The dead cannot hire lawyers.
So far, from what I’ve read, the OP poster has made some real strong arguements in defense of the “do nothings” in the story.
Heres a nice little tidbit from my neck of the woods: www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/06/24/family.kidnapped.ap/index.html
Justice, Nevada-style. Another reason our taxes are so low.
Psychology has studied this phenomenon and calls it the Bystander Effect
From the link:
The Bystander Effect is a social phenomenon in which a person (or persons) are less likely to offer help to another person (or persons) when there are more people around who can also provide assistance. Many people believe that, when there is an emergency and lots of people are present, the people in need are more likely to get assistance. However, this is not the case. Rather, the more people there are who can help, the less likely each person is to offer help. Thus, when in a group, people are less likely to offer help than when they are alone.
The most common explanation is that, with others present, observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so they each individually refrain from doing so. People may also assume that other bystanders may be more qualified to help, such as being a doctor of police officer. and their intervention would thus be unneeded. Beneath this is a fear of “losing face” in front of the other bystanders from being superseded by a “superior” helper or even from the possibility of offering unwanted assistance. They may also assume that since the other bystanders have not yet intervened, no intervention is necessary.
One way to reduce the bystander effect is for the victim to pick a specific person in the crowd to appeal to for help rather than appealing to the larger group generally. “Hey you, mister in the blue coat, please help me!”
In Holland, there has been a recent national campaing for this situation. It asks people who witness violence to:
Was it just me, or did the article read like a recap of the opening of a Death Wish movie? Where’s Charles Bronson when you need him?
Sitting in a shadowy corner, playing harmonica. Off-key and badly.
Once, I was at a club with my best friend, and a big drunk scary guy tried to drag me out of the club. I’m five eight, so it not like I’m a tiny little thing, but screaming, scratching and my best friend joining in the melee didn’t convince him to let me go. Tonnes of people were standing around just watching. That was bad enough, but the *off duty cop * who was working as a security guard and the bouncer just watched too. I’m pretty sure: hey asshole let me go and please help me this guy is hurting me and dragging me around against my will, isn’t too ambiguous. Fortunately for me, just as we were almost out of the door, one of his less inebriated friends convinced him to let me go and apologized profusely. A very heated discussion began with the off duty police officer where he swore that he didn’t see anything, even though he was looking right at us and we were yelling directly at him to help also. I had a tendancy to step in before if someone was in trouble; that situation only reinforced how important it was to do so.
Now I’m really confused.
Nobody is allowed to use deadly force ever, for any reason? What’s the proper tool to employ, harsh language?
Relying on the police to protect you from harm is dumb, because they’re not there, they won’t be there for a while, and it’s not their job anyway. The only person legally responsible for your safety is you.
Just a couple factual nits that are bugging me:
Uniondale is fully 30 miles outside of NYC, on Long Island.
It is possible to obtain a concealed carry permit in NYC and in Uniondale under certain circumstances.
Carry on.
Leaving the gun issue aside for the moment I think we’d all agree that we think intervening is the proper thing to do, right?
With the gun issue inside I still think that’s an unnecessary escalation. Most people are startled enough by any form of intervention that a simple ‘Hey! Stop that!’ will at a minimum distract the criminal. Evil fears the light, kids.
But instantly pulling a firearm is the equivalent of going nuclear without the wind up of a small land-war in Central America.
jarbabyj, supposing that a policeman was around the crime scene, how do you think he would handle the rapist?
By drawing his gun and shouting at the rapist maybe?
If so, why do you object to a civilian doing the same thing?
Why is the issue of nonlethal weapons such as a taser or pepper spray such a nonstarter here? No chance of doing lasting harm to the victim, and I hear that papper spray will stop an aggressor faster than anything else will.
It’s possible to win the lottery too. I’m not holding my breath.
I’m not an advocate of the “throw down and waste the guy” school, but complete passivity in the face of violent aggression just goes against the the grain. As Jimmy Chitwood said, the cops showed up, which means somebody did call them. Didn’t do a damned bit of good, did it?
Exigneer, I don’t want to make this a cop thread either. But there are some very trigger happy folks out there, particularly in Chicago over the past few years, that make me wonder how many times deadly force is absolutely necessary, like, oh, when pulling someone over for speeding for instance.
Hey, I understand that there are times when people have to be put down for the good of saving someone else, but that isn’t the point in THIS CASE. The man was simply dragging the woman off. He didn’t have a gun to her head, or a knife to her throat. Like someone said earlier, blowing the suspect away seems like an overreaction.
Pepper spray, mace, two guys taking him down and arresting him. I can think of about six things I’d do before ‘wasting him’
Something else from the article that is not being mentioned.
(the fact that I’m about to quote the NY POST is repellant to me)
bolding mine
The kid is 13! Sorry but I’m going to allow a 13 year-old to get scared and not do the right thing and NOT pit his reaction to the situation. It also sounds like he knows the rapist and the rapist has a history of being some sort of bully.
Now the article goes on to say that three people ages 15 to 20 saw it later. Now that’s a lot tougher to swallow, especially the 20 year-old. But the person who didn’t call the cops because they were scared of the scary guy was a 13 year-old kid. I think you can cut him some slack.
If I recall correctly, the second quote is from a fifteen year old, whom I will not allow any slack. My sister and I knew how to dial 911 or scream HELP from the minute we were allowed out of the house on our own.
He did’nt have them in plain site. You don’t want to get too close and find out what he was hiding in his pocket.
I agree to a point. But most nonlethal weapons have a very limited distance. A person would have to get way too close for it be safe. You don’t him to have him rush you and take your weapon.
However a warning shot to the ground near him, followed by promptly aiming the gun right at his head might have saficed. A sufficiant number of dudes coming over to stop him might have worked.
It sounds like he terrorized the neighbhorhood. People might have been afraid if they stopped him he would single them out when he got out of jail and beat them to near death or do worse. Lethal force might have been the only thing any of the bystanders would have been safe using. Considering he was viciously and cold bloodedly torturing another human being I think the rapist’s safety should be lowest on the totem pole anyway.
Just out of curiosity, what circumstances are those? IIRC, it’s nigh on impossible to get a gun in NYC.
I don’t think the thread started with the intention shooting the person. In such an instant, the gun is the deterrent. It can also serve the purpose of making the perp stay put while the cops come get him. Without a weapon, trying to stop a crime can become very messy for the Samaritan. Even knife fights by trained people often end up very bad. With a gun, you can stop someone from coming at you before he is arm’s reach away. Pepper spray can work most of the time. However, if the person is on PCP, or various other drugs, or even used to peppers, it doesn’t stop everyone. Of course, people on PCP aren’t stopped by bullets either, unless you stop their heart or brain. I still think the people who said they witnessed it and didn’t call the cops should be sentenced to community service or something.
Ahem. I refer you back to the first page of this thread:
Bullets should work most of the time. However, if the guy is wearing kevlar armor, or you just wing the guy, or they’re on PCP, or your gun is a pea shooter, it doesn’t stop everyone.
C’mon, pepper spray is the best solution for this kind of thing, if only because it doesn’t risk killing the person you’re trying to rescue. All this harkhark about guns being better than pepper spray in a close encounter with a violent scumbag is just gun nut hysteria.
Gun nut this. The problem with pepper sprays is that often people have them don’t know how to use them. You can a) just wing them with pepper spray. This has much less deterrent effect than winging them with copper-jacketed lead. B) You have a much higher likelyhood of spraying yourself. Congratulations, you have now become victim number 2. I’m not saying don’t use it, just for god’s sake be trained to use it. They have extremely finite range, and weather variances affect the spray much more than you think (ie wind). Also, they have a short time frame, on the order of a second or so. If someone runs at you and you miss a couple times, youre out of luck. Pepper spray isn’t the only answer. As an aside, if the person being attacked had any, this wouldn’t be an issue now would it. Oh wait, it still could.