Originally posted by Rosie Vogel:
Recently, a young man in my country was beaten to death by some idiot after he made a remark about the way the other (the idiot) was driving his scooter on the sidewalk and nearly ran over an old lady.
...
I am a woman of average height and not exactly a muscular type. But when I see something like this happening I don't want to just stand there. How should I react?
Start by forgiving the people who were there, and hoping the trauma of watching a man beaten to death is something they can recover from once the adrenalisn is gone.
Next, don't ever be the person who confronts a reckless and angry man. Call the police.
I was actually in a similar situation like this. My neighbor across the street, a bit of a coke freak and sometimes dealer, had for a while a three-wheeler, and at some point had taken to racing it in the park that backs our cul-de-sac. One day my wife and I were walking, infant son in arms, and he starts driving the thing back and forth no more than 5 or 10 feet away.
After we returned home, I called the police. As the patrol car came to our driveway, the guy across the street opened his door and stared straight at ne; he knew what was up. I gave the officer my story, he told me he couldn't do anything about it except talk to the guy. But he did that much.
About 10 minutes later, my neighbor knocks on the door and starts cussing me out for being a rat and an asshole and this and that. I let him say his piece, then I told him the sign to the park that says "No motorized vehicles" was right where he entered the park, and that my wife and I had every right to walk there without worrying about whether he felt like observing the law or not.
Now, I'm not terribly small (or congenial to people I don't like), but I did have a bright light shining in my foyer (such as it is) and I stood right on the door sill, so he had no choice but to look up at me and see mostly a shadow. That didn't keep him from pointing his cigarette in my face and coming up with some other colorful language, but when he was done I told him I couldn't see anything else to do but call the police again and tell them about this conversation. Which, after he left, I did.
I don't know what that officer said the second time around, but I can guarantee I had two things working for me. One, I never did anything more than calmly state my position to this dickhead, and two, I made it very clear I
relied on the police. After that, I didn't even see the guy for weeks, and even then he wouldn't even look at me.
Your mileage may vary of course, but two things that get self-appointed lawkeepers in trouble, time and time again: a) showing fear, and b) pretending not to have any. If you're going to get into an idiot's face, you'd better be thinking more than one step ahead of him.
