The price of being first in the circle

My good friend Spaz was mugged tonight, and I listened to most of it on the phone.

You see, he must have tried to dial 911 and missed the 9 and only got the 1, and wouldn't you know it, I am the first person on speed dial. He had told me just a week or two prior that I was the only one in his circle of friends. He'd just formally signed up for a cell phone... only to have it stolen with me in tow.

At 11:15pm I got a call on my phone from Spaz. I answered (which is a miracle in and of itself really), and heard some black guy yelling, "You fucking nigger, you FUCKING nigger..." Some grunting, some words I couldn't understand, jostling, wind noise, more "Fucking nigger!", then running. I listened trying to figure out what was going on, because this is not good, really not good.

Meanwhile, my boyfriend, awakened by my yelling "Hello, can anyone hear me?!" wanted me to just hang up, but I knew something was wrong. I kept listening, I handed the headset over to him to listen. He wanted me to just hang up and call back. I knew that that was a bad plan, so I just listened. I heard them stop, it got quiet, like they were inside. Then I heard CD cases clink and someone say clearly something like "Just fucking CDs.... and some movies..." I relayed this to my boyfriend, commenting that they were going through Spaz's stuff (damn, but they didn't hear me before), when I heard the guy say "Fuck" and then the phone hung up. The call lasted 10:17 (ten minutes, seventeen seconds).

Pissed, but knowing now for sure that the phone was not in Spaz's possession, I called 911. The lady told me, after listening to my story, that she could do nothing because I didn't know where Spaz or the assailants were.

Damn. So I hung up and started trying to find phone numbers for Spaz's friends, people he might have been out drinking with. I didn't have any (hey, I don't hang out with them myself, so why would I?), when I got a call back. It was 911. The lady wanted Spaz's phone number and name-- and when I provided them she told me that the police were already with him, that he was okay, or okay enough to tell the police about the two guys. That's all she'd tell me, but I thanked her profusely for calling back.

I then tried to access his friends by doing the unspeakable, I signed up for myspace. That's how freaked I was. I then was able to email some of his peeps to ask them to have him get in touch and just let us (me and my boyfriend) know he's okay, since he obviously didn't have access to a phone now.

Yikes, how terrifying (not the myspace but the mugging...). I hope he's okay. I hope he has health insurance so he can get taken care of if he's not okay. It sounded devastating. I feel freaked out and I only listened. How strangely intimate, listening to an assault and theft on the phone. To be listening on the phone being stolen.

What would you do? Would you stay on the line and try to get clues? Would you immediately call 911? Would you believe them if they said they couldn't find the persons involved by the cell phone? Have you ever had this sort of experience? If you did, what would do? What advice would you give to someone who did?

Scary.