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Claim: Thieves lie in wait under victims' cars, then render their victims helpless by slashing their ankles.
Examples:
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Robberies, rapes, and abductions have taken place in shopping mall parking lots, but until November 2008 in none were the assailants lying in wait underneath the victim's vehicle. (In that assault, a woman in Salt Lake City was raped at knife-point by a man who had hidden beneath a car.) (See our Shopping Mauled page for a related legend about bad guys lurking in parking lots and at gas stations to prey upon women.) Folklorist Jan Brunvand traces the first sighting of this legend to sometime in the 1950s to the Northland Shopping Mall in Detroit, MI. At various times, different cities have since experienced "slasher scares" in which these villains of lore were rumored to be lurking under cars at local shopping centers:
It wouldn't be a proper bit of scarelore if Dear Abby didn't get in on the act somewhere. Which she did in 1992:
Dear Abby: I am 16 and am terrified to go to the mall. At our local shopping mall, crimes have been going on that are never reported in the newspaper because there are so many of them.
Often an explanation will be offered for why the police or mall security agents aren't doing more to round up the bad guys, or why these attacks aren't being reported in mainstream news outlets. In the letter to Dear Abby, the lack of reporting is ascribed to there being too many of these incidents for them to be newsworthy, and Brunvand quotes one of the legend's recounters as saying, "Plenty of things like that never get into the papers." (Police and newspapers are said to be keeping the attacks under wraps to protect business at the mall.) It's not enough we have to worry about ankle-slashing bad guys lurking under our cars; according to lore, we face this danger on our own because the police and the press are in cahoots with Big Business and thus turn a blind eye when some of the citizens of our fair town end up victimized in this fashion!
A friend of mine had been shopping and was just about to get into her car, when a man who had been hiding under her car grabbed her ankles. Another man, working in cahoots with the man under the car, was hiding behind another car nearby, and he jumped out and grabbed my friend's purse, and the two of them got away and were never caught. The security guards never seem to be around when you need them. Please warn people, Abby. Dear Afraid: Since the crime rate at the mall appears to be more than their security can handle, it might be better to consider shopping someplace that is better policed. If that's not possible, do not go to the mall unless you are accompanied by at least one friend. And do not enter the parking structure unless it is daylight, or well-lighted, or you are carrying a flashlight powerful enough to illuminate the underside and the interior of your car from a distance (and large enough to be used as a weapon should you have to). Your letter is thought-provoking. Readers, before getting into your cars, look under them, around and behind you! What appears to have begun as a cautionary tale about women being targeted for robbery or rape has, in the last few years, grown more and more into another tale about ruthless gang initiations. As inner city gang activity plays a greater part of the nightly news broadcast, our lore changes to reflect this emerging focus of our fears. In earlier versions, what the woman could be compelled to part with (her valuables or her virtue) was key to her attacker's motivation; in its newer form, it's almost violence for violence's sake.
[Collected on the Internet, 1999]
(Another gang initiation legend can be found on our Lights Out! page.)
I am passing this along because I know of a incident similar to this. My girlfriend was getting some gas and when she attempted to return to her car the gas station attendant starting yelling at her and telling her she did not pay yet. When she went back in to argue about having already paid the attendant told her he just wanted to get her back in because he saw someone crawl in the backseat of her car, and that he had already called the police. So it's worth taking to heart. This is a true story. it has been "ritual" of gang members to take one body part from women as an initiation into gangs. the rule is that is has to be in a well lit area and at a gas station, so be careful. they tend to lay under the car, and slash females' ankles when she goes to get in her car, causing her to fall and then they cut off a body part and roll and run. they are known to hide behind the gas pumps too, so be careful. It might sound bizarre and gross, but the bigger the body part the higher the initiation they receive. This was commmunicated by a person who works in law enforcement in the south. She has investigated and been called to a number of these scenes. She has also confirmed the following statement below as true and not an internet "hoax." Please pass these on to as many people you know... mothers, sisters, grandparents, daughters, nieces and friends. It seems the world has become a crazy place to live in, but let's be careful out there and make stuff like this known so we are better protected. One could consider this legend to be about our sense of vulnerability to attack, heightened by having to frequent exposed, impersonal places. As much as we think of shopping malls as On a more basic level, this legend awakens half-forgotten memories of childhood fears; namely, the bogeyman under the bed. Who didn't anticipate having his ankles grabbed by that monster? Barbara "fear not the tendoncies of those who lurk" Mikkelson Sightings: The 1983 Stephen King novel Pet Semetary features an ankle-slashing culprit hiding under a bed. It also shows up in gruesome fashion in the 1998 slasher classic Urban Legend. Last updated: 26 November 2008 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2009 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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