Crime, Safety and Emergencies
Learn 20 A2 English words for crime and emergencies - steal, rob, witness, ambulance, rescue, insurance - with a story and a quiz.
You will probably never need most of this lesson, and if you ever do need it you will need it immediately and in a hurry. It also contains the pair that separates learners from confident speakers – steal and rob – which take completely different objects. Learn the 20 words, then read about the night somebody broke into the flat below mine and what the whole building did about it.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/kraɪm/
An action that is against the law.
Crime here is low, which is why we were all so surprised.
/ˈkrɪmɪnl/
A person who commits crimes.
They were not professional criminals; they were teenagers.
/θiːf/
A person who steals. Plural: thieves.
The thief took a laptop and left a phone.
/stiːl/
To take a thing that is not yours. Past: stole, stolen.
They stole a laptop and some cash.
/rɒb/
To take from a person or a place. You rob a bank, not money.
Somebody robbed the shop on the corner.
/breɪk ˈɪntə/
To enter a building illegally, usually by force.
They broke into the flat through the balcony.
/ˈwɪtnəs/
A person who saw what happened.
The only witness was a woman walking her dog.
/pəˈliːs/
The official force that stops crime. Always takes a plural verb.
The police were there in eleven minutes.
/ɪˈmɜːdʒənsi/
A sudden dangerous situation needing immediate action.
In an emergency, the number here is 911 or 999 or 112.
/ˈæmbjələns/
The vehicle that takes ill or injured people to hospital.
The ambulance arrived before the police.
/ˈfaɪə brɪɡeɪd/
The service that puts out fires. Americans say fire department.
Somebody called the fire brigade as well, just in case.
/ˈæksɪdənt/
Something bad that happens by chance, not on purpose.
It was an accident, not a crime.
/ˈɪndʒəd/
Hurt in an accident or attack.
Nobody was injured, which is the only thing that mattered.
/ˈreskjuː/
To save somebody from danger.
They rescued the cat, eventually, and told nobody.
/seɪf/
Not in danger. The noun is safety.
This street is safe. It is also, apparently, not.
/ˈdeɪndʒərəs/
Likely to cause harm.
The balcony route was dangerous and they took it anyway.
/ˈwɔːnɪŋ/
Something said or shown to tell you about danger.
There had been a warning on the building group chat.
/ɪnˈʃʊərəns/
Money you pay so a company will pay if something goes wrong.
Check whether your insurance covers the window.
/əˈrest/
When the police take somebody away because of a crime.
They were arrested nine days later in another town.
/faɪn/
Money you must pay as a punishment.
He paid a fine and did no more than that.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
The Flat Below
At about two in the morning in February, somebody decided to break into the flat directly below mine. I slept through all of it, which I have never entirely forgiven myself for.
They came over the balconies from the empty flat next door – a route that is genuinely dangerous, three floors up, in the rain. Nobody heard anything except a woman on the ground floor who was awake with a baby and who became, by accident, the only witness anybody had.
They came to steal, and they took a laptop, a camera and about two hundred in cash, and left a telephone on the table, which everybody in this building has had a theory about ever since.
The couple who live there were away. They came back on the Sunday to a broken door and four neighbours standing in their hallway, which is not how anybody wants to end a holiday.
The police came quickly – eleven minutes, which surprised all of us – and were calm and unhurried and asked the same questions four times, which I now understand is the point. Nobody was injured. Nobody had been in the flat. It was, as one of the officers said, the best kind of a bad thing.
The building reacted in a way I did not expect. Within a week there was a light on the back wall, a lock on the roof door that had been broken since 2016, and a group chat that has since become the most active piece of communication in my life. Somebody had actually posted a warning about the empty flat in November. Nobody had read it. Everybody has read everything since.
The rest was paperwork. The insurance paid for the door and the laptop and refused the camera on a technicality that took three phone calls to understand. My neighbour says the whole process cost her more hours than the things were worth.
They caught them. Two boys of nineteen were arrested nine days later in another town after they tried the same thing and a shop robbed in the same street gave the police a picture. Neither of them was a serious criminal. One of them got a fine and community work, which my neighbour thought was too little and my mother thought was about right.
What I remember is not the crime. It is that on the Sunday afternoon, six people who had lived in the same building for years and had never sat down together stood in a hallway drinking tea, and somebody said that it was strange that it took a thief to introduce us.
We are on that group chat every day now. Mostly it is parcels and parking. Twice it has been an emergency – once an ambulance at four in the morning for the man on the second floor after an accident on the stairs, and once the fire brigade, who arrived to rescue absolutely nobody, because the thing on the stove turned out to be smoke and panic. Both times there were people at the door before the vehicles arrived.
I do not feel less safe than I did in January. I feel considerably better known, which is not the same thing, and may be better.
Steal or rob? This is the pair that matters, and the rule is simple once you see it:
You steal a thing. → They stole my laptop.
You rob a person or a place. → They robbed a bank. He was robbed in the street.
✗ They robbed my laptop. ✗ They stole the bank.
Past tenses: steal → stole → stolen (irregular), rob → robbed (regular, with a double b).
Police always takes a plural verb, like staff in the office lesson:
✓ The police are outside. ✗ The police is outside.
And to talk about one person: a police officer, never a police.
Adjective or noun? Learners mix these up under pressure:
safe (adjective) → safety (noun): Is it safe? For your own safety…
dangerous (adjective) → danger (noun): It is dangerous. He is in danger.
Never say it is danger or it is safety.
Break into cannot be separated: they broke into the flat, never they broke the flat into. And the noun for the crime is a break-in or a burglary.
The emergency numbers differ by country – 999 in Britain, 911 in the United States, 112 across Europe. The sentence to have ready is: I need an ambulance. The address is… Give the address first; everything else can wait.
The crime: crime, criminal, thief, steal, rob, break into.
The response: police, arrest, witness, fine.
The emergency: emergency, ambulance, fire brigade, accident, injured, rescue.
Being careful: safe, dangerous, warning, insurance.
Practise the sentence you hope never to use, until it is automatic: I need an ambulance. The address is ______ . A man has fallen and he is injured.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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