Citizens of Sacramento!

Why get so pissy about this?

Von's a decent person for doing what he did. Moreover he's a decent person for wishing that more people would step up like that ... case in point:

12 gas station patrons > some fuckbag beating on a woman.

Granted there are risks involved and no one should be expected to take a personal risk for a stranger if they don't have the moral fiber for it or simply weigh the risks logicly and decide there's not a whole lot they can or will do.

I like the idea that what's noble isn't always worth the effort, but hey, sometimes you come out on top and in an instance like that i know personally it feels damn good.

Can't win em all, but if you go down at least people know what you stood for before you hit the floor.
 
Mokk said:
Why get so pissy about this?

Von's a decent person for doing what he did. Moreover he's a decent person for wishing that more people would step up like that ... case in point:

12 gas station patrons > some fuckbag beating on a woman.

Granted there are risks involved and no one should be expected to take a personal risk for a stranger if they don't have the moral fiber for it or simply weigh the risks logicly and decide there's not a whole lot they can or will do.

I like the idea that what's noble isn't always worth the effort, but hey, sometimes you come out on top and in an instance like that i know personally it feels damn good.

Can't win em all, but if you go down at least people know what you stood for before you hit the floor.
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I'm not knocking Von for stepping up. He deserves to be rewarded for his heroics. But that doesn't mean everyone is a coward. What if somepeople didn't notice the fight till after the guy was driving away. Or what if some people had kids with em.

You know, there are points of view you don't see, and to pass judgement on them is shortsighted.
 
That was kinda what i was trying to get at in a roundabout way.

Not everyone's cut out to take an uncalculated risk like that on the fly and naturally some people were surely oblivious or worried for their own safety and the safety of the people around them if that's the case respectively. It doesn't make you a bad person not to step in for whatever reason, it's perfectly logical if you have the right rationale but i can dig being a bit put off being in a crowded place and for whatever reasons people just let something like that slide. It's real easy to lose faith in humanity during an instance like that. I didn't take so much of the "looking down" on people from this thread ... at least definately not from Von, but the truth is we'd all be alot better off if more people had the gumption and the conviction it takes to save yours or my ass from some seriously heinous shit were it to go down.
 
Braydon said:
I'm not knocking Von for stepping up. He deserves to be rewarded for his heroics. But that doesn't mean everyone is a coward. What if somepeople didn't notice the fight till after the guy was driving away. Or what if some people had kids with em.

You know, there are points of view you don't see, and to pass judgement on them is shortsighted.
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Agreed.

In the end this is my perspective as well. I can't say what I would have done, since I was never presented with the situation, but I commend Von for his actions.

Thinking on it as I write, I would have probably gotten involved, as it would have been my car hit with a curling iron, and thats not something to ignore, but I can easily see how others would stay out of it.
 
Yes, It's very sad that these now days people choose to ignore the bad things happening around them in fear. It was proven many a times people prefer just to mind their own business then get involved in an altercation. I actually seen a TV show where they were in NYC on a busy street and they had a little girl acting like this man was kid napping her. Screaming for help saying things like help this man is not my father while this man dragged her away and 6 out of the 7 times they did this there was allot of on-lookers but no one did anything to help... It's so sad..
 
I left some details out in the intrest of keeping the OP a managable length. I know as a fact that two of the onlookers were construction workers. Perhaps they did nothing fearing reprucutions heaped upon their company. Understandable, yes, excusable, to me, not really, being that I was in a company truck as well as a company uniform. There was also another guy who was at a maximum three more feet from the incident than I was when it took place. He was the guy opposite the same pump I was on. There was no doubt this guy, who was alone, noticed the event. Hell he damn near had a Medium Kettle Corn, Large Coke, and a bag of Skittles.

Someone mentioned that the victimized girl was possibly homeless. She was very clean, weraing a BEBE (that malltastic belly-shirt clothing store that all big-boobed women seem to shop at) ensemble, and a form of heeled shoe with exterior straps. The gentleman was sporting a full throwback set, light blue in color, big poofy pants that hung for dear life to the mid-range of his ass, and those damn Ron Artest shoes. They both emerged from a white and chrome Lexus.

I can completley get behind the "Fight or Flight" reaction of the majority of the patrons that day. It's well documented through countless psychological studies that all people adjust to this reaction in different manners. In retrospect it was incredibly naieve of me to assume that others would assist as well. I suppose, in my mind, I see the public schalacking of a female as reason enough to chance caution to risk with possible concealed weapons. The attackers body language did not suggest, to my eyes at any rate, "I showed you bitch," it suggested, "I'm gonna show you bitch."

I really don't see the risk in helping the girl to her feet once the guy had left. Nobody could even be bothered to do this much. They could be bothered to watch me do it though. I mean, c'mon!! The guy was gone, the altercation was over, the girl was on the ground, and she had those fun-bags. It would have taken less effort to simply extend a hand than it did to turn around and gawk at the ordeal. What I did was in no way heroic. That's a term that gets tossed out to close the evening news on an up-note after hearing that some wacko raped nine boys with a rake. This was an act of fellowship towards another member of the community I, and every one of those patrons live in. Nothing more. I would rather do something than shake my head when Waly Grey reports, "Woman beaten to death at Sacramanto gas-station" I suppose it all comes down to live on your feet, or die on your knees.

Additional note: Had this been two guys, I would have watched on like others did. Possibly asked the one guy for some of that Kettle Corn too.
 
Vondoom said:
I suppose it all comes down to live on your feet, or die on your knees.
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Or call the cops, take down the license plate # and see actual justice take place without risking yourself. She can't go back to a man behind bars.
 
Bigboy said:
Or call the cops, take down the license plate # and see actual justice take place without risking yourself. She can't go back to a man behind bars.
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Meh. I was in "company" mode with the truck and uniform and all. Police action is time consuming, so much so that I really didn't want to sit there with cops all around while passerbys observe a guy wearing my company logo is swarmed by Sacto's finest. I place the onus of Police action on the girl or AM/PM. If they need witnesses the store had video cameras, and the counter lady witnessed the event. White truck with big blue logo, and a god-aweful orange shirt with the same logo......I'm no Benson or Stabler, but even I could find me.
 
Braydon said:
You know, there are points of view you don't see, and to pass judgement on them is shortsighted.
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Exactly what I'm trying to say. Now Lord knows I'll jump into a fight anyday, but just because someone else wants to stay in their safe SUV that guzzles gas, doesn't make them a whimp or a pussy. It makes them logical people, they may not be nice, but they are logical.
 
Braydon said:
Well, from Von's example, what if crazy fucking wife beater had a gun? Or even a Knife? Von's lucky that the guy didn't get into his car and try and run him over.
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Risks are a part of life, and it's understandable when people don't want to take them or can't bring themselves to do so. What I don't understand is why people are giving Von a hard time over wanting more people to be able to step up.

Also, there are ways to diffuse an otherwise hostile situation, and they are many. They typically involve being calm and asserting control, as well as excerising reason and restraint, just as Von purports to have done.

I think Von's frustration may be coming more from the fact that no one else stepped up once he had. As Mokk noted, 12 people at a gas station > 1 junkie/jackasslowlife. At the very least a few of the guys could have walked up behind Von and stared the prick down. It's not very often that one guy will take on 3 when all he wanted to do in the first place was beat up a woman.

I think if I was in Von's situation I'd be wondering much the same things - what the hell was everyone else doing? Did anyone get his license plate or dial 911? Did anyone bother to back up the person who had already taken control of the situation? The answer to all of these questions is of course no. Perhaps Von got unlucky and all the other people at the gas station were missing their backbone or wits, who knows. But perhaps the purpose of this thread is to highlight the fact that this type of occurence is far from rare, and when not taken control of can result in things far worse. What if the guy had managed to get her back in his car? End of her life, and you could have done something about that. Maybe that's not worth the risk to you, but for me, personally, I couldn't live on knowing I could have done something to prevent that.
 
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