From the New York Post:
In response to seeing woman dragged off in a ‘hammerlock’ by a rapist a brilliant bystander reports:
Oh well then, that’s perfectly fine. I mean, the guy is scary! Certainly, it’s better to see this girl dragged off to be raped in two different locations than to pick up a phone…any phone and simply dial 911!
Another disgusting quote:
guess what? No one did.
They didn’t call the police because they were scared of the guy? What the FUCK?! Was he standing watch over them, ready to pistol-whip anyone who picked up their phone? :smack: :rolleyes: 
:mad:
Thank God NYC doesn’t have Concealed-Carry permits like we do! I’d hate to think of what would have happened to her if I had my .38 nearby!
Bolding mine. What would have happened to her? Am I reading this correctly? If that’s saying what I think it is, I daresay that she was better off with the do-nothing bystanders.
In related news, I talked to a guy who was robbed/beaten (in that order) by four guys outside a friend’s apartment a couple of weeks ago and he said that there were no less than four people standing on the same block. Not one of them either came to his aid, called the cops or asked if he was OK when the assailants left. Although he didn’t say it, I believe that they left before the police arrived.
Considering that there appeared to be (in both examples) significantly more people watching the events than the number of assailants, I think we, as a nation, have ye to learn one of the more practical lessons of 9/11: you can’t beat the bum rush. (That last sentence was serious)
I think duffer just misspoke and said “her” when he meant “him”.
I’m thinking a cell phone and yelling “I’m calling the cops!” would have sufficed.
If some guy’s got me in a hammerlock, I really don’t want you shooting at him. That’ll just make me into a human shield.
Way to make it a gun debate duffer. As heinous as the act was, I’m fairly positive it didn’t call for the death penalty
911 - Murder …which do I choose??? :rolleyes:
The thirteen year old kid might be one of the dozy kind that wasn’t sure what to do, and I wouldn’t be too hard on him, but the 20 year old? He should have been all over the rapist while getting his friends to call the cops.
(When I was a scrawny 16 year-old, me and two scrawny buddies were about to “rescue” a young, shrieking woman in a park, when she rolled over on top of the guy and made no effort to leave. Luckily, for us (since he was not a scrawny 16 year-old) she did that before we got to her 
)
I’m not sure that any of this has any relation to 9/11, Chairman Pow, but here’s an story about one time when I did interfere in an incident where a guy was being beaten.
I was coming out of bar where I’d just seen a friend host an open-mike night. Across the street, near where my car was parked, were two guys savagely pounding on some poor bastard in a diner parking lot. He’d apparently been getting thumped for more than a few minutes and was pretty much laying there in the “cover my face and nuts” position, while his assailants were kicking the crap outta him. The people in the diner had just called the cops (As I found out later you’ll see below), but they weren’t gonna come outside and do anything else; they were just starin’ out the windows. As my friend and I crossed the street and approached the fight, we yelled out. Fortunately, I guess that was enough to scare the two guys away. I dunno what the heck we thought we were gonna do if they hadn’t run. (This happened long before the days of the cell phone.)
So, we gather up the poor bastard and take him back across the street into the bar to get some towels and water to clean him up a bit. He was pretty groggy and would have fallen down several times had we not been holding him up. He was wearing a pretty good collection of cuts and bumps and bruises on his head and neck, so we asked him if he wanted us to take him to the hospital emergency room. He did.
We took him over there; it was only a couple, three, miles away, and got him into the emergency room for treatment. Nothin’ much left for us to do, since he said he’d call his sister to come pick him up. So we left. And went back to the scene of the fight. By now the cops were there in the diner parking lot. And they had the two guys who were delivering the beating and had run off. That is, they had 'em and were just talking to 'em - taking a statement or something, I guess. They weren’t under arrest or anything.
So, we walked up to the cops to tell our story. And they already knew what we’d done. And where we’d taken the guy. The hospital had called the cops upon receiving a guy who’d been obviously beaten and the cops were able to put it all together. We found when we started talking to the cops that they were pissed off at us! For a) interfering in the first place & b) for taking the guy to get treatment. Ya see, it turns out that the guy we “rescued” was actually the agressor; the two guys we saw delivering the beating were actually the agrieved parties just gettin’ some retaliation. The cops were pissed at us, because, of course, shortly after we’d dropped the guy at the hospital, he walked out. All we’d really done is aid his escape.
Sometimes when you’re trying to help, you ain’t. Never easy to tell.
I was coming home late one night, and there was some chick screaming because some guy was pushing her around. I knew what I had to do, so I took a deep breath and started crossing the street. I yelled a “HEY!” to get his attention as headed over towards them. It turned out that they were a couple and he was doing some dumb tickle her to death shit, which pretty much explained everything. He actually thanked me, saying it was nice to know someone would have helped out his girl, but I secretly still wanted to punch him. I headed home and that was that.
p.s. Don’t worry, I made sure he didn’t threaten her to act liekshe was being tickled and was his girlfriend before I left.
Since you obviously meant to say him instead of her, I’ll tell you my opinion of what would have happened. Some sort of charge would have been brought against you, and you would have gone to jail and bankrupted yourself hiring attorneys to keep you from going to prison. Such is America these days!
Or here’s another, more exciting scenario, you aim for the big scary rapist and he moves just a hair and you blow the innocent woman’s head off.
But I"m sure you’ll come back and tell me you’ve got perfect aim and have never missed a shot in your life.
Yeah, if duffer hits the woman, he’s fucked. But if he hits the rapist, no jury in country would convict him of anything worse than a weapons charge.
Not that I agree it his response.
See, if you’ve got a gun and the bad guy is dragging a woman he’s got in a headlock, you’re pretty much invincible. What you do is approach closely enough to have a clear shot, and then you rescue the woman. (Because actually, no rape would have occurred at this point, so you would otherwise be shooting someone for putting a woman in a headlock.) If on the other hand, you caught him in the act and he tried to drag her off for more, then you could apprach closely like I said and waste him.
So rape is punishable by death?
And I like your ‘walk up close and rescue her’ approach. Thank goodness you’re positive he doesn’t have a weapon of any kind.
I suppose my comment was a bit obscure. I can certainly understand the idea that some guy who attacks someone in the middle of the street is “scary” and I certainly can’t blame them for not wanting to risk themselves against said scary person, but it appears that in both jarbaby’s case and in my story (and from what you knew at the time, your story as well), it’s obvious that a) someone is being attacked and b) something should be done about it. Given the typical mob mentality, I think that if even one person moved to help (either calling 911 or attempting to physically restrain the attacker), others would have come to the helper’s aid (i.e. the “bum rush”). In your case, all it took was a couple of guys running, now imagine a half dozen or more people! 1) I think an attacker would be scared enough to run off or 2) the group could successfully subdue the attacker. Possibly with injuries to the group and definitely with lawsuits being flung around to everyone involved. I suppose that’s a judgement call on the individual’s part, while still acknowledging that that situation does not lend itself to clear thinking on anyone’s behalf.
I’m sure someine is going to bring up the, “what if he pulled out a bomb and was going to blow the entire city up, wouldn’t that change things” argument, and I will leave that for later.
FWIW, in your situation, I think you did the right thing. The cops were annoyed that you helped the dude escape, but if they arrived on the scene and found two guys pounding on a third, I think they would have acted as if the two guys were the aggressors until they sorted the whole situation out.
Rape, followed by a further abduction attempt, which as we all know could very likely end in the murder of the rapee, I think would justify the use of deadly force. Not to mention that it would also save other women in the future, women you may know or be related to (which would give you a different perspective) I’m sure, from a similar fate.
Well, I do have eyes, you know.
jarbabyj, here in the great state of Virginia, defense of your property and person by use of a firearm is absolutely permitted. And, if the perpetrator dies in the course of committing his crimes, it’s his dumb luck for choosing to be a criminal in the first place.
Concealed carry permits are issued to citizens after they pass a safety course and pay a $35 fee. Virginia is a shall-issue state, so there is no discretion to local law enforcement whether to issue the permit. It is given to any and all citizens that meet the above requirements, and aren’t violent felons or mentally ill.
Open carry, on the other hand, requires no piece of paper at all. I can just put on a holster and go, as long as my handgun is in plain sight.
Well, your immense chaos theory story of how murdering a rapist will save all women from being raped or whathaveyou DOESN’T change my perception. I don’t think it’s up to you (or anyone) to decide who lives or dies, but we can go look up fifty threads on that issue.
Not to mention it’s getting so far away from what actually happened, which is why I started the thread, which was a group of people standing around watching a woman being abducted WHO DIDN’T DO A THING. No one took ten seconds to dial 911 on a phone. 13 year old? I MAY let them off the hook, even though one of the first things we taught my younger sister was how to dial 911 if someone was hurt. But a fucking 20 year old? NOT CALLING THE POLICE? Someone give me a break!
Thank you for that Mr. Moto, although I’m not sure what for. I don’t care what the law says you can do, I find it reprehensible that for some people in this thread, their first reaction is “get close and WASTE HIM”, when calling 911 would have certainly sufficed. Or even the threat of calling 911 may have startled him into letting her go, considering the amount of witnesses.
THAT is the point of my thread. That a group of people stood around and did nothing. However I don’t consider, murdering him one of the options.