very sad on the randomness, but it is the risk of living in the big city even if in a nice area.

Desperate homeless, mentally ill, and criminals you can come across no matter how nice the neighborhood although nicer neighborhoods have very low risks and I can see why people like the life style even though not my cup of tea.

True story. I worked down near DC China town leaving work at 11 pm all the time. I would walk to the metro pulling my laptop bag on wheels to metro center so I would not have to switch trains after a two block ride from china town metro.

I walk fast, and was about to pass a mentally ill homeless man not knowing he was mentally ill.

He freaked out, starting coming at me yelling "you been following me for years, stop it, I am tired of it". I do not know what made me do it other than I do have two mentally ill relatives in my large extended family, but I jumped back and just said somewhat calmly "Man, I thought we were friends". The homeless guy was caught off guard, stopped approaching me, I passed quickly, and he apologized to me because "I was right we were friends" with me saying "I am cool with you, no big deal, we are still friends"

I traveled every week for years to many, many large cities where I always use common sense of when to walk, where to walk, etc., but this was my only real incident.