"Attempted Gunpoint Robbery while I was playing this Weekend"

#PokemonGO: A friendly reminder to be careful when playing!It was 2 AM in downtown LA after a Sunday night show, and I decided to grind some eggs since I was only 2 miles from home, public transit is useless that late, and an Uber would have been $10.I was walking through Rampart Village, and I passed some guy sitting in the passenger seat of his car with the window rolled down. He started shouting at me to come over. At first, I thought he was offering an illegal taxi ride or catcalling me, then I noticed he was waving around a handgun. He said "Hey Lady, Come Here!", pointing his gun at me. I'd remembered some stories about people escaping muggers by acting weird, not following the mugger's cues, and in general refusing to cooperate or act like a victim. And I'm too fucking poor to replace my IDs and shitty phone. So I pretended not to notice, said "Sorry, have to keep moving!" and hurried past him.He started cursing and screaming at me, then fired a shot... And it sounded fake as hell, like a toy cap gun. I realized he must have been bluffing, and took my chance to escape around the corner and lose the guy. It had completely looked like a real handgun! Adult sized, realistic and modern design, no orange tip. If he hadn't pulled the trigger, I would never have seen through his ruse.The next 30 minutes of walking home were a nightmare. I was so scared he was going to hunt me down and hurt me. He could bring a friend with a real gun, chase after me and stab me, hit me with his car... My thoughts were swirling . I stripped down to my long-sleeve black undershirt so I'd be harder to recognize and hurried home, flinching whenever a dark 4-door car drove to close. I didn't feel safe again until I was home behind several layers of locked doors. And still, the adrenaline and anxiety of the situation kept me up all night thinking of every awful way things could have gone wrong.I've always been an avid walker. I used to walk 4 miles to get home from school every day. I'd walk around my hometown late at night all the time. And then I moved to a big city and kept my habit of wandering about at all hours. Sure, there were some sketchy folks. But I never felt seriously unsafe until this past Sunday night. Whenever people said "It's dangerous to walk alone at night" I just laughed them off dismissively.Having a hostile person hold me at gunpoint really made me reconsider how blase I've been with my safety. I got lucky as hell. There are so many ways that I might be dead today, had things played out slightly differently.Exercise your better judgment. Pokemon Go can be fun, but you don't want to get hurt or worse from stepping in a hole, walking into a speeding car, making yourself an easy target for muggers, or anything else. Take care of yourself!TL;DR: He was bluffing with a realistic cap gun. It was still a dangerous situation and scared me to hell. Here's my receipts of my GPS coords and a groupchat convo with friends from that night. The Red X is where the mugger was parked. via /r/pokemongo https://ift.tt/2TTKUjc