I was held up at gunpoint one night as I walked up onto my porch to pick up my mail. As I turned to walk down the steps, a man was standing at the bottom wearing a hoodie. Though I was frightened, my initial reaction was that he was from the group home two doors away and was going to ask for a cigarette. He raised the gun to my face as I told him he must never walk up behind someone like that because it scared me and something could happen. I remember that his hand holding the gun was shaking. And that he was probably as scared as I was; making him more unpredictable.
He demanded my backpack. Striking me in the head with the gun as he grabbed a strap, causing me to fall the last two steps. As I lay there on my stomach, I covered my head, knowing that it was where he would shoot me. I remember how angry I felt, knowing I was going to die over a book of stamps and a few dollars in change. That my backpack was worth much much more and that it would be simply discarded. I finally raised myself from my prone position as I realized he must have left.
To this day I believe that the gun was unloaded. That otherwise he most likely would have shot me in his fear and adrenaline rush of the moment.