Horrible nearly-violent incident. Must vent.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My son (8 years old) was playing outdoors with some other kids today on the green in front of our house; apparently he started play-swordfighting (using twigs) with another kid who was visiting relatives nearby. Anyway, I think he must have got a bit carried away, got the upper hand in their mock duel and hit the other boy with his stick, hurting him a bit and making him cry. I was around the back of the house at the time and witnessed none of this.

The child’s father apparently came outside and ran at him swearing and shouting. he came around to the back where I was, followed by the boy he had been playing with, and had hurt. The boy said to me “My dad says you’ve got to let me hit your son”; after questioning him a bit to find out what had happened, I told him I was really sorry he had got hurt, but given that they were play swordfighting, it was pretty much bound to happen, and that there was no way I was going to make my son stand there to be hit back. the boy ran away quite fast.

A minute later, he returned with his father, who is a dangerous looking, muscular man, who was visibly furious; he came to my back gate and started yelling, swearing and screaming at me, wagging his finger in a threatening manner and gesticulating wildly. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, he was so enraged.
I implored him to try to calm down, so we could talk about it; he told me to come out into the street, where we would settle it like men. I continued to plead for calm and rationality. He wasn’t having it and had I not backed away, I think he would have laid hands on me and physically dragged me out to beat me up.
He wouldn’t let me finish a sentence, wouldn’t even let me try to apologise. He was screaming at me that I should either let his son hit my son, or I should come out into the street and fight him. He also claimed I had threatened his son. I tried to tell him that I had not, but again, I wasn’t permitted to finish a sentence.

It became clear he wasn’t going to become amenable to reason, so I went indoors, talling him I was calling the police - I locked the door and found that my wife had already made the call to the emergency line. I stood at the window on the phone to the police while he screamed threats and obscenities up at me from the road.

(there were numerous witnesses to both incidents - my dialogue with the boy, and the father’s threatening behaviour).

An odd thing happened next - a car arrived and the man and his son got into it; the relatives with whom they were visiting had driven fifty yards to pick them up, then they drove the fifty yards back to the house and went inside.

Anyway, the police weren’t able to attend straight away, and by the time they did, the visiting family had gone home to wherever they live. The policeman took my details, went to talk to the people living at the other house and came back to tell me that the anrgy father had called the police himself (although his call will habe come in after my emergency one) and made a complaint of assault (referring to the incident that sparked it all - the boys’ playfighting that went too far).

The whole thing happened nearly twelve hours ago, and I’m still shaking a bit from it. The stupid thing is that I would only have been too ready to apologise for the harm, compel my son to do the same and to punish him for hitting the other boy with a stick; I just wasn’t given the chance to do so.

I don’t expect to sleep much tonight.

2

Jesus. Why am I picturing the other dad going ballistic at a little league game in the future?

Good luck.

3

It can’t be the first time he’s gone off on one like this - in fact I forgot to mention that the recent wounds visible on his forehead were consistent with the sort of injuries sustained from head-butting.

4

Wow. That sounds just horrible. I’m speechless.

GT

5

Sounds like one of those agressive idiots that you figure do violence to their own family all the time. You did about the only appropiate action at the time, which is seperate and call the cops. I would make sure the witnesses give a sworn statement right a way and don’t assume the cops took care of it. Make sure it’s important. Witnesses get fuzy on stuff like this fast, and something they can go into detail about today, isn’t that clear in a year. You may wish to get a restraining order taken out on the guy for your whole family now. It will help later if he shows up again, because you won’t have to prove violence happened to have him hauled away. It should have been over with an apology, and a stop to the horse play. Unfortunately a nutter got involved, so get the restraining order. I can see your up late because it’s getting late here, and add in the zone difference.

6

I’m usually up quite late anyway, but it’s 2:30AM now, so I’d better call it a night. Thanks for the supportive responses.

7

I must say, it sounds like you’ve set a far better example for your son than that man has for his.

8

You still beat me to the computer questions in the morning, when I still tried. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

What an awful person, Mangetout!

One card I can play when someone gets in my face outside of work (say a street person asking for money) is to inquire as to whether they’re “still on paper”. This means that they are still on probation or parole. If they are, that means they cannot have anything to do with me (an employee of the Dept. of Corrections) outside of DOC business. If they persist and they are on paper, I can report them to their community corrections agent, which could get their parole revoked.

I have been surprised by how many street people quickly leave me alone when I ask them that question.

I’m not saying such an approach would work in the emotionally charged situation described by the OP, nor am I advocating that a non-DOC person use it. But there it is.

If anyone tries it, let me know how it works.

10

Jesus, and that poor kid has to live with that asshole.

11

Sorry you had to deal with this Mangetout
You always struck me as a stand up guy–you have consistently helped me on several computer questions that have come up.

The guy was a jerk no doubt. I gathered he didn’t live in your neighborhood? Do you get along (or even know) the relatives he was visiting? If so–can you talk to them?

Good luck! Again sorry you had to go through that!

12

The man is a bully. He believes, deep in his heart, that the world is out to get him and his; he is terribly insecure, fearful, constantly angry, and hasn’t seen the near side of reason for a very, very long time. He feels helpless in the face of constant assault by change in a world he doesn’t understand. I’m willing to bet he blames every mischance in his world on someone else’s evil scheming. He believes the world owes him something, probably a great deal, and he has transferred that belief to his son. Even accidents, in this man’s world, are cause for vengeance.

You, on the other hand, feel that you have been wronged (and you have, but consider the source – as I said, he’s a bully.) You have suffered an injustice because you didn’t get to see the police slap handcuffs on him and haul him away or, better yet, force him to stand before you and apologize tearfully for being such a bully. You won’t sleep well for a day or two, you’ll tell everyone you meet about it (face it, Mangetout, you were assaulted – verbally, yes, but assaulted nonetheless) until, finally, your outrage and fear begin to fade.

Make sure your son understands that he owes the other little boy absolutely nothing except an apology for getting too rough. I’m guessing the little chap already tried to apologize to the other kid, but it did no good because he has already been taught by his father that apologies are for pussies – a hit deserves a hit back. Just hug your son lots and lots in the next few days, focus hard on the good things in your life and thank your lucky stars you are not like the other guy. You are a good person.

13

Thanks again for the support, folks. Overnight, ny fear has subsided into just a nagging concern that this bloke might surface again sometime - the police are going to phone me this evening after talking to him about his behaviour; they said I could press charges, but if he denies a public order offence, it would have to go to court. They said his allegation of assault just won’t wash because my son is below the age of criminal responsibility, and that he will be cautioned that he must not try to resolve such matters with the direct application of threat and violence. I don’t expect he’ll listen, but if nothing else, the incident is ‘on the radar’ now. If he is on parole or already subject to an ASBO or something, this will come to light.

14

Mangetout, that sounds like an horrible experience. Such bullies just spread misery wherever they go. That guy scared the shit out of his family, out of you and your family, and his behaviour probably made sure your neighbours won’t invite his family again anytime soon anymore. The places his family still can visit sure aren’t increasing this way.

The worst part with bullies like that is that you either have to pursue some course of legal action to draw the line. Which is cumbersome and uncomfortable. Or you can forget about the whole thing, which is cumbersome and uncomfortable for the opposite reasons.
You just can’t win and neither can he or his kid. :: sigh::

15

Sounds like the place you live has the same quality of arseholes as my neighbourhood, Mangetout.

You and your wife did the right thing in getting the police involved straight away, that bloke sounds like a complete nutter. If two small kids are play-fighting with twigs and one gets hurt, that’s just an occupational hazard. You can’t stop kids playing, and unfortunately our society is such a blame-culture these days with parents being far too over-protective, you have to expect something like this to happen eventually.

The other boy’s father was completely in the wrong to go off on one the way he did, and to suggest that the solution is for his son to hit your child is utterly ridiculous. I’m sure it would be very tempting to slap him with an public order charge but really, that’s only going to make things worse.

Sometimes the only thing to do is put it behind you and try to forget it.

16

Generally speaking, we don’t have arseholes of this particular calibre; this one was imported; I think that might have contributed to the shock potential of the incident; this is a sedate leafy village, we don’t expect Wild West justice here.

17

Come and live in my bit of Wolves the, you really get to see life in all it’s glory here!

Last year before we had our new boundary wall built, we had to call the police out to the overspill of an Asian wedding. The err…‘happy couple’ were from a house about three doors up the street and there had obviously been some disagreement between a couple of the blokes there (late 20s). They were arguing outside their house, one of them walked away but the other one followed him. A fist-fight ensued, ending up with five of them punching the daylights out of each other in our front garden, having taken the fence down on their way through.

Naturally I called the police and they must have had little else to do because we had four squad cars within about five minutes. They ended up taking away the five protagonists from our garden, and also arresting another bloke who’d arrived armed with a baseball bat and had caved someone’s head in. That particular poor bloke was wandering about in the road with a blood-soaked towel on his head while his unconcerned relatives were watching the fracas in our garden and one of the wives/girlfriends was at first begging me not to phone the police and then screaming obscenities at me when I did call them.

So much for a quiet Sunday afternoon in the ’ burbs…

18

What Savannah said.

Back when I, ah, got invited to every birthday party to which my brothers were also invited, my job consisted of keeping the 20-22 boys from killing each other. Nobody ever said “no touching!” (I tried to avoid black eyes and broken arms as a matter of general principle). No blood no foul…

19

Sounds like steroid rage. You were lucky.

20

When he first walked up my drive, I was sure he was going to pop me one straight away; he just had that sort of pinched angry look on his face (and he was saying "Is this the man? Is THIS the MAN?’ to his son). I’m certain things would have turned badly violent if I had tried to stand my ground, or had just said the wrong thing. He nearly tipped over this point when I tried to tell him I had not threatened his son.