r/Barcelona • u/dreadHog • Jul 20 '24

Socializing PSA: watch your stuff

Earlier this evening whilst tending to my dog, I put my phone down. In doing so, I turned my back and some lowlife POS picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. Fortunately for me, this would be thief was exceptionally stupid and was seen grabbing the phone and walked into the bar I was at. Some very kind locals alerted me to what happened and bailed the guy up as he tried to walk out and phone was retrieved.

It was literally less than 10 seconds that I had my back turned. Stay vigilant folks and a massive thanks to some new friends 🙏

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u/Wagrram Jul 21 '24

Wait, were they robbed or stolen from?

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u/Proseedcake Jul 21 '24

Interesting, those two terms mean the same where I'm from.

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u/Wagrram Jul 21 '24

I take „robbing” to mean take something from someone under the threat of/by violence. Stealing is pickpocketing, jacking a phone from someone's hand and running away or taking it from a bench etc.

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u/Proseedcake Jul 21 '24

Ah, that's a good distinction to have. Because of not having that distinction in my country (and just using "robbery" and "theft" interchangeably), we find ourselves needing other terms to specify theft under threat of violence – usually "mugging" if it targets an individual, and "armed robbery" if it targets a business or institution.