{"id":73,"date":"2004-12-23T14:38:58","date_gmt":"2004-12-23T22:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2004\/12\/pickpockets.html"},"modified":"2004-12-23T14:38:58","modified_gmt":"2004-12-23T22:38:58","slug":"pickpockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/12\/pickpockets.html","title":{"rendered":"Pickpockets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since it&#8217;s that the time of season, the Daily News has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/front\/story\/264875p-226739c.html\">a helpful piece on pickpockets<\/a> in today&#8217;s paper. Nothing groundbreaking, but it discusses the exotic-sounding School of Seven Bells, one of those Boo Radley-esque concepts that may or may not be an urban myth but is worth recounting (once again):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The worst of them are so slick that some cops believe they were trained at a legendary crime college in South America &#8211; the School of the Seven Bells.<\/p>\n<p>The school, said to be in Colombia, has never been visited by a U.S. law enforcement official, and many believe it does not exist.<\/p>\n<p>But as the legend goes, the final test at the school involves a teacher posing as a mark, his body booby-trapped with seven small bells, each strategically placed. To graduate, students must slip valuables from several pockets without ringing any of the bells.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Remember &#8220;School of the Seven Bells&#8221; for later use (lyrical, that!).<\/p>\n<p>They also have a great glossary of &#8220;pickpocketing lingo&#8221;:<\/p>\n<ul><em><\/p>\n<li>The Pick &#8211; Snatching a valuable item from a person.<\/li>\n<li>The Dip &#8211; The thief who actually executes the pick.<\/li>\n<li>The Mark &#8211; The victim.<\/li>\n<li>Ripper &#8211; A fearless thief who brazenly rips or cuts items out of a pocket and runs.<\/li>\n<li>The Dish &#8211; A handoff. The thief who swiped the wallet gives it to another thief lurking nearby to prevent being caught.<\/li>\n<li>The Stall &#8211; A thief blocks the path of a walking target to allow a pickpocket to swoop in.<\/li>\n<li>Looping &#8211; Repeatedly passing a target or a store in order to steal something.<\/li>\n<p><\/em><\/ul>\n<p>And don&#8217;t forget the colorfully named scams:<\/p>\n<ul><em><\/p>\n<li>The Squirt Job: A thief squirts a condiment like ketchup or mayonnaise on a victim&#8217;s jacket. The thief then points it out, or his partner points it out. While the victim wipes off the stain, the thief picks the pocket or bag.<\/li>\n<li>The Money Drop: A thief drops cash or other items in front of the victim walking down the street. Another thief comes from behind and picks the distracted victim&#8217;s pocket or swipes his or her bag.<\/li>\n<li>The Flat Tire: A thief looks for a driver sitting inside a car, punctures the car&#8217;s tire and then points it out. When the driver gets out of the car to inspect the tire, another thief steals valuables from the vehicle.<\/li>\n<li>The Bump: A thief bumps into a victim on the street, in a store or in the subway, giving his accomplice time to sneak up from behind and pick the jostled victim&#8217;s pocket.<\/li>\n<p><\/em><\/ul>\n<p>To quote <a href=\"http:\/\/www.museum.tv\/archives\/etv\/H\/htmlH\/hillstreetb\/hillstreetb.htm\">Hill Street Blues<\/a>&#8216; Phil Esterhaus, &#8220;Let&#8217;s be careful out there!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since it&#8217;s that the time of season, the Daily News has a helpful piece on pickpockets in today&#8217;s paper. Nothing groundbreaking, but it discusses the exotic-sounding School of Seven Bells, one of those Boo Radley-esque concepts that may or may not be an urban myth but is worth recounting (once again): The worst of them [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law_order","category-public_service_announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}