A good case for carry permits.

Well, it was 1:40 am in Pioneer Square. You'll get the occasionally mugging.

Suddenly, Seattle thinks it's downtown Portland.

I didn't know panhandler was an immutable characteristic that you could use as a handle in a news story.

I thought that when you try ripping the chains off peoples' necks and then beat them unconscious that you were a mugger or robber. Doesn't "mugger" seem more accurate?

An out-of-town visitor was sent to the hospital with a serious head injury this week after he was assaulted while trying to retrieve a necklace that had been snatched off his body by a panhandler in Pioneer Square.

According to Seattle police, the 25-year-old Oregon man was near the intersection of Occidental Avenue South and Yesler Way around 1:40 a.m. on Tuesday when he was approached by a panhandler asking for money.

The panhandler grabbed the chain from the victim's neck and assaulted the victim when he tried to retrieve it, according to police."

Panhandler implies a harmlessness that certainly does not apply to this perp. The word also conveys a sense of entitlement (a panhandler has a right to "earn" their living like anyone else), they're holding pans out, that's their job.

This entitlement of etymology isn't shared with words like "beggar", or "bum", or "street urchin".