Lupine
Member
A couple weeks ago, I was working at my desk at home and I heard a bunch of yelling. I grabbed my phone and went to my front window, and there were three men in their 30s chasing a skinny pre-teen kid down my street. Two of the adults caught him and pinned him down; the terrified kid was yelling "Leave me alone! Help!". He was trying to loose himself by flailing about, but the three men were big guys. I could tell the adults were hurting the child far more than the child was able to reciprocate.
I called 911, and reported the incident, describing the force used by the adults. As I was doing that, I noticed three other neighbors (friends of mine) coming out of their own houses. About this time, the kid broke away. An early model Honda came speeding up the street; the kid flagged it down, jumped in and took off. I noted the license plate and repeated it to the dispatcher. I told them to send an officer immediately. The dispatcher then said that earlier, they'd received a call about a kid matching the boy's description in an incident when he had reportedly been beating up a smaller child.
I hung up. The three adults, across the street from my neighbors and I, began yelling at us. They told us what they'd seen the kid do to the younger child around the corner, and they thought we should have helped them restrain the 12-year old. One of my neighbors yelled back, "All I saw, Mister, was three big guys hurting a little kid." I had to agree with my friend.
Later, this neighbor (who also holds a CCL and has done quite a bit to help me train) and I discussed how this kind of scenario could have gone bad had either of us chose to involve our weapons in the situation. Neither of us felt we would have been forced to fire upon the adults, but it made me think about how accessible my guns are in the safe in another part of the house.
It also made us really think about third-party scenarios. Even though these guys--each of whom had pro-wrestler builds--were being perhaps a bit excessive with the kid, they were only trying to hold him at the scene. Of course, one could argue that the kid in question was probably a whole lot bigger and more capable than the 8-year-old he'd supposedly been harrassing. My point is, you never know what's going on when you arrive in the middle of a melee.
And by the way. No officer ever showed up to take our report.
I called 911, and reported the incident, describing the force used by the adults. As I was doing that, I noticed three other neighbors (friends of mine) coming out of their own houses. About this time, the kid broke away. An early model Honda came speeding up the street; the kid flagged it down, jumped in and took off. I noted the license plate and repeated it to the dispatcher. I told them to send an officer immediately. The dispatcher then said that earlier, they'd received a call about a kid matching the boy's description in an incident when he had reportedly been beating up a smaller child.
I hung up. The three adults, across the street from my neighbors and I, began yelling at us. They told us what they'd seen the kid do to the younger child around the corner, and they thought we should have helped them restrain the 12-year old. One of my neighbors yelled back, "All I saw, Mister, was three big guys hurting a little kid." I had to agree with my friend.
Later, this neighbor (who also holds a CCL and has done quite a bit to help me train) and I discussed how this kind of scenario could have gone bad had either of us chose to involve our weapons in the situation. Neither of us felt we would have been forced to fire upon the adults, but it made me think about how accessible my guns are in the safe in another part of the house.
It also made us really think about third-party scenarios. Even though these guys--each of whom had pro-wrestler builds--were being perhaps a bit excessive with the kid, they were only trying to hold him at the scene. Of course, one could argue that the kid in question was probably a whole lot bigger and more capable than the 8-year-old he'd supposedly been harrassing. My point is, you never know what's going on when you arrive in the middle of a melee.
And by the way. No officer ever showed up to take our report.
