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Toronto victims injured in car crashes robbed by witnesses

Toronto police tape of the scene at Yorkwoods Gate Plaza on July 28 after a 15-year-old was shot.

There are times, which occur more often than one might wish, when the overwhelming sense of human depravity and rottenness become so prescient that the only rational response is to reject society entirely and build a new life in isolation.

We're not talking about the thoughtless moments when someone cuts you off in traffic, or knocks your latte off the table without apologizing. We are talking about the moments when the depravity of human consciousness is truly exposed. We are talking about the cackling-miser-steals-ice-cream-from-toddler kinds of moments. Which occur more often than one might wish.

Toronto police are investigating two separate robberies that occurred in the past week as the victim laid bleeding and barely conscious following traffic accidents.

Police say a cyclist was struck by a vehicle in downtown Toronto last weekend. She was thrown to the ground and her bag fell from her body.

[ Related: Police charge Edmonton man after son left in hot vehicle ]

Police allege a man began rummaging through the bag and fled with the victim's cell phone. A 36-year-old man was later charged in the case.

The Canadian Press reports that police continue to investigation a Wednesday incident in which a man was struck by a vehicle in the city's north end. As the victim lay bleeding in the street, a woman walked by the scene and stole a roll of coins the man had been carrying.

Two cases. What's the big deal, right? Actually, this happens all the time. Similar cases have recently been reported in Houston, Memphis and Detroit.

In Washington last year, a woman who stopped to help the victims of a car crash was the one who ended up getting robbed.

Local reports say the woman jumped out of her car to help the crash victims and later returned to find someone had slipped into her car and taken $900 from her purse.

[ More Brew: Doctor keeps licence after creating patients to score drugs ]

But perhaps the worst recent instance, which underlines better than all others how humans are capable of having no good inside of them, came out of Calgary earlier this week.

Some common criminals out robbing parked cars took their exploits to another level when they found a small bag containing the ashes of Colleen Ransom’s dead daughter. Emma Ransom was 19 when she was killed in a 2009 car crash. Her mother had kept the ashes in her car as a memorial.

They were found scattered down the street the next morning, dumped, discarded and desecrated by thieves who were out looking to steal spare change and stereos.

Someone remind me there is still good out there, somewhere.

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