Maybe I should start reading the Daily Mail

[Fayshun]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1031282/After-stabbing-London-Mayor-Boris-Johnson-warns-DONT-involved-trouble.html

I saw the front page of the Daily Fail in Tesco tonight after I had a slight disagreement with a young chav.

We were going back to the car after shopping in town, and I thought it would be nice to walk along the canal path back to the car park so we walked out the back door of the shopping centre.

Outside was a group of 6 or so kids, just as we were about to walk past them, the "biggest, hardest" one rushed past Josh almost knocking him over and grabbed the smallest one aggressively by the back of the neck and pushed him towards the canal.

Cue the poor kid frantically back-pedalling so as to avoid getting a dunking. I looked at Lom and I stepped in, grabbing the kid by the shoulder,telling him "leave him alone!". Unsurprisingly he turns on me.:rolleyes:

One torrent of pseudo-yardie "blud-clart" abuse and in-my-face aggression later (the kids whiter than I am!) including a "do you want to go with a 16 year old" and "come on then old man", he realises I'm not scared so he backs down, walks off and then starts to abuse Lom and I as we leave.

My parting shot was "your mum must be so proud", after that I think he wants to see me next tuesday. :D


A good idea?

Probably not but better than listening to Boris' advice.

[Lomster]

(tis Faysh)

So the debate is, take Boris' advice or walk on by, or step up and get involved?

[Mark]

Boris has a point. The trouble with getting involved, particularly with the more established gangs, is you never know if one of them is going to pull a knife or a gun on you.

You don't live in London though so I don't know the prevalence in knife/gun crime in your area. Chances are that, not living in an inner city area, it's somewhat less of a problem.

[Dymetrie]

I tend to walk by, on the streets it's not worth me getting involved...

However, at work then I make a point of zeroing in on every teenager that looks a bit dodgy...

To my credit then it has helped with a lot of convictions :)

[Fayshun]

Years ago, me and a few mates had this very same conversation, back then I said I'd never get involved.

God knows what has changed and thinking about it, I really don't know why I stepped in yesterday.

[Fayshun]

I think it's actually harder to walk on by than you think it will be.

I think I'm getting less and less tolerant of louts/yobs/chavs as I get older. I keep joking vigilantism is the way forward.

I only did my public order training last month, the kid knows nothing about effective confrontation!

[Desmo]

Every situation is different really so I guess we never know whether we'll walk on by or not.

The other day I was walking home and an older guy was cutting his hedge on the side of an alleyway around the corner from our house. There were two guys down the alley looking a touch suspicious and as they were level with the old guys garden, he stood there looking down the alley at them. I walked past but then stopped about 10 yards down just keeping an eye out. One of the lads came out of the ally, spoke to the old guy and then walked off. Nothing came of it all.

But I guess that by stopping, I'd already made my mind up that if it kicked off I was going to help.

[Fayshun]

Dynamic risk assessments ftw!

[Burble]

It's all the fault of the immigrants and house prices!

</Daily Mail>

[Pheebs]

I think the whole "you don't know til it's happening" theory here is the case.

I should imagine if it was a gang of people and I blatantly didn't stand a chance I'd be on the phone to the police. In the past a few times I have run to help out a lady being beaten up by a bloke. It was just... automatic. I've also stopped at a bus stop and told a young girl to get into my car when a small teenage gang was picking on her and about to start a fight at about 2am (I was heading back from a shift at a pub). She was eternally grateful and I dropped her home. And chased a guy who broke into a car in France (whilst people stood and watched?!?!!)

I guess it's just a reflex action. Probably one that will get me into trouble. Though after being beaten up twice myself for no reason at all (once I was just walking through a park and listening to my music and a bunch of townies decided it would be fun to thwack me... another time I was walking home from school so much younger) Both times people came to help and if they hadn't I would have probably been pulverized.

[Von Smallhausen]

Dynamic risk assessments ftw!

LOL.