Seriously, it's like any other city in the world. If you walk around a dodgy area talking on an iPhone, by yourself, especially late at night, then you're asking for trouble. Be sensible and cautious, and Rio is a lovely place to go on holiday.
EDIT: I guess I'm attracted to cities with higher crime rates.
Not that incidents like this don't occur in other cities in the world, but it shows that avoiding dodgy areas at night might not be enough.
The only other place I have seen it like the above is the gypsy kids in Rome. Even then though they were more slight of hand pick pockets than the blatant assault in the video.
Almost 60,000 people were murdered in Brazil in 2014, most with guns. While some Latin American countries have higher per capita murder rates, in absolute numbers, Brazil is the deadliest place in the world outside Syria.
Brazilians are far more likely to be shot to death than Americans, a more populous country where there are about 8,000 to 9,000 gun homicides each year.
...
Right now, Brazil actually has tough gun laws.
More here: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/03/28/472157969/b...
Hold press conference about it and pat self on back
Fail to enforce the law uniformly -- or at all
Shield politically-favored violators of law
Get re-elected because you're tough on crime
Society remains unchanged
I've had a phone pickpocketed from me too.
I guess many officers think arresting someone underage is not worth the trouble, unless it is some life threatening situation.
I generally espouse this view ... that being sensible and street smart are the important parts to visiting different cities and that, in general, they are all fairly safe.
However, I also would describe Rio and Sao Paulo as a little further along the danger/risk meter.
You know all those warnings and rules of thumb that people pass on about pickpocketing and scams and tricksters and so on ? And they never really pan out or materialize ? In Rio, they do.
I would feel more safe (than Rio) in Shanghai or Shenzhen, less safe (than Rio) in Tijuana.
Never had anything remotely look like violence, robbery or even weirdos like that in Shanghai/Suzhou.
The time before this US thing (where nothing happened but it made the hairs on my neck stand up and we did realize we were close to getting robbed) was about 10 years ago when I got robbed at knife point in a small town under Barcelona. While feeling completely fine walking through weird neighborhoods in Belize. So you never know...
When I was around 8 my teacher in school said 'if you go to Amsterdam, you die; this city is so dangerous that when you go there, you will most surely get robbed, raped and murdered'. Apparently in a certain part of the Netherlands this idea was prevalent as when, 10 odd years later, I went to the university of Amsterdam my grandparents had something like 'Ok, this is it, this is the last time we saw him. He dead.'. Then I lived there and I actually lived in the neighborhood which was 'known' to 'everyone' that you will die there; de Bijlmer. Ofcourse, it was great; all these murderers and thieves offered me beer and food before going to uni in the morning; they invited me to the bars under the flats at night. I walked through that place (and other 'you'll die' places) in the middle of night and never felt anything resembling fear.
I want to go to Brazil and I will because of a client soon, but he, born and raised in Sao Paulo, says even he doesn't like it because of the crime. And he knows this city well. I'm not sure what to believe but we'll see... Not bringing any iPhone that's for sure.
Stay out of the dodgy areas, don't walk the streets by yourself at night, and avoid standing out. I was there last month, I got buses, had lunch in a typical Brazilian cafe, went to the coach station. No problems.
Wow, what did you do? Keep walking? back in circle? If they get to your room it's game over...
Please don't apply your standards other cities of the world. What you described does not happen in my (capital) city. In fact if you drop something, you will likely get it back.
Pray tell what is this magical city you live in that does not have a single dodgy area.
What city do you live in, by the way? The only city I know of deservedly with this reputation is Singapore.
I'm deliberately singling this one out as a point of pride:
Where in Warsaw can't you walk down the street reading your iPhone?
I'll concede pickpocketing can be an issue on buses, and racism is very much an issue in present times. Issues with muggings, though?
Just to give a counter example: I lived in Brussels, Philadelphia, Oslo, Sao Paulo... the only place about which I have a first hand "armed robbery" story was in Oslo of all places: a coworker got actually shot in the back when he bravely (but stupidly) turned his back and said "no, you are not going to shoot me".
He was lucky and was only a couple of weeks out but he carried his X-rays of the bullet with him because nobody would believe him otherwise.
One anecdote that might be telling: someone left their wallet in front of me in Stockholm metro. I was concerned, trying to imagine a way to get it back to him; the Swede sitting opposite me was surprised that I didn’t know I could hand it to any employee of SL safely.
Sure, there are isolated anecdotes like the ones you quote - but there is not a single area of either Geneva or Nyon where I wouldn't walk around with an iPhone at night (I grew up in the Nyon region, then moved to Geneva's as a teenager FWIW). The worst that you can expect is someone trying to sell you drugs, or begging, or getting into a drunken argument (like basically anywhere in the world where humans live)
Not to mention, that's probably the "worst" region of the country - I live in Bern now and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would not bring your iPhone back to you should you leave it on the sidewalk at night.
There are obviously many factors that come into play. The biggest ones are not what you expect: how "gringo" (foreigner) you look, and are you walking around with Brazilian friends? Negatives on both counts will increase your odds of "bad stuff" happening to you dramatically. Also, if you come from a safer place where people do stuff such as routinely leave cars and homes unlocked, casually hail any cab anywhere and walk around with expensive phones(or cameras), you're in for a big surprise.
The best safety advice I can give is: assume there is no police whatsoever in the country and act accordingly, even if you do happen to see police around. They are unlikely to do anything to help you. May not even investigate if you die.
You should still be mostly OK, statistically speaking. The problem is that, when bad things happen, they tend to be really bad. You are very very lucky that if if is something simple as a purse snatching (as I have seen in other comments). Still very lucky if there's a knife involved. Expect multiple armed thugs in motorcycles, even if you can't see everyone involved, assume there's backup for the criminals.
One thing that many have overlooked in the comments is that for Rio and Sao Paulo, the crime trend is down. In São Paulo particularly, I've even seen people casually browsing on their iPads while sitting at bar tables next to a busy road, or people talking on their iphones in barely lit streets near the city center. That was unthinkable a few years ago.
However, the trend for other regions is that crime rates are rising dramatically. Some regions, in the Northeast particularly, are worse than some war zones. Avoid, specially if you have no Brazilian friends.
Disclaimer: I am Brazilian, lived for 30+ years in the northeast. Fled to the very south, to a very good neighborhood, wife witnessed a drug-related execution in front of our building the week we arrived. Nothing came out of it btw, didn't even make the news. Where I used to live, 20+ violent deaths in a weekend are not worth newspaper pages anymore. Then fled to the Bay Area.
Watch it on TV, from far away.