Friend Robbed in Lapa

So I don't want this to deter anyone from visiting Brazil or Rio in particular, but I thought I'd share a frightening encounter I had while in Lapa to hopefully help other people not get into this situation.

This may have been a bit of overconfidence and naïveté on our part, but there's always lessons to be learned in life. So me and a couple of friends(all guys) were down at Lapa doing some bar hopping, and maybe this was a sign of what was to come, but almost immediately upon going into Av. Mem de Sá, my friend was almost robbed of yes necklace. It was a cheap $2 one so if it was lost it wouldn't have been a big deal, but it happened none the less.

We then bar hopped and clubbed throughout the night without a problem, then we were getting ready to leave, we went back up to the main road by the arches to catch an uber, and we thought it was safe up there because we saw a lot of lights, cleaning crews, and there were some police and ambulances around so we went near them to catch an uber (mistake number 1). Then, there were these 2 guys riding around on bikes and one person on foot, and when we took out our phone to check and make sure we're getting in the correct uber (mistake number 2), one of them tried to snatch our phones. I luckily saw them and gripped onto my phone, and I kept my phone on a leash that is attached to my sling, so they couldn't get it. My friend also didn't get robbed the first time either, and we thought we can just yell and cause a scene to get them to go away (we thought it was usually a one attempt and once they get caught, they'll run). That didn't happen. What ended up happening is they kept coming at us trying snatch our phones and failing and then they started throwing bricks at us. Luckily our uber got there, so we tried to jump into the car, but right when my friend was getting into the car, one of the guys came up to him, snatched his phone and kicked him in the face leaving him with a bloody nose. He initially tried to chase after them, but the uber driver (saint of this encounter by the way), dragged him back to the car and told him that we can go to the police station. What was wild about this whole thing is that there were police and stuff around and they just sat there and watched and did nothing.

We spent the rest of the night filing a police report and trying to locate the phone using the tracker. I think we had a bit of ignorance to the nature of crime in Rio. We always knew the possibility was there which is why I thought we took reasonable precautions to prevent it from occurring, and while I will say, for most of us, they weren't able to make away with anything meaning parts of our personal safety practices did work, I think where we had issues and made us a target in the first place was pulling out our phones on the street even if what we thought was a few seconds, that was all they needed. The second thing, and what we probably should've known going in, but learned later, was that we should just call an uber in the bar/restaurant we were in, then just go straight from the bar to the uber rather than wait on the streets. And I will end with a positive note, yes we experienced a bad side of Rio and unfortunately, that may never leave our heads, but most people we met here were very friendly and helpful, especially our Uber driver, and I really hope I can have a better time here and enjoy the city, though with some extra precautions.