents and the agents of my parents, it was worse. And it was ongoing, and it was also in the context of the people who were supposed to love me the most. I twisted my personality. I’ve had so much thinking about that in the last few days. Like this, this thing that happened in the park, it was awful five days ago, but it was a one-time experience. It reflects what happened to me, but I’m sorting out the connection and learning a lot from it.
Also, I’m gonna say this: all these stories of robberies and horrible things and muggings and violence and assault against people that I’ve heard, friends telling me, people I’m talking about this with, everybody, this is part of my healing process. Anybody who’s open to listening, I’m telling what happened to me. I’ve been back to the location. I actually went the next day, the day after that. I went back to where I was mugged. I went in the daytime. I just want, and I even, a friend loaned me a telephone with a camera on it, and I went back there, started recording. I guess I can show some of the footage. I had a mask on, you couldn’t understand it, so I waited until there was nobody near me, and I took the mask off so I could actually record it.
So I was standing right about here. I think actually I was standing literally right here when I was mugged less than 48 hours ago. I was standing in this position, and the guys came from behind me. I was wearing almost exactly this, and I was wearing my tasseled hat, and they grabbed me. And this is where it happened. And it’s very strange to be back from here in the day. So it’s a different experience. I mean, I was at seven o’clock at night when it happened, and it was dark, but there were lights out. It’s just no cameras anywhere here.
But also, I’m thinking of one other thing. I’m walking backwards. One other thing that the police said, they said, you’re… I said I was afraid I was gonna get kicked in the head, and they said, well, kicked in the head is one thing, you could have gotten thrown in the river. That did cross my mind. So you can see this is the East River, which connects down toward the Williamsburg Bridge and to the Atlantic Ocean. And scary. Anyways, that’s Brooklyn over there. Up there is Queens, up that way, and I am in lower Manhattan right now. So this is where it happened. Weird to be back.
Anyway, having gone back, I’ve been back there multiple times. I mean, I read somewhere that maybe it’s good to go back. Maybe sometimes it’s overwhelming. It’s been both. It’s been both. But it’s like I’m reclaiming my world, my walking path. I’m like, I’m not going at night alone, stupid headphones. I’m not doing that anymore. I’m terri… I’ve also been jumpy as hell all week walking outside. The first couple of days especially, walking outside, constantly looking over my shoulder like everyone scares me. I went to the supermarket to buy food, and they opened a box. One of the supermarket guys opened a box and made a lot of ripping sound. I literally jumped in terror. My heart was beating. It’s like, okay, you know, that’s exaggerated startle response.
And then I’m hyper-vigilant, looking around, even paranoid to some degree, mistrust of people outside especially. And then I’m like reading, you know, one of the things that makes trauma victims, if you’re going to call me that, victims of violent experiences like I had, more likely to become paranoid as if it happened closer to home. Well, that did happen closer to home. It was within 10 minutes walk of where I live, and it’s like these guys, I could run into them any time. That definitely makes it more scary for me. It’s like I keep thinking I could run into them.
It’s a little bit like I’ve had this happen when friends of mine in my life have died, or people, especially people I really was close to and really loved, when they died. I’ve seen them around. I’ve been walking around, oh my god, there’s my friend who died. It’s like their face is so in my mind that I can project it onto other people. Well, I’m going through some of that now with just like little jumpy, you know, oh my god, is this person coming at me? People running on the street, I’m like, are they running at me? I’m literally looking over my shoulder all the time. I mean, a woman was jogging behind me, and she was kind of had clumpy loud feet. I literally like practically ran. I’m looking back, and she’s like five feet tall, a little blonde woman, and like totally triggered me.
It’s been getting better though. I’ve noticed that that’s been coming down, and I think really talking about it has been incredibly helpful. Now there’s the thing about making that video that I made five days ago. I’m making this video now. I decided to tell the main detective on my case that I did this. I said, you know, I made a video about this. Am I putting myself at risk? Because some people have told me, Daniel, if these guys find this video, I mean, you could really be putting yourself in a lot of danger. And there’s a part of me saying, I don’t think they’re going to find it. The detective’s like, I don’t think they’re going to find it either. Also, if they do find it, it’s like, I don’t know, what am I sharing that they wouldn’t know already? Maybe they’ll have some more compassion. Maybe they’ll think about it more.
But then there’s another thing: will this hurt my case? Well, the detective later told me he actually watched my last video, the 35-minute video that I made, you know, 14 hours after I was mugged. And he said, you don’t have to take it down. It’s not going to hurt your case. He said there’s a chance the defense, if it comes down to trials and all that, they’ll look at it. He says, but they’re not going to… this isn’t going to hurt you in any way. He says, listen, the police, when they got me, when they first came and they found me in the park after I’d been mugged and robbed, he said they had body cam. He said I’ve watched their body cam. He said you’ve told your story multiple times. He said you’ve told me the story, you’ve told other people the story. We have you recorded, like literally minutes after the robbery, telling your story. Now you recorded it on camera for the world to see. He said you’ve been consistent with your story. He said your story hasn’t changed at all. Details even are the same. He says you got nothing to worry about. Nothing a defense can use against you. I mean, maybe they’ll try, but they’re not going to.
He said also you’re crying, you’re basically crying on camera. He’s like that doesn’t make their client look good if it comes down to that. They don’t want to use that. Also realizing I may have to go in front of a grand jury and tell my story again to see if they’re going to indict, if they’re going to charge these guys or if they get one of the guys with crime or crimes, crimes being robbery and grand larceny for stealing the money. Well, I don’t feel good about that. I don’t like that. But then I thought he said, yeah, and just recognize the defense attorneys, if it comes down to that, they’re going to rip into you. They’re going to really try to break down your story. They’re going to try to sow more doubt. They’re going to say you didn’t pick one of these guys. You don’t know, you know, maybe these are the wrong guys, blah blah blah, even.
Though there’s evidence this, that, and the other, well guess what? I’ve been thinking of my dad, the primary one who physically abused me. The one I thought about right afterwards tied right in. I’m like, this is totally like parallel to what I already went through in my family. What these guys did to me, that’s what my dad did to me. He’d grab me from behind, shake me, throw me around, drag me by the arm with my sore arm. Now that wakes up, and it’s like my shoulder still hurts. I can’t sleep on that side because it’s still sore. It’s like that father of mine. My father was, I believe he still is—I mean, I haven’t spoken with him in a long, long time. I don’t follow him, you know, in his life so much. But my father, my whole—most of my childhood, starting when I was five, was a criminal defense attorney. That was his job.
I made a video, or a couple of tries at a video over the last couple of months. I never really felt it was good enough, so I never made them public. But I’m gonna tell now what it was. My dad defended violent criminals. My dad defended murderers. I remember when I was eight years old, my father defended his first murderer. Murdered some guy, murdered some drug dealer in cold blood. You know, drug deal-ish gone wrong. Some sort of creepy guy who my dad came home and said he was so proud because he knew the guy was guilty. He told my whole family, “Yeah, that guy’s guilty.” My dad said it many times: they’re all pretty much all guilty. He said in all of his years of being a defense attorney and hundreds and thousands of classes that they’re almost all guilty, with a small number of exceptions. And yet my dad manipulated the system. He would manipulate the juries. He’d make deals and stuff like that. He would have the guys rat out their friends to get them off so they wouldn’t go to jail. I’m going to keep them out of jail, he always said.
He brought me to Attica once when I was a child. We grew up in upstate New York. He showed me Attica Federal Penitentiary. It was like a horrible place. He’s like, “This is where I’m keeping my clients out of.” And this, Daniel, is why we go on vacation. These people pay me good money to do this. And yet, you know, as a kid, I was proud of my dad. He was my beloved father. He was the male role model in my life. It was like my survival depended on loving him. He didn’t love me unless I loved him first. So much conditional love. This troubled father of mine who had very questionable morals, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t really realize it.
This is what I made a video about, and I’ve been thinking about this this past five days. Is that when I was 15, 16 years old, my father invited me to come to one of his jury trials. He was defending actually a friend of his who had been charged with assaulting a guy, beating him up. His friend was a professional boxer, actually. And the friend, part of how the friend blew off steam was to goad people, manipulate them into throwing the first punch, and then he just beat him up, break their nose. So the guy had done it before; he did it again. My father said he’s totally guilty, dude. No, he did everything they’re charging him with.
And then my father went up in front of the jury, cross-examined witnesses, and spoke wonderfully about what a kind man this friend of his was. Didn’t say it was his friend; I believe just treated it like it was his client. But this guy has come over to our house all the time. I mean, I went to school with the guy’s daughter. He seemed like a friendly guy, but he had real problems. He would manipulate people so he could beat them up, break their face. And my dad manipulated the jury. He made the jury love this guy. He made the jury think this guy was the sweetest guy. And you know, well, you know, people make mistakes, and we live in a world, you know, of forgiveness and mercy. And my dad literally hypnotized, sweet-talked to the jury.
I remember how I felt afterward. I’m like, I felt dirty. I felt ashamed of my father. I felt ashamed that I’d been so proud of him. And yet at the same time, I did feel proud that he was so successful, and everyone said he was great. And you know, he looked great in his suit. And the guy afterward who was found not guilty came over to our house and, you know, brought over lobster and shrimp and gave my dad a big gift. And there was lots of, “Wow, beautiful! My dad won!” He was so proud of himself, and we went out to dinner and yay. But I kept thinking, my dad told me beforehand that he knew the guy was guilty. He knew he was wrong, and he never said that. He lied up there. My father lied. And it’s like they’re gonna do that to me. Defense attorneys do that to me, and I have to withhold my anger that I know how disgusting it is to have a father who lied.
And later, when I broke away from my father, he lied about me, lied to everybody about me, never admitted what he had done, always just manipulated everyone to feel sorry for him. And it’s like gross, really, really gross. And now I’m on the other side of this in a way, but in a strange way, it’s like I don’t want to defend the bad actions of these two guys who robbed me, but I want to defend the truth of the child that they were, who they were, the child who still lives within them. Because I even saw that, especially with the guy who I identified in the photo array lineup. I saw there was a part of him, and I said in the last video that I just felt it could change. And even the nastier guy, who I felt could have killed me, could have stabbed me or done whatever, my image was they were going to stomp on my head. And afterward, I found out that that’s not an unrealistic likelihood had it gone a little differently. Had I fought back, had I been aggressive, had I been rude, had I been nasty, had I not given them what they wanted. But instead, I accommodated them. I showed them respect. I looked them in the eye.
The detective said it very interesting. He said, “You looked them in the eye. You had a long interaction. You took back your wallet. You respected them. You told them you respected them.” He said, “They’re not used to having victims, mugging victims, people they’re robbing treat them like this. They’re looking used to people who look down and say nothing and are more terrified.” I said, “I was terrified.” He said, “Yes, but you looked him in the eye.” He goes, “They were scared of you.” His quote: “They were scared of you.” And I said, “What do you mean they were scared of me? They totally had control of my life. If they could have killed me.” He said, “They were in physical control of the situation, but at some level, you were in emotional control of the situation.” And it was kind of true in a way. In a strange way, there was some interaction that happened that I felt these guys wanted to accommodate me at some level. I didn’t just totally die inside. Part of me did; part of me definitely did. But part of me didn’t, and I’m glad for that. And I think it’s making it easier for me to, well, slowly come back.
Other things I—well, I’ve been rebuilding my life. I got a replacement phone. Oh, get this! I thought I had a three-year insurance on my phone. It turned out I only had a two-year insurance on my phone. Well, today is March 11th, and the insurance that I bought on my phone was ending today, by chance. I actually got the iPhone that they stole two years ago today. So they stole the phone on March 6th. I had five more days of insurance. It really would have been much more of a loss for me financially, more difficult for me in a lot of ways had—well, had they robbed me after today.
Because I would, the insurance would have been dead and gone. I would have gotten nothing. As it was, I had to pay a 200 deductible. Now, I want to say this because I made that last video. Quite a few people donated money. I lost, you know, directly 300 and some dollars about because, you know, about 100 in my wallet, 200 phone deductible, lost a couple other things. But people gave me donations. It was kind of overwhelming, you know? I got my money back, and to everyone who did that, I mean, I don’t know, I feel like I could cry again, but thank you. I thank you very much. It left me speechless. It’s just not something I expect. It’s like also part of the idea of having really been a victim of this crime. I’m used to, like, it was weird to give me money to help me because I was victimized. My life experience, the childhood trauma that I experienced, the adult versions of it by getting away from my traumatizers, was nobody gave me money. I lost because of that. I lost my inheritance from getting away from my family. I didn’t get any family heirlooms when grandparents died, like nothing. I got hated, got rejected by my family for standing up for myself. So that’s why it’s, this is one of the things that’s come out of it. People actually giving me donations to support me during this hard time. A time also I’ve been hardly able to work. I mean, I do proofreading, I do editing, and do different things, video editing, professional stuff. This is how I make some money to help myself live and survive. I can’t think straight. I can’t concentrate enough. It’s been getting a little bit better. Hopefully, I’ll be able to work more soon. But what’s been happening to me, every time I, especially the first two days, I tried to get back, get back in the saddle, work hard, you know, focus. Now be a man, stand up, all those societal things that I’ve been taught, do it. You know, I don’t want to be a victim anymore. I’m just going to jump back. And, well, I couldn’t concentrate. That was a big part of it. I’m like sitting here trying to do work, trying to be organized, and all I’m seeing is flashbacks of violence and ambivalence about how I felt about it, and tears and shame and this and that.
But I also want to say I’m so glad I put up that video five days ago because of the comments. I almost really didn’t put it up to have people support me. I wanted people to see an example of a person who had just been violated, and it was still very raw and trying to sort it out. I wanted it to be a public service, to be useful to other people. I really did not expect so many people to be kind and supportive with me. Also, people to share their experiences of similar things that happened to them, often that didn’t have good outcomes. It was like reading those was like just like water for a thirsty person for me. I just like, I needed to feel like a connection with others, a connected connection with other people who understood, who’ve been there, who still are there to some degree. Incredibly helpful, incredibly wonderful.
But I also want to say this: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people commented, but I think there were four comments that I just felt were nasty. I took screenshots of them and I deleted them just because I wanted to maybe look at them again when I’m in a different state. But I don’t want those poisonous comments up. And it was all by guys, men. And they said, like, one said, “You lost your man card. You’re pathetic. You’re despicable, you know, whining and complaining because I went through a robbery.” Another one said, “That was the friendliest mugging ever. Those guys were just playing around you. Those were just kids playing around with you. You know, you shouldn’t be feeling any of that way. You lost your manhood. You’re not a real man. You’re a wimp.” I heard a whiner a couple of times. And it’s like, first of all, like, that was very disconcerting to be told that. I was like, this is bad, this is poison, delete. Afterwards, I thought, and there’s two afterwards to this, like, okay, maybe someone got triggered by something I said, but why would you have to write that down? Why do you need to go out of your way to spend time writing this down so I would read it? It’s like, why do they need to say that? And then it’s like analyzing this, it’s like, I don’t know, but I think there is a lot of pressure in society for people, for men perhaps even more, to just shut down their feelings, to not go through a healing process, to not open the door to vulnerability and sensitivity to being a victim. Men are not victims, can’t be victims, do not allow yourself to be a victim. You can choose to be a victim or not.
And also, I really think this is a big part to go into what happened to me. Does op, you know, five days ago opens up the door of what happened to me 30 years ago, 40 years ago, opens the door to my childhood, to the deeper historical victim experiences that I had that twisted my personality, that forced me to shut down. And it’s like, this is going to provoke even more growth and healing as related to my childhood traumas. And I think a lot of people out there don’t want to do that, don’t want to look at it, don’t want to go there, don’t, can’t. It’s too painful, it’s too horrible. Better to be shut down, to be dissociated, to believe that they’re men and they’re not victims at all. Whereas really, they’re the most profound types of victims. They’re victims that haven’t even started their healing process. They’re actually perennially unconsciously living in a victim status. And by me talking about it and being open about it, it makes them feel more conscious. I think that’s why it triggered them and threatened them so much, such that they have to attack me to try to belittle me. Almost like it was like being violated again. Not anything remotely as bad as what those two guys did to me or what happened to me in my childhood, but people who don’t want me to feel my feelings.
But so the second part of those nasty comments, humiliating comments. So those guys were just playing with you and being friendly. I wouldn’t talk to the detective, detectives who, you know, who know the guys who did this to me, know who their associates were, reading about their past, you know, violent acts and things like that, things that they’ve been caught for, convicted of even. I said that. I told him what these people wrote. The detective looked at me, he left, goes, “Daniel, that was not a friendly mugging. Those guys really would have stomped your head. They could have killed you. Who knows? I mean, probably carrying knives.” I mean, like he says, “Violent, violent, violent people. This was not friendly. There was nothing friendly. There was nothing playing about this.” He said it was very, very serious. He was like, “Why would people need to write this?” And he even was on my side. This is like a tough New York NYPD detective. And it’s like, it was helpful. And it’s been incredibly helpful to tell my story again and again and again. And I get to let it out. And a friend of mine said this to me, a friend who’s very insightful. He said, “Those two guys, by the way, you know, yes, I was right, early 20s, those two guys who robbed me, assuming they have the right perpetrators, early 20 guys who robbed me, my friend said they broke the social contract by violating you the way they did. They broke the fabric of what being a social human is about, a social species. And I’m rebuilding that social contract. I lost some connection with the social world because of this. I went into myself. I’ve noticed I’ve been much more self-centered the past week. I’m like trying to heal myself, but I’m like not as connected with other people. I can’t listen as well. I don’t have as much time for others. I’m not as empathic. I just keep bouncing back to myself all the time. And it’s interesting to see myself in a.
More self-centered way, it makes me think about what about people out in the world who are incredibly self-centered. I know people who are so profoundly self-centered, they can’t empathize with anyone. They can’t listen to anyone. This is more proof to me that they are actually incredibly traumatized and so shut down that they don’t even know it and not dealing with it at all. They’re in a perennial, almost permanent, seemingly permanent state of being unempathic, shut down, and self-centered.
And that’s like temporarily what happened to me as a result of these guys violating me and breaking that social contract. And I’m 100% committed to coming back, and it’s already happening. Connecting, and part of how I’m connecting is telling anyone who I get a sense of empathy from. I’m telling them what happened.
I remember I had to go, I had to go to my, um, get a sim card for my phone because my phone lost its sim card too. And I went to the mobile phone store, and the woman was kind who was helping me, so I told her what happened. And then she’s like, she told me her story of having been mugged before and how awful it was for her, et cetera. And it’s like she listened to me, and almost everybody says, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry you went through that.” Like, people give me this look, and it’s like, it’s like welcoming me back to humanity. Because that’s in a way what it did. That moment, that horrible moment of thinking I was gonna die, thinking I was gonna lose my life and, you know, get stamped on the head if I didn’t play right, it’s like it did something. It split me away from people.
And so I’ve been fighting to come back. Every friend, childhood friends, I’ve been reaching out and telling people, like, listen to me. And people, I also feel like I’ve done a lot of listening to a lot of people for a lot of years. And what I feel is a lot of people, not all, not everybody, but a lot of people have been giving me time, extra time. In a strange way, it’s like I have money in the bank in my relationships with people because I’ve given so much of surplus for extra caring and empathy that I find that a lot of people actually have a lot of caring for me. And that has been incredibly vitally helpful.
And so yes, I’m giving myself the liberty to tell people, to tell what happened. And feeling the more I tell, and telling it over and over and over and over and over and over again, almost like I’m a broken record, but a broken record who is slowly healing. So there’s probably a lot more that I could share, and I’ve gone on a long, long time. And maybe I’ll give another update. Meanwhile, maybe I’ll start sharing some of the videos that I recorded before. And again, for all who are listening to this, to all maybe who hopefully this is helping in some way or other, to everybody who has been so caring with comments and to the people who donated, everybody, thank you.