I was at the university where I work and was returning to my car.  I had to cross a pedestrian overpass and then come down a vertical ladder to the street.  There was a black guy at the bottom of it, and he took my camera and a bag of groceries and stuff  I  was carrying.  Some other black guys came up and began threatening me.  One of them made a hangman's noose out of some string and threatened to kill me if I told the cops I had been robbed.  I was so badly outnumbered that there was nothing I could do.  I was very concerned about the camera and the film in it (I had already taken 15 pictures).  I did tell the first cop I saw, and he immediately started back to the scene of the crime with me.  On the way, though, we stopped in some kind of hotel-sized house, where several black families were living in rather crowded conditions.  I was afraid one of the gang would be there and see me with the cop.  The place around the overpass where they hung out was called "The Pit."