Mark Radcliffe wonders what the role of the witness is: to stop a crime or to record it?
When you witness something bad happening near you, what do you do?
Get out your video camera?
Or actually try to stop it?
When a 12 yr-old girl was being beaten by a group of her “friends” in Providence, RI a man living next door chose the former, choosing merely to quietly capture it on camera from next door and post it on YouTube rather than get involved.
Holly Gingerella, the mother of the beaten girl, was deeply upset about his passivity, unsurprisingly.
While I can’t imagine what it would be like to witness something like this, I’d like to believe if I were in that situation I’d do more than just roll tape. I’ve pulled teens off of each other when I was a teacher years ago, but perhaps this neighbor was afraid of whether the girls may harm him.
Still, “bad things happen when good people look the other way,” as the saying goes, and while capturing it on film will help things in the courts and certainly can’t be called looking the other way, I still think it’s incumbent upon us as good citizens—and good neighbors (since this was happening in his neighbors’ yard—to actually take action. It seems if it was simply 12 yr-old girls, and the videographer a grown man, that he at least had the advantage of size and strength if not numbers. A stern command to “stop” from the intimidating voice of an adult or a threat that “the cops are on their way” might have at least caused them to run off.
But when your first reaction upon seeing someone being hurt is to whip out your phone rather than run over to intervene, I think we’ve got a problem. Is technology turning us into a society of passive accomplices who no longer know how to take action?
Maybe the law doesn’t require us to get involved. But doesn’t our conscience?
Photo courtesy of tylerkaraszewsk
About Mark Radcliffe
He absolutely did the right thing by protecting himself from the inevitable accusation of physical or sexual assault by one of the juvenile female assailants.
Exactly. There is absolutely nothing to prevent one of the girls from falsely accusing him of rape or sexual assault.
Asking a man to intervene in a fight between girls is like asking a black man during Jim Crow to intervene in a fight between whites. Its ridiculous. If anybody is going to intervene it should be a woman. After all its not the first time that women have falsely accused a man to cover up a fight:
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2009/08/false-accuser-lied-to-cover-fight-with.html
Good point. Womyn and most girls know that they seldom if ever get into any judicial punishment (if caught) for making a false rape accusation.The ideals of chivalry are chains of lead around a man’s neck. The sooner men throw off those chains the better for all men.
I don’t blame him one bit for not getting involved. He would have had multiple accusations against him from these young thugs.
If your first instinct is to put your own life in danger for every stranger then I think the bigger problem is a complete lack of self-worth.
“I don’t blame him one bit for not getting involved.”
Then you’re a bigger coward than the guy holding the camera. How about calling the police? How about keeping the camera rolling and turning a garden hose on those little assholes. How about yelling out the window to stop?
As a moderator I need to ask you to not accuse other posters of being cowards etc. Aruging the point in the second paragraph is great, but even though you disagree with her, please try not to insult. I’d ask the same of her to you should positions be reversed. Personally, I agree the most ethical thing he could have done was to call 911 and make a lot of noise so they realized he was there, watching.
Sorry…Let me rephrase:
In my opinion, if someone is afraid to stop a child from being beaten in the street, they are a coward. There are a multitude of ways to protect oneself from being wrongfully accused of rape or assault while in the act of preventing a felony. Namely, as the coward in this story so aptly demonstrated competence in: The use of a recording device to capture evidence.
Furthermore, with only a little creativity one my imagine calling the police, recruiting the assistance of other adults to serve as witnesses and to assist with restraining unruly children. There’s a reason why teens are not simply allowed to beat each other bloody when fighting in schools. Teachers and school administrators have no special immunity and are not considered peace officers in the state of Rhode Island, yet they somehow manage to get away with breaking up hundreds of teen fist fights a year.
This hogwash about fearing legal repercussions is just a smokescreen to avoid saying “I’m too afraid of the neighborhood teenage girls” to do anything about it.
Agreed.
Let’s not forget though, turning the water on someone is now considered “assault”. So Jake counsels filming oneself committing assault. Nice. Very nice.
No, I am recommending filming the legal use of reasonable force to defend someone from imminent bodily harm.
There’s a big difference between interfering with a crime in progress and assaulting someone in the eyes of the law. You can continue to pretend there isn’t and try to hide your fear behind that false notion…but then you are just wrong and a coward.
It’s not hogwash at all. It’s somebody else’s bad children and the only thing you can do is call the police and collect evidence. If they happen to swarm you and have weapons then you are putting yourself in danger and risking having to go to court to prove self defense.
There’s plenty of opportunity for big talkers to be a hero and get yourself injured or put in jail.
“…the only thing you can do is call the police and collect evidence.”
Your statement is not true. Not by custom, courtesy or the law. A normal citizen in the state of Rhode Island may interfere with someone in the act of committing a felony. In fact, Rhode Island has…wait for it…a ‘stand your ground’ law.
” If they happen to swarm you and have weapons then you are putting yourself in danger and risking having to go to court to prove self defense.”
This is the issue on which rational people may differ…in my case, this is a risk I am willing to take…and have taken in the past…with much more frightening adversaries.
“There’s plenty of opportunity for big talkers to be a hero and get yourself injured or put in jail.”
Maybe its because of where I grew up…But I don’t see assisting someone who is being beaten up for 20 minutes as being a hero, I see it as being human.
So the kid with the drain shunt in her head was someone else’s bad child?? Are you kidding me?
Your kid has a shunt to her head, obviously somewhat disabled by that, and other kids are beating your kid up.
A grown adult watches this fight, watches this child get the crap beaten out of him/her and you’re cool with the fact that the grown adult simply TAPED it?!
What other things will you sit by and watch? A woman on the street being raped, screaming for help? Will you shut your windows? Because there’s a very famous case of that…
I’m ill. I’m literally ill from this conversation.
What if they had killed that child?! That’s someone else’s baby. Are ANY of you parents?
I’m just horrified.
My conscience would force me to intervene (I’m pretty sure of that), but I’d hate myself afterwards for the likely consequences for my family and partner. It’s just a horrible situation, a cooler, with no good responses. It sounds like this girl needed immediate physical protection, but doing so puts you in severe danger of a sexual assault charge. Even running over yelling does so if there’s no one else around, although you should obviously call the police (and I don’t know why this guy didn’t).
Not to intervene is cowardly but is also the rational option. I couldn’t be so rational myself, but I’m not inclined to damn those who are.
“There are a multitude of ways to protect oneself from being wrongfully accused of rape or assault while in the act of preventing a felony.”
If you are a teacher then you have authority over these children, if you are a stranger you do not. I can’t imagine how this man could have protected himself with witnesses or evidence in a moments notice if he needed to put down the camera and become physically involved.
He should have called the police, of course, but physically involving himself with children would very likely lead to accusations against him that he would have to spend mucho $$$ to defend against and deal with the hassle of court and stigma of allegations.
It’s not cowardice, it’s smart and getting physically involved with stranger children is just plain foolish.
“If you are a teacher then you have authority over these children, if you are a stranger you do not.”
A teacher has no special legal protection from prosecution in Rhode Island.
A teacher and a stranger have precisely the same level of responsibility in this case to act as well.
None.
Take care of your family first is all that matters. Friends second, community comes eventually. Overall, I see nothing but a parenting matter here, and the kids should have been corrected.
You are wrong and naive is a gentle way to describe your comments above. Yes, the man should have called the police. It is not his duty in today’s society (largely a result of influence of political-correctness and feminism the past forty plus years) to break up a fight that can lead to his own legal defense problems. Nor is it his duty to take a knife in his back. ‘A multitude of ways’… (eyes rolling here in laughter).
Round of applause for Jake. I agreed with everything you’ve said. I’d much rather have you as my neighbor than a lot of people on this blog. the degree of indifference and complacency people feel today is probably why society is down the toilet.
“turning a garden hose on those little assholes”
For this you could get charged with assault. If they guy has a job and got charged with assault he could lose his job and have a difficult very getting another job because his assault would come up on background checks.
Shout at the kids and they might vandalize your house and they WILL beat the girl up at another time. So you haven’t solved anything.
Or you could call the police. By the time the police come the fight will be over and the kids will probably disband. And calling the police does absolutely nothing to stop future assaults which WILL definitely happen.
From what I remember about fights, whenever they are stopped they are continued later for SURE. Its as if the bullies save the fight for later. And once they decide they want to fight, there is absolutely nothing you can do to get out of it. The fight is going to happen one way or the other. Repreives are at best temporary.
Video taping is actually a pretty good idea in many ways.
Good points. But why put it on youtube instead of just going to the parents?
I agree he shouldn’t have posted on youtube. I would have gone to the parents or to the police.
Yes. That’s the big problem I have with his actions. “Getting involved” doesn’t necessarily mean jumping into the fray. It could be as simple as calling the police. He could have at least rationalized the filming as “collecting evidence” instead of “I can’t wait to put this on YouTube!”
Calling the cops is at least “due diligence.” Sure, if the fight was short and didn’t cause any permanent damage, calling the cops would probably not make any difference, but how do you know how long the fight is going to last?
I’d find it much more understandable if he just left the scene and went home and locked the door. That’s much more excusable than staying to film it. If he was scared of retaliation, wouldn’t he be scared of retaliation for filming the whole thing?
Wasn’t the Seinfeld series finale all about this topic? Filming an assault instead of helping?
How about YELLING at the girls? How about holding his phone up and saying “I’ve called the police, get off that girl!”? How about calling the police.
I’m actually nauseous at the discourse here. I’m sad that the way that the world has treated many of you has made you this afraid of the world. I’m sad that you’re willing to stand up for a man who watched a child get beaten and say he did the right thing.
I wonder if any of you are the ones who say people aren’t interfering with bullying enough? I sincerely hope I don’t ever hear from any of you about how boys aren’t stood up for when they’re being bullied.
Because guess what? This girl was being bullied. Did she not deserve to be stood up for the way a boy would be?
If you want bullying to stop, but you’re not willing to do it, and you’ll applaud those who allow it to happen, you cannot insist that bullying has to stop.
Amen, Joanna.
Well said, Joanna. Holy cow these other comments are frightening.
One fight does not make bullying, certainly when boys are concerned. Unless you knew in advance the victim was lured to the location for the express reason of being assaulted then it could just as easily been a street brawl between friends.
Did the observer know all the facts that have been presented at the time of the attack?
Your whole entire response is based on fear. In every state in this country a person has a right to use reasonable force to defend self or others from imminent bodily harm.
Your argument is valid if it is “I am afraid to get involved”. Stop trying to rationalize your fear away.
Based on a legitimate fear. Every state may support the right to use reasonable force in self defense. But in order to make use of it it has to be shown it was self defense and in this country there have been cases where what most people would call self defense isn’t classified as such.
There are plenty of instances in this country where people thought they could depend on the law to protect them and they ended up finding out the hardway that no such protection would be extended to them.
So could it be that someone is afraid to get involved? Possibly so. Does that mean the fear is not legitimate. Maybe maybe not.
Tell that to Trayvon Martin. A bit of a throw away line, but seriously, you really really can end up dead, even if some weirdo is following you in a van asking “What are you doing here?”
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me
.
Author–Martin Niemöller, a German pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892
Never intervene when violence involves a female; you WILL wind up accused of sexual assault.
Be a citizen-journalist instead; document the incident for the authorities to use in redressing the problem.
Side note to guys: It’s no longer our job to be protectors and white knights of females, at risk to ourselves. Equality’s a wonderful thing.
Copyleft;
You got a point here. There is a possibility of getting arrested for something when your trying to help.
But how would you feel if your sister/wife/female friend was beaten and people just watched or videotaped the incident? I’d feel differently then.
I’d rather be arrested for trying to help, than finding out someone was seriously injured or killed and I did nothing. I could not sleep at night with that.
Since it appears he filmed it on his cell phone, I would imagine the safest right thing to do would have been use the phone to call 911, instead of filming a group of children beating up another child and then subsequently posting it to the internet for kicks.
Right thing for the wrong reason I say. As others have said above I don’t blame him one bit for not getting involved in that fight and I think that recording it was probably the next best thing he can do. If he had interfered instead of recording it would the proverbial “he said, she said”. With a recording the attackers don’t have a leg to stand on unless that video is somehow disallowed as evidence (but that shouldn’t be an issue if it happened in public).
On the other hand why didn’t he take that video straight to the police?
so… if this little girl ended up paralyzed for life or dead, would you still congratulate your inaction as the right thing to do? way to go.
Why is a man responsible for a stranger, woman or man? The victim is not a friend or relative (as far as I know). What if they are also carrying knives, would you congratulate him on his intervention if he ended up paralysed or dead, or imprisoned on a false assault conviction?
Here we are, in this day and age, trying to get kids to not be passive bystanders when they see other kids being bullied, and people are arguing that this man did the right thing by not intervening, but instead stood by and videotaped the incident! Wow. Just wow. There are numerous ways he could have done something without physically stepping in (if that is a worry), as some have said, including calling 911. I would ask, also, if that had been your daughter, how you would feel if someone had simply watched her being beaten and done nothing. It makes me sick to think that any of my neighbors (who all know my daughter and are friends with us, by the way) would not have helped. It seems to me that, in the heat of a moment like this, people (man, woman, or whatever) would simply do the right thing.
Men are finally (long overdo) waking up to the reality of how the Criminal Courts (and Family Courts) and society as a whole are biased against adult men. I promise that you and all others will see more and more adult men standing aside and refusing to be chivalrous protector knights.
Is that your dream world, Aharon? Where no one stands up for you? For your children?
Will that prove to society that you’ve been right all along? Will you sit there, arms crossed, and say, “Told ya so. You, as a society, prosecuted some of us falsely and now we won’t help children who are being beaten. You happy?”
Is that your dream for our world?
Nevermind, don’t answer, I need to step away from this conversation, as I’m already crying. I can’t believe how sad this is.
“Is that your dream world, Aharon? Where no one stands up for you? For your children?
Will that prove to society that you’ve been right all along? Will you sit there, arms crossed, and say, “Told ya so. You, as a society, prosecuted some of us falsely and now we won’t help children who are being beaten. You happy?”
Is that your dream for our world?”
Welcome to the matriarchy! How do you like it, so far? And yes this is because our society is becoming a matriarchy. Google – The Garbage Generation – and read. Did you know that matriarchies are, ironically, dangerous for women to live in? Read the book and find out.
It is certainly no one’s dream for the world, but this man made exactly the right choice by not getting involved. Your anger is misplaced at Aharon. You should be angry at the feminists who influenced our society, and our society’s laws, so that the most rational choice for men to make in this situation is to not get involved.
This is a problem that feminists created and it’s one they’ll have to fix, because men will be shouted down and be called names if they try to.
Now excuse me, while I don’t man up and go play some videos games.
So feminism is to blame for men and women deciding not to be good citizens in general? Not an increasingly depersonalized corporate structure in the workplace, cultural norms that reward greed and selfishness and a complete focus on “me” entitlement from soup to nuts? Good to know.
I suppose Feminism is responsible for the corporate model altogether.
Yes, feminism is to blame from preventing men, in situations like these, from being, as you put it, “good citizens”. A woman could freely do the right thing without any having to worry about any repercussions.
And yes it is because of feminism and not some abstract, nebulous “corporate model”.
Good to know! the nebulous corporate model I speak of is that we live in a society that places a huge emphasis on money, greed, wealth, litigation, and individualism to the point of Randian Going Galt. I have no doubt in my mind that the people commenting about taking care of themselves are influenced as much if not more by those cultural mores set into place a century ago.
It might surprise you, Neo, that I think women are just as capable of violence as men, all kinds of violence. It might also surprise you to know that I think female on male abuse is real and that the idea of men as always equalling predator is abhorrent to me. It might also also surprise you to know that I’m all for women taking good care of the self, helping out in times of crisis and being a good citizen to men and women.
I think there are two scenarios when I hear about false accusation, both of them believable. 1) the accuser has a personality disorder, is unstable, and is causing trouble purposefully. 2) the accussee has a personality disorder, is unstable, and is causing trouble purposefully. I think men and women are equally able to have personality disorders, commit crimes, and manipulate systems.
That being said, as a feminist for nigh on 33 years now, I think it’s in all of our best interests to look out for each other if for no other reason than good fucking karma. Call 911 from your car if that’s the safest thing to do, but call. I’d do it for you!
“the nebulous corporate model I speak of is that we live in a society that places a huge emphasis on money, greed, wealth, litigation, and individualism to the point of Randian Going Galt.”
But you’re ignoring the interaction between the current corporate model and the influence feminism had on creating it. You see them as seperate, despite the fact these attributes are all over feminism. A significant degree of the issues feminism revolves around involve the corporate world, money, greed, wealth. The insistance on things like affirmative action to ensure women, regardless of merit, are granted positions within the top earning positions within our corporate world (yet ignore all the dangerous jobs also dominated by men) demonstrates very much these aspects. The constant threat of litigation for those that don’t pay close attention to women’s needs and feeling with regards to workplace advancement or general working conditions, again, demonstrates the greed and litigation aspect, as well as promoting the depersonalization/individualism you mention. The demand for self sufficiency rather than co-operative partnerships within relationships promotes individualism. And of course, the constant and perpetual expanding of the definition of domestic violence and rape, to include basic human interactions, promotes, again, the greed (use of false allegations in family courts, or in rarer cases, blackmail DSK), litigation and individualism (men have never even heard of the men’s rights movement are still going their own way). so you can’t really divorce feminism from the corporate model you’re trying to pin this on. And again, as Neo points out, the consequences this guy can face due to the attackers being female and he male are also very much a result of the litigation element, made possible by feminisms ever expanding definitions of sexual harassment and assault.
I think this is very interesting. Will digest, and respond but might be a bit.
“Not an increasingly depersonalized corporate structure in the workplace, cultural norms that reward greed and selfishness and a complete focus on “me” entitlement from soup to nuts?”
Do you not think that feminism has played a very prominent role in making the workplace depersonalised? With the constant threat of sexual harassment and/or suits looming over everyone’s head should they say or do something that offends someone else who may have been passing by, I’d say that very much depersonalizes people. I read a story months back, where a guy got reprimanded for sexual harassment because he gave a friend/co-worker a gag gift for his birthday that a lady elsewhere in the office found offensive. She wasn’t even involved in the gift giving. You don’t think stuff like this makes for impersonal workplace environments?
And are you really suggesting feminism has played no part in the entitlement issues of our current generation? With all the girl power, women can do anything they want (and a sexual discrimination suit will ensure nobody tries to say she isn’t qualified), girls deserve this, gives are entitled to that, etc etc etc. yet never any mention of what girls should be giving in exchange for that. Feminism is very much a take take take movement. As an example, You’ll often see feminists “say” they would pay for their own way on dates, but at no point do I ever see feminists demanding of women that they should… it’s an “if you want to, you can pay” or I do it “to prove I’m self sufficient” (which also goes back to the depersonalization thing). The only demands ever made are of men.
And of course, the destruction of the family, a goal set out by many early feminists, and played out through the failures of equality in family courts, failures that are supported and perpetuated by feminist groups like NOW. I’d say the family destruction, and the inevitable purchasing of love and forgiveness by the guilty parents for not being around as often as the kids need, also results in depersonalization and a sense of entitlement. So, while I don’t think Feminism is solely to blame for our cultures unwillingness to help, I do think it has played a significant role in both depersonalizing everyone, creating a sense of entitlement in our younger generation (and the older generation of women) as well as in creating a number of legal deterrents to aiding those in distress.
“Do you not think that feminism has played a very prominent role in making the workplace depersonalised? With the constant threat of sexual harassment and/or suits looming over everyone’s head should they say or do something that offends someone else who may have been passing by, I’d say that very much depersonalizes people.”
Sure. And I’d also say that jokes, touches, etc were depersonalizing prior to Politically Correct rules in the workplace. Is the choice “no lawsuits, anything goes, grab ass/racial comments/homophobia?” vs “no smiling, lawsuits a plenty/policing language?” Both seem depersonalizing to me.
But the depersonalization I was speaking of isn’t so much about political correctness as it is money, greed and placing shareholders first. If you have to fight for funding for things like cancer research (male or female) because the pharma wants to make sure it gets $$$ (not the pride of healing cancer), and so they take on the group with the most money to spend on their drug and too bad about the other group with less people, less money or less influence. This is what I’m talking about. Is it fair? No. But that’s always how money and politics has worked, no matter the groups, male or female etc.
i don’t consider intervening in this situation as being “chivalrous”, i consider it “responsible” and “decent”. this isn’t like pulling out a girl’s chair at dinner or opening a door for someone – this girl could have been beaten to paralysis or death – intervening could save a human life. if you think that it’s not in your best interest to help another human being in need, that’s fine, but please don’t confuse it with chivalry. ask most women today and they’ll tell you, chivalry died a LONG time ago.
The chivalry inherent in this discussion is the expectation that a man ‘should’ intervene. What happened to ‘his body, his choice’ ? In this age of alleged equality, men no longer bear the burden of protecting women. Chivalry is another word for pedestalisation; women are no more, and no less, valuable than men.
§ 9-1-27.1 Good Samaritan – Immunity from liability.
No person who voluntarily and gratuitously renders emergency assistance to a person in need thereof including the administration of life saving treatment to those persons suffering from anaphylactic shock shall be liable for civil damages which result from acts or omissions by such persons rendering the emergency care, which may constitute ordinary negligence. This immunity does not apply to acts or omissions constituting gross negligence or willful or wanton conduct.
http://www.cprinstructor.com/RI-GS.htm
That’s relevant to first aid, not relevant to getting involved in a street fight.
Not exclusively first aid, no. It protects anyone (“No person…”) and, it can be argued, puts a responsibility on one to act (“his immunity does not apply to acts or OMISSIONS…”).
All Good Samaritan laws in the US stem from the Kitty Genovese case from 1964. A woman was being stabbed to death in New York City and apparently over 37 people heard her screaming for help. No one helped.
Feel free to keep discussing the legal technicality or what could happen to one who puts his camera down and tries to help. But what about the natural instinct to help? As the author points out “when your first reaction upon seeing someone being hurt is to whip out your phone rather than run over to intervene, I think we’ve got a problem.”
Have the legal realities of society curbed our natural instinct to help our fellow man?
Or are we using these legal realities as an excuse / rationale for not caring about one another?
“Have the legal realities of society curbed our natural instinct to help our fellow man?
Or are we using these legal realities as an excuse / rationale for not caring about one another?”
Sadly, it’s probably both. There are a lot of people out there that I presume are paranoid about helping. You’ve seen this in the comments. Now, I don’t doubt some of them have reason to be. There are bad people of all stripes out there, but I personally don’t believe there is an epidemic of false accusations racing through the country like a field on fire. I don’t buy it.
I do think that when dealing with violent teens the best recourse would have been to a) call 911 and b) continue filming for parents c) make noise attract attention, and then d) when the area was clear race to help the child. That’s what I’d do, false accusations be damned (and yes, I’m sure women get false accusations launched on them too, but I don’t want to live in a society where everyone is so paranoid they won’t act as community members).
I most certainly wouldn’t have posted the damn thing on youtube.
There are bad people of all stripes out there, but I personally don’t believe there is an epidemic of false accusations racing through the country like a field on fire. I don’t buy it.
Its not a matter of there being an epidemic. Its a matter of a given person thinking, “Will I be one that it happens to?” Fact of the matter is that it does happen. (And on a side note I have to say that this sounds like you might be saying that, “since such false accusations don’t meet the bar of what I would call a wide spread problem you shouldn’t be too worried about it happening to you.”)
I wonder what I would do in that guy’s shoes. It would be all heroic to declare that I would have gotten involved but frankly I’ve never been in that situation so who knows, I may act, I may freeze up, I may run, etc….
(And on a side note I have to say that this sounds like you might be saying that, “since such false accusations don’t meet the bar of what I would call a wide spread problem you shouldn’t be too worried about it happening to you.”)
And I hear this on both sides Schroedinger’s Rapist/Schrodinger’s False Accuser.
Here’s the deal. There are fucked up people in this world. Really, seriously, totally fucked up people. And for the most part, they look like everyone else in the world. Some of them are so clever (male or female, gay or straight) that you’d never know what horrors they were capable of. They don’t wear signs like “Hey I”m a sociopath!” or “Hey, I’ve got BPD!”
One has to decide to life life trusting one’s own self as best as possible, maintaining a sense of caution about the world and the people in it, or one could also choose to be completely paranoid about everyone. I’d risk a lawsuit to help the kid, but that’s me. I also walk down the street a night a lot. Alone.
I also trust the people in my life until they prove otherwise.
And its great that you do. Like I say I don’t know if I would or not unless I was actually in such a situation.
But for some reason that doesn’t stop people (as a few comments here are saying) from declaring that people that wouldn’t are just cowards with no legitimate reason to be afraid of stepping in.
I realize that. I’m certainly aware that this situation is sticky and difficult and nasty in all ways.
” This immunity does not apply to acts or omissions constituting gross negligence or willful or wanton conduct.”
I repeat
“wanton conduct.”
Sexual assault allegations are not protected by this clause.
Mark,
What if one or more of those teen girls later claimed that while breaking up the fight the adult man ‘touched’ them inappropriately? The man would be arrested and at worst sent away to jail or prison for awhile. Then there are the mammas who might want some of his money….BTW, so what if an adult ordered them to break up? Do you imagine that is some sort of command that all kids will obey? The man was a jerk for not calling 911 immediately. PS: 25% of the street assaults in London are now done by teenage girls and young women. They can certainly kick hard and slash quick with a knife. Don’t you just love modern society and all its wonders?
Fear! Fear! Fear!
Just say it: I would be afraid to get involved. Stop trying to rationalize your fear and own it.
Have you never heard that “no good deed goes unpunished.”
Then should we all just do no deeds? Or bad deeds? Is that the alternative? Create a world even more messed up than the one currently operating?
Don’t trouble the trouble until it troubles you. Better safe than sorry.
No we just shouldn’t be so quick to call someone a coward with no reason to be afraid when they don’t do some good act.
Men being called on to be protectors is gone along with the 20th century. Men, simply because of their sex, face false accusations, public shaming, imprisonment and long-term loss of income if they intervene in something like what this article describes. When men are deliberately discouraged, by women, from pursuing employment that puts them in contact with children, the idea that a man would deal with girls who are strangers to him is naive to say the least.
it is easy to say you would intervene when you don’t understand what you can lose from what you think is a normal act of a responsible adult. Even if you get a day in court, that too costs you money and your reputation will be slurred in the media regardless of the outcome of the trial.
Consider what occurred concerning the two women jumping the counter at McDonalds and the outrage directed at the man who defended himself and his co-workers against their criminal assault. Sure, he was cleared of wrongdoing after being shamed by the media and losing his job.
I’m not sure its quite true that he was expected to intervene just because he was male. I think if a woman had been there and shot that footage (and then put it up on youtube??) there would have been questions raised as to why she didn’t do anything.
The rest is sadly somewhat true though.
I’m not sure about that. As Transhuman says men have been called on to be protectors for a long time. And the sad fact is people (men and women) have come to use that call to their advantage. Male politicians that are all about “helping women” (translation: they have no problem mowing down other men if it will make them popular with women). Women who lie to other guys about being attacked by a man just to get them to attack them in her stead.
Even as recently as a year or so ago in a case where a young girl was gang raped in public the question some people were asking was, “Why didn’t the male onlookers do something about it?”.
And considering how men that are falsely accused are lucky to get anything more than an apology it seems like people are still expecting men answer this call despite being basically told that if its a false alarm or if something bad happens to a guy that answers that call he is on his own, I don’t blame guys one bit for being afraid to act.
But I wonder. That “call” is mostly an appeal to chivalry. I’m regularly hear about how chivalry is so oppressive and harmful to women and all that. If that’s the case then why do people still hold onto parts of it like this for deal life? There is a difference between expecting someone to act because they are part of a community and expecting someone to act just because they are male.
Did he in fact lose his job? That’s news to me.
It seems that would be a groundless firing and he should be able to sue.
This happened to me years back. I was walking home from school through a nice neighbourhood along a busy street and three kids started beating the crap out of me. This was right outside a butcher’s shop with big glass windows (aswell as a bunch of other shops along the road) and with lots of passing traffic. I got offers of help after they’d finished but it was a bit late then.
My dad later asked the butcher what he’d seen and why he didn’t do anything and he said that he thought it was just kid’s messing, but also that if he had realised it was a real fight he was afraid his business would be targeted and he’d end up getting bricks through his window. Honestly I find it hard to blame him, people forget how dangerous young kids can be, especially if they realise that the law can’t really touch them.
Maybe he was trying to raise awareness about the level of violence in his neighbourhood and acknowledging that not only did he not have the power to help, but the police wouldn’t do anything either?
“especially if they realise that the law can’t really touch them”
And what delinquents don’t know this all too well these days?
Then again, if the girls are so totally scary, wouldn’t the guy also be too afraid to film them? I mean, if they would attack him for yelling at them, wouldn’t they attack him for filming them as well?
It’s hard to believe the girl bullies would be totally fine if you collected visual evidence of their crime but they’d be mad at you if you tried to discourage them in any way. They’d be mad at both, wouldn’t they?
The fear of retaliation argument doesn’t hold water to my mind if that’s the explanation for not getting involved in any other way except filming the fight.
At least if its on film then he can prove he didn’t assault them, or that they attempted to assault him. I know at least one person who isn’t currently facing proceedings due to this fact.
You are mixing the two scenario’s up. In the one you replied to, a shopkeeper didn’t get involved due to the fear of retaliation against his business. In the second, the man didn’t get involved due to retaliation with the use of false accusations of sexual misconduct. In nether case was it said a physical beatdown was the cause of fear. But I suppose arguing that strawman is easier than debating the points,
What kind of world do you live in!? People are fighting and you guys are afraid of being accused? I truly hope your lack of action wont set an example. Don’t expect others to help you while bleeding on the street.
Wake up people
One instance where I intervened in public was when a gang of six young women were threatening and abusing some tourists, it seems the thugs believed the tourists had taken their photo and were threatening harm to them if they did not surrender their camera. Lines of women, and men, walked by, ignoring the altercation that was conducted at screaming pitch. I was waiting for a colleague for a meeting and this argument came in my direction. The tourists looked terrified in the face of the women’s naked aggression.
I and one other suited businessman exchanged a glance, folded our hands in front of us and stepped towards the tourists, we stared down the women and conducted the visitors to the local police watch point. It was simple, it was non-violent and it was effective. Except, instead of anyone in authority being thankful two strange men had intervened with no harm to anyone we were quizzed as to whether we had touched any of the women and had we threatened them. Friends and family of mine were shocked that I risked being knifed for some random strangers. Seven days later I realised they had a point, a man was beaten to death when he intervened less than 100 metres from where I took action on behalf of the tourists. The man he tried to help died also at the hands of the thugs.
I drew satisfaction from the simple thanks from the elderly tourists and the thanks from the other businessman, who was and remains a complete stranger to me.
I realise now that any mistake on my part, touching the women anywhere would have been assault, touching them anywhere near their upper body would be typified as sexual assault. Even if I was defending myself or the tourists. The coppers didn’t care that six women threatened to smash an elderly man’s face in and break his camera over his wife’s head.
I relate this example from my experience to put your comment in perspective. if you don’t consider what you are going to do very carefully, you will be the one facing charges not the thugs you stopped. The thugs will whinge about a bad childhood, being women they will be given soft treatment because they were emotional. You, as a man, don’t have the luxury of any of those defences. You are always treated as an adult and assumed to be fully in control of your faculties at all times.
Being cautious is not the same as being fearful.
“Don’t expect others to help you while bleeding on the street. ”
Believe me I don’t. I damn near lost everything I owned (and I’m not exaggerating) trying to help people I thought were my friends, and when I actually needed the help? I was metaphorically spat on.
So call me bitter, call me paranoid, call me a g/d coward if you want, but I’m through risking my neck for other people.
Fear of false accusations are only a part of the ‘don’t get involved’ theme, folks.
The other part is purely male: We are DONE being the designated protectors and defenders in every altercation. It’s not our job to hurl ourselves into danger for the benefit of women and children any more. Our lives have value too; men are tired of being the disposable element of society.
Correction: SOME men are DONE coming to the aid of those in need.
For those men who see their lives as being worth less than everyone elses, then yes, they are free to reap the benefits of their low self esteem.
You go, bro! Preach it!
trust me, a lot of women get that men don’t want to be protectors anymore. just quit expecting women to be “feminine” and we’ll call it even. thanks.
The videographer should be ashamed. A grown man who could have had daughters that age, and he didn’t have the instinct to go over to stop the beating…what an idiot. I have nothing else to say.
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” ~ Haile Selassie
I note also lots of comments about the behaviour of the man who filmed the assault, what about the thugs beating up the girl…don’t they deserve greater criticism for actually conducting the attack?
They do deserve greater criticism, of course. No one is saying they shouldn’t, but people who want to harm are going to harm unless they have some external force that stops them or scares them, so the “thugs” are completely irrelevant in this situation. We are talking about a man who merely recorded a girl getting beat up and posted it up on Youtube where she could face humiliation from an entire world because the internet isn’t always kind to victims.
I, too, cannot believe some of the cowardly comments coming from the people of this article. I’m not going to repeat what has already been said, only that I am saddened that in this day and age people are so selfish to put themselves before others and let fear control every decision they make.
” but people who want to harm are going to harm unless they have some external force that stops them or scares them, so the “thugs” are completely irrelevant in this situation.”
And what’s to say the grown man intervening would act as an external force to stop or scare them, rather than as another target on which to cause harm?
“We are talking about a man who merely recorded a girl getting beat up ”
Not a kid, but a “girl” specifically. If it was a boy, this man’s behaviour would have been more acceptable?
“put themselves before others and let fear control every decision they make”
Isn’t that the creed of gender feminism?
of course it wouldn’t have been more acceptable. it’s not about the fact that man filming was a “man” and the group of attackers were “girls”. to me, at least, it’s about the person filming being an adult and the attackers being kids. if he had run over yelling at the kids and telling them to “get off!” without laying a hand on any of them, while on his cell phone talking to the 911 operator or video taping them with his phone – he would have had 1) evidence 2) spared the girl further beating. if it was an adult woman and the attackers were girls or boys, i would still be equally disgusted by her inaction. adults need to intervene. if that girl was paralyzed or beaten to death, how could you, as an adult, cope with NOT intervening?
The justice system would have taken care of those thugs, but at the time of beating…that girl needed help; she needed justice done ASAP. So the criticism lies with the witness. That witness/videographer had the ability to intervene and to stop it, or at the very least expressed his disapproval. And there was no indication that he would have put himself in harm’s way. He did neither; he failed that girl and he failed society. If he were my father, I would be ashamed.
There’s nothing interesting about the behavior of the girls. They were clearly in the wrong. What’s to discuss?
It sounds like there are a lot of people (especially women) on GMP who feel that witnesses should physically intervene if necessary in violent situations. Well as someone who HAS physically intervened about half a dozen times I can say I’m still waiting for any female help. Please feel free to jump right in. The male help hasn’t been all that stellar either but at least I’ve gotten some interest. How about getting some experience behind you before you start condemning anyone else. Try doing what my wife did. Physically interposing yourself between an abusive husband and his wife when the husband has just starting his regular beat down of the little woman in the local grocery story. It would have ended badly except for some nearby males who were goaded into action by a pregnant woman (that’s right, my wife was 6-7 months pregnant at the time) who then stepped up and shut the abuser down. Or you could try what my sister-in-law did. Jump on to a gunman who is wrestling your husband for possession of the gun. That one ended with a round through the hand for my brother and sore ribs for my sister-in-law. Score two for the girls in the guts department. Please don’t tell me that they are the only ones out there. (Insert Smiley face here).
Now I’m not trying to goad YOU into doing something potentially foolish or excessively dangerous. I’m just trying to get you to think about things. The other side isn’t necessarily cowards, and they do have some points.
Throwing another one of those gender counterfactual spins here:
If it was a woman who filmed it instead of a man, would we have the same expectation of the witness to get involved? Especially to get in there and break up the fight? Somehow I doubt it.
That’s the funny thing about this thread. All the people who are arguing against showing the victim in this story some humanity are turning this into a gender issue. Not once has anyone asked me whether or not it matters whether the victim is a guy or the perpetrators are guys.
This whole argument is just stupid. If you don’t think it’s a good idea to help the victim of a crime in progress because you are scared fine. Just say ‘I’m scared’ and hope that if you are ever the victim someday there are people braver than you around.
It really doesn’t matter if what you are afraid of is retaliation, physical harm, financial harm or false accusations of rape…you are afraid. It’s OK by the way…All people are afraid. Some of us are just less fearful than others.
The point is…if you, or your mother, or your sister or child was the victim…you’d be glad if someone who wasn’t a total coward was there to step in.
Maybe Men aren’t as use to calling the police for help as women are, especially considering that the assailants were young girls.
In the end, this guy was probably a coward for not getting involved, a moron for not calling the cops and a sadist for up loading the ordeal on to YouTube which is in fact a crime.
With all that said, I think you’re underestimating the fear men have of being labeled a pedophile. personally I wouldn’t have restrained any of the attackers nor would I have made myself a human shield for the victim and I use to break up fights in a women’s shelters for a living. When garments get ripped your hands go up in the air and you step away from the ruckus.
This was in reply to my earlier message, so I’ll respond by trying to speak only for myself.
“All the people who are arguing against showing the victim in this story some humanity are turning this into a gender issue.”
This sentence seems to imply that the people asking about gender have no sympathy for the victim. That’s a pretty big leap, to my mind. I don’t know if I would have physically intervened, but I like to think there are a lot of options besides getting physical, doing nothing, or filming the whole thing. Giving good explanations for not entering into the fight is not the same as justifying his filming it.
A question about gender does not turn the whole thing into a gender issue. This is a website that regularly addresses gender issues, particularly about masculinity, so it’s not too surprising that gender comes up. Maybe the gender of the bystander or victim shouldn’t matter. I would agree that it should make no difference. Unfortunately, to a lot of people it does, in some ways that are hard to avoid.
I think some of the people bringing up gender are suggesting that outsiders who weren’t there may have a tendency to interpret the bystander’s action in gendered terms. They shouldn’t, but they might.
Picture a man accused of getting fresh with some girls in the neighborhood. Perhaps he’s a bit of a loner or sometimes thought of as creepy. He says, “But I was just breaking up a fight they were having!” Would you really believe him? I’m not sure I would, to be honest….
As I say below, what if your child was the bystander? Would you still be so eager for the bystander to get involved?
The guy with the cell phone has a mother….
i WOULD expect a woman to “get in there and break up the fight”. The woman is an ADULT and those are KIDS fighting. I have a feeling that any adult (man or woman) showing up and yelling at them that they’ve been caught, that the police are on the way, and that their parents will be notified, is enough to break up the fight. Physical intervention is prob not needed, just the authority of being an adult and the WILL to intervene when another human being’s life is at stake.
What does it say about our society that he would just stand there and film it….
Well, what does it say about our society that the guy with the cell phone is the focus of the attention? What does it say that the headline on the CNN story is about the bystander, when he’s only a small part of the text of the story?
This is a horrible story. His filming the assault is not actually the most horrible part of the story. It’s the part that’s been chosen as the headline of the story, and the focus of the GMP coverage of it, but it is not the worst part of the story. There is something very telling here, and yes I think gender constructions have a role to play, about how he has become the center of the story. I suspect headlining him is about playing to society’s expectations about what he should have done. Fair enough, but should he really be the center of the story?
A child invited another child to her house, and with her friends beat, bit, and pounded the head of the child who was supposedly their friend. (If these had been boys, I guarantee one of them would have been called the “leader” of a “gang” and the article would have said they “lured” the victim. Seems appropriate to use those terms here as well.) For one of the girls, this was not the first time she had done something like this, as her mother knew fully well.
I’m honestly trying not to read too much into the choice of headline, but it almost sounds like CNN thinks his role is the most interesting part of the story. I’m not sure what to make of that. I suspect part of it is the prurient “man films girl fight” aka “girls gone wild” fantasy suggestion that’s there to hook some readers. I hope it’s not that we as a society are ho-hum about some 12 year olds conspiring to beat the crap out of a schoolmate and get it all on tape. Is there some sort of “girls will be girls” subtext here? I hope I’m wrong about that.
I’d be curious to hear from those who are more journalism/media savvy than I am about choosing headlines for stories. I suggest a multitude of equally valid headlines for this story, based on the text of the CNN article. I’m not a journalist, so sorry if some of these are clunky:
Mother: Daughter’s Third Violent Assault is the Last Straw
Girl Garden Gang Beats, Bites Brain-Damaged Schoolmate
Playdate Turns Violent as Girl Gang Beats, Bites 12 Year Old “Friend”
Neighbor Films Girl Bully Conspiracy Next Door
Footage of Violent Kids Caught on Two Cell Phones
Neighbor, Bullies Film Kids’ Violence in Garden
(I like the last two the best. They’re gender neutral. Why make this about gender, right?)
I hadn’t realised it happened on private property, all the more reason he couldn’t intervene.
With all due respect to the concerned parents out there, it’s easy to say call the police, but hard to say get directly involved. Imagine that one of your children was not in the position of the victim but was in the position of a witness. Do you still want every witness to get involved in a violent altercation? Your son sees other boys fighting. Are you really teaching him to dive in there and try to put a stop to it? Your son sees a drug deal go down on a street corner. Do you want him to go over there and threaten the drug dealers with calling the police?
I expect a lot of parents in that situation would say to that child, “Why are you getting involved with fighting and drug dealing? Stay away from those people!”
I yell at drivers who drive too fast down my dead-end street where there are lots of kids playing. My wife tells me not to because she’s convinced that someday I’m going to get shot doing that. It’s not just crazy “the system hates men!” basket cases telling us not to get involved….
umm hello….he has a camera to prove he would only b trying to help….as he was recording he could still yell stop or whatever and that he was calling the police so then the girls wouldnt be able to make any false accusations..you people r idiots that say he should of stayed out of it…
Jake DiMare says:
April 4, 2012 at 4:20 pm
That’s the funny thing about this thread. All the people who are arguing against showing the victim in this story some humanity are turning this into a gender issue
———————————————————-
It is only fair for a male casual bystander in USA to consider possible consequences against his own person before getting involved into a fight of 4 violent girls, who are only 12 years old.
It’s a ‘gender issue’, as this incident happened in USA, where all and everything which happens between males and females is seen as a ‘gender issue’ and usually with the feminist presumption ‘male bad, female good’ . Considering the age difference you might be even a paedophile. Not to forget, sometimes you have to add the ‘race issue’ as well. – And this happened even on private property…
Can you imagine a man, entering a private property in USA with 5 shouting girls (12 years old) inside?
The beaten up girl will remain silent as she is afraid of the other 4 violent girls, and these 4 girls will accuse this man to be a burglar and a child rapist. And what will you say as your defense? And don’t ask me who will be arrested by police and who will be a ‘victim’. As we all know, women are not violent.
So what? What to do in such a situation? Openly said, I don’t know. I am not living in USA. But I think, to record a video and otherwise doing nothing is not wrong. To call the police is not wrong. There is no obligation as a bystander to help, but if you help – to interfere to protect the beaten up girl – you might easily face lawsuits or other troubles like false accusations in return. Anyway, to interfere could be costly considering legal fees and it could mean a huge waste of your own time. – Let me say it again, this is the situation as I see it in USA and in some other feminist-friendly countries, but not everywhere in this world. Laws are not everywhere the same.
—–
I am not living in USA. I am in Asia. I do not have any problems here with US-feminist ideology, child protectors, do-gooders etc.. If this is happening next to our house, I would never think about taking a video recording or calling the police. I would straight enter the house of the neighbour, pulling these 4 girls away if necessary by their hair and I would bring the beaten up injured girl over to my own house.
As next I would call the parents of this girl for assistance and later on together with her we will report that incident to the parents of the 4 other girls, for sure we would never call the police for that – for what should this be good for? – and we have no bizarre ‘gender issue’ problems with some spanking or slapping for both, girls and boys in case of misbehavior. And no, our children here cannot call the police and to report their parents for a painful lesson as punishment.
For sure, nowhere in Asia I would be worried about being accused of trespassing, assaulting children, paedophilia or kidnapping for helping out in such a wild schoolgirls dispute.
‘Gender issues’ because of some unruly 12 year old girls? Give me a break, that’s stuff for a good laughter in Asia for their parents – but as I said, luckily I am not living in USA.