Knife Crime

What better way to start the ball rolling in October than with a post about knife crime in London and an x-ray image of a 16-year-old kid with a knife in his head.

The amazing thing is that the boy survived! This happened in November last year but the police are only now releasing the graphic image as a means to warn about knife crime.

The stabbing was the end result of a robbery at a supermarket in Southwark in London. The knife entered the kid's head just above the eye and ended up as far back as his ear.

The person that stabbed this kid was also a 17-year-old kid. He has since been tried and convicted of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. I am guessing there is not much dispute on the grievous bodily harm charge as just looking at the x-ray shows that it is pretty grievous. I am figuring that there cannot be too much dispute on the attempted murder charge either as you do not normally want to stab people in the face just above the eye to warn them off.

The police have said that the releasing of the image is part of a wider campaign to crack down on knife and gun violence in London.

Pele -- Robbed At Gunpoint

Being arguably one of the world's greatest ever football players and declared a national treasure by your government does not make you immune from crime. It is probably a bit of an understatement to say that there is a crime problem in Brazil but maybe this robbery of Pele might inspire the government to do something about the crime rate. Then again probably not!

The reports are that the crime occurred on 13 June in Santos in the south of Sao Paulo State. In the robbery Pele was robbed of a gold necklace, a watch, and a mobile phone, and presumably any cash that he was carrying.

Now, if the reports are true the man has some serious testicular fortitude. It is reported that Pele was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car when it was stopped by 10 or so youths armed with guns and knives. The report goes on to say that Pele rolled down the window and identified himself but was robbed anyways. I would reckon the last thing that most people would be doing in their panic is rolling down the window.

The reports are not saying why it has taken so long for this to become public. However, it seems that perhaps Pele himself did not bother to report the crime.

Well, I guess that is life in Brazil.