Who is "they"??
I only say this as it appears to me to be a very very broard sweeping statment that harbours negative thoughts about "travellers" in which you are very wrong... You may experience this exact same issue with "those local country" types that walk arond with there guns!! or "those towny types" racing round with there cars. But its actualy only another individual bad egg effecting the whole community & they are in every stereotypical community including yours.
"Them & us" can be very damaging when said like that as when somone decides to "go & get 'them'" they might just get the wrong person just like the story you just told.
There are meany meany very friendly open characters from meany meany different traveling communitys I'm included in that, living on a boat mooving up and down the canal system and I know for a fact that the people who you say are "them" are just bad people regardless of there ethnic origin.
Please don't take this personally I'm just trying to point out some truths about people, class structures & that they are nearly always wrong.
Rant over
"corners should be round" Theo Evo .22/.177 - Meopta 6x42, DS huntsman classic .20 vortex razor LH 3-15x42 under supervised boingrati tuning by Tony L & Tinbum, HW77 forest green - Nikon prostaff 2-7x32 plex.