July 30, Paris -- ROBBED!!!

I was robbed last night, or rather early this morning, in my room at the youth hostel. Up until yesterday, I had been alone in the room, but a young man of Senegalese descent arrived yesterday morning. When I went to bed yesterday evening, he had not yet returned to the hostel. As is my custom, I put my wallet and passports in my shorts pockets and put my shorts at the head of my bed, feeling sure that no one could grab them without waking me.

At about 1:30 this morning, I awakened, and I soon noticed that my shorts were missing. I got up without turning on the light, and noticed that the other guy had been in the room, because his things had been moved around. Just then, he came in the room and started at seeing me up.

Suddenly I found my shorts, to the left of the door of the room, not at all where I had left them. I'm sure that the guy had them in his hand when he came back into the room and let them fall there.

Checking everything in my pockets, I found that at least two 50-euro bills were missing from my wallet (maybe more, I'm not sure). When I accused the guy of taking the money, he denied it, of course.

He apparently came in the room and did awaken me when he grabbed my shorts, but before I was fully awake, he had left the room with my shorts in hand in order to be able to go through the pockets out in the hall or perhaps in the men's room. I imagine he intended to replace them without awakening me. If he had managed that, when I later in the day discovered that some of the money was missing from my wallet, I wouldn't have had a clue as to where it had gone.

I reported the theft to the night clerk at the desk, and his only response was to take a few notes to leave for management's arrival in the morning and to move me to another room. After a few hours sleep, I came back to the lobby at around 5 a.m. and asked why the police hadn't been called. He said it was up to me to report the incident to the police. A phone call revealed that the police wouldn't come out and I would have to go to the police station and make a report, which I managed to do in mangled French.

What I have to show for my efforts is three sheets of paper, a printout of the police report. The officer who took my information said that it would eventually be investigated. To my inquiries as to why an officer couldn't be dispatched to question the guy I'm accusing of robbery, he said that things just didn't work that way.

I haven't taken the time to read the police report yet, but I did glance at it, and it seems to be thrown together without a lot of attention to detail. For example it says that my nationality is Irish and that I arrived at the hostel last evening, neither of which is true.

So as of this morning, the guy was still in the hostel; the hostel personnel knew that I had been robbed; the police had been informed; and nothing had been done about it. Police work seems to be done here the way it is in Mexico, by filling out and shuffling papers (electronically now, of course) and not by sending anyone out to actually talk to the accused and try to get my money back.

At least the sun is shining, and it promises to be a nice day.-- Jack Quinn