Anybody is at risk anywhere they might go nowadays. Heck I even heard of an incident locally that didn’t get much attention from what I saw but a man fought off a crazed person with a knife that was threatening school children in the library. I don’t feel safe in my own country anymore. Too many unstable people.
I haven’t worked in downtown Atlanta in decades but even back then the panhandlers were annoying, persistent and sometimes dangerous.
I walked to a building with a food court on the ground floor. This rough looking guy stops me, says he’s a trucker and needs help getting his truck fixed so he can get back on the road. Of course I knew he was lying but this was one of the better stories you’d hear from the bums so I gave him a buck and wished him luck and then went on to the food court.
On the way back out he hits me up again, same blank look, same story about his truck. He doesn’t remember me at all. I tell him we just talked a few minutes ago and I gave him a dollar. I ask if he got his truck fixed. He just stares at me for a few seconds then turns to look for somebody to ask for money. Sad. This guy wasn’t dangerous but sometimes they would get really agitated and insistent if you talked to them but didn’t give them a dollar.
I work in a suburban office park now. No panhandlers here so far. But as the density of the area increases, they migrate northward like some slow-spreading disease.