At the mall today, while I was standing at the checkout of one of the stores, a woman comes and asks the clerks to call security, she was being harassed by a drunk. The clerks weren’t able to get the security personnel on the phone, and standing at the counter I was watching how the guy followed the woman and her two small children as the kids were cowering in a corner, crying and obviously scared shitless. After a minute, everyone around was still doing absolutely nothing. Now, I’m a rather small (170 cm, about 5’ 8’’ for you metrically challenged) middle-aged guy and wouldn’t have had anything to put up with in any kind of fight (except my 20-year-old quite moldy judo training), but I just wasn’t able to stand and look at this. Or worse, sneak away and leave two children scared out of their minds by an asshole like that. I told the girl at the register to watch my stuff and walked over to the guy. He was definitely not in his best mood. Putting on my “buddy” smile, I asked him politely and in a friendly tone if he would be so kind as to find somewhere else to loiter, as he clearly was scaring those kids.
It wasn’t a pleasant episode. He was both bigger and younger than me and doing his best - at least within his current mental abilities - to be obnoxious and intimidating, and he was standing really close to me, well inside my comfort zone. Knowing that drunks’ brains operate somewhere between the Neanderthal and monkey level, I persisted in being nice, polite and friendly to avoid provoking any aggression. However, I managed to keep myself between the guy and the woman with the kids. It took about five minutes before the woman had collected herself enough to slink away and out of the mall, and I saw them disappear outside. I made no notice or indication of where they went, but I suggested quite insistently that the guy walked in the other direction, which he luckily did after some more grumbling and posturing. It took the security guys another five to ten minutes to show up. Good job, guys! :dubious:
So, what’s the point of this story? I guess the point is that when dealing with aggressive drunks, it pays off to be nice and friendly rather than trying to police the situation, acting in any way that might be interpreted aggressively. Even if one would rather prefer to punch them in the face. :mad: I was able to defuse the situation by being extremely polite and friendly while still keeping the drunk away from the woman and the children, but I could really feel my blood pressure racing way up to a rather uncomfortable level. And I was very much on the lookout both during the rest of my shopping and in the parking lot while I was walking to my car and getting in. I needed one hour at the gym and two beers to get the adrenaline out of my system and my blood pressure down where it belongs. I think I’ve earned the whisky I’m nurturing right now.
Good for you. You acted both bravely and sensibly, a very good combination.
You did what was needful to win. And winning meant ensuring the safety of the women and children, not showing an irate individual the error of his ways.
What kinda pissed me off, was that when I returned to the checkout counter, there was three (!) store employees standing there. Big strong boys, in their twenties. Between 15-25cm (6-10") taller than me, definitely in better shape. Did those guys back me up? Nope. Did they even walk up to the situation to sorta give me some sort of mental backup? Nope. They were just standing there, gawking, some 10m away. Sissies. Pissed me off, did it. Did I say “sissies”? I did, but not to their faces. But I was definitely not impressed.
ETA: The girls at the counter, though, were grateful. And I do understand that a girl who’s some 150cm and 50kg doesn’t involve herself in a situation like that.
Except for the fact that the mall is closed, I’m in no state to drive there, and my wife would kill me if I went out to pick up women, that sounds like a pretty good idea. My testosterone & self-confidence is at a pretty nice high level right now, so I might even score
Good on ya! I think that’s one thing people tend to understand better at 40 than they do at 20 is the goal is to get the victims out of the situation. It’s not about showing a drunk the error of his ways or being macho, etc,.
Two years ago I helped apprehend a shoplifter in the street - there were three of them and it looked like an organised raid. Two of them got away, knocking over kids and old ladies as they ran (which is why I got involved). There were three of us pinning him down but he was wriggling like mad and more to the point managed to get one hand free and start deleting text messages - presumably evidence.
Some of the staff of the store came out and just stood there. We shouted to them to take his Blackberry from him. “Sorry mate, we can’t touch him. We’d be up for assault,” was the reply. Arseholes. It was a citizen’s arrest FFS.
So the store you were in may have a non-contact policy except for Security, which defies common sense. I was really annoyed with them and it made me despise the store.
That might be, but I doubt it. We, on our side of the pond, are noticeably less paranoid about liability and legal action than what y’all on the west side of the pond are. So I rather doubt that this has at all been an issue during whatever training low-wage youngsters working afternoons and evenings in a large mall store have received.
It sounds like the lady didn’t get a chance to thank you, so I’ll say it for her: Thank you! You changed a very frightening situation into a reminder that humans can, indeed, be decent. The kids are going to remember that.
If there’s ever a “next time”, I suggest pointing specifically to someone in the crowd and saying “You. You come help me.” A lot of passers-by and lookers-on are paralyzed not out of fear, but out of indecision. They’re thinking “Should I do something? If I should, so should everyone, but no one has. Maybe I’m missing something. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” Calling them out personally gives them the green light and confirms their suspicion.
Not to go all “Kids These Days,” but it’s been my experience that young adults are better at following directions than taking initiative. Plus, as jimm says, 40 year olds have a better understanding of what’s going on and what to do about it.
They might have gotten fired if they’d tried to intervene. That’s what security (or 911) is for. If he was the litigious sort, he could have slapped the company with a lawsuit if a front-line employee touched him, or verbally implied that he was doing something illicit or illegal.
Right, but there’s a very big difference between stopping a thief and intervening in an assault. The whole point of policies against the former is to avoid provoking the situation and escalating a monetary loss into someone getting hurt. If the situation is a drunk idiot who is about to hurt someone, that’s not the same thing.
And I agree with identifying someone in the crowd and telling them to assist you. People need direction and leadership in scary situations, or they revert to doing what the crowd is doing.
(all that said, good job to the OP for doing the right thing, the right way!)
