Posted on 01/04/2014 1:06:45 AM PST by nickcarraway
On New Year’s Eve my wife and I were walking back from a restaurant and passed the San Francisco Caltrain station. It was about 9 and the station was abuzz with hundreds of young people who had just gotten off the train and were looking the best way to get to the fireworks on the Embarcadero.
As we passed a bus shelter we heard a young woman say to a guy, “Don’t touch me.’’
We made it about 10 feet before my wife said, “We should go back.’’
“Yep,’’ I said and turned around.
There were actually two guys, maybe early 20s, intoxicated and hyper. Sort of sketchy-looking. They had kind of cornered the girl and her friend, who had their backs to the bus shelter and were facing the men.
“How’s it going here?’’ I said.
“Great man,’’ one of the guys said. “Everything is fine.’’
“Actually, I was asking her,’’ I said. “Is everything OK?’’
“I don’t know these guys,’’ she said.
And of course that reminded me of my daughter. I hope someone would help her should she find herself in an unpleasant situation.
So we asked the girls where they were going. They were waiting for the bus to Fisherman’s Wharf. So we said we’d wait with them and be a buffer between them and the guys. They thought that was a fine idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.sfgate.com ...
Real simple. Guy did the right thing.
Real simple. Guy did the right thing.
They were lucky the guys were just wasted and not carrying knives or guns though.
Could also have called the cops. Then again, we know how that often turns out: you wait around for around half an hour waiting for them to show up.
I was once in this situation. During New York’s darkest days, I saw about five black kids in a Korean-owned dress shop on Third Avenue. They had cornered the young retail clerk in the back of the store. I stood at the door - basically, on the street - and asked the girl if she was “alright.” Clearly, she was not, and she stood there, completely mute. I then asked her to come to the door. I wanted to talk to her. At that point, the men turned on ME and moved in my direction. I ran into the shoe store next store, where I found a guy at the register. He was black. It quickly went through my mind - this guy is not going to help me because he’ll think I’m a racist. But after I told him what was happening, he grabbed a baseball bat from under the counter, went out onto the street, and went after those bastards. I’ve never forgotten that guy or my initial reaction to his skin color.
The guy did the right thing.
Guy did the right thing.
He and his wife did a wonderful thing. However, they should not press their luck by repeating those same reactions. He is right, one of the guys could easily have jammed a knife into his guts as revenge for interrupting the momentum. They could stay within earshot, but at a certain point, those young women made a previous choice to go to Fisherman’s Wharf unescorted, and I presume weapon free. Those guys could have grabbed his wife and made a spectacle of that harassment. If the girls are so easily frightened, it’s up to them to make sure they are at home by dusk.
Agreed. Only in SF would someone argue the point.
But that doesn’t mean the situation might not have gone very far south indeed. That is the possible cost of doing the right thing.
But you’re making the case that the guy was a jerk and that those frightened girls should have been left to their fate.
The guy did the right thing. Period. If something like that happens again, he needs to evaluate the situation like he did before.
Yes, that is the potential cost....
They had every right to go to Fisherman’s Wharf unescorted and unarmed. How many people do that every day? Do all of them deserve to be harmed? Or just the women who dare to venture out without an escort?
I've had 'discussions" with some hooligans a time or two and managed to stay polite and courteous despite the way they comported themselves. Perhaps the way I maintained a distance buffer, but did not try to actually "escape" sunk into their pea-sized brains...
A .38 Spl S&W model 60 in your pocket can be comforting indeed.
“Course today’s “flash mobs” might indicate something with more than 5-shot capacity.
YMMV.
They did the right thing the wrong way.
She should not have ‘got in that guys face’ and he should never have used a form like ‘why don’t you go...’ (or what ever he said).
My advice is to simply run over them. Turn your body into a high velocity mass and smash the closest, break what the other uses to stand on and grab things with.
Being a 260# black belt helps ;)
Personally, I would have done the same thing. Consider that the two young women might have been one of your or my daughters.
The fortunate thing for the “defenders” was that SF is a gun free zone or the event might have turned out quite different.
My advice is to simply run over them. Turn your body into a high velocity mass and smash the closest, break what the other uses to stand on and grab things with.
Being a 260# black belt helps ;)
***
In that case, I would disarm the situation by being hilariously entertaining as, after my frightening charge, I would bounce away like a ping-pong ball off a brick wall.
:-)
I was in this situation once, but it was a setup. At a New Years event at out door venue Tens of thousands revelers. I ran into a young lady I just recently met. As we were talking I saw a young man being overly aggressive with a girl and she was telling him to stop and leave her alone. I spun around and asked the girl is everything alright. Two other men moved in behind me to sucker punch me , as it was a planned attack. To my shock a mass of large men surrounded them and the girl I was talking to told them forcefully to leave and they did. The large men was her big brothers.
Ah the days when the intoxicated were only the Otis type.
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