Wednesday, July 15, 2009

What Would YOU do?

A little too close for comfort
 
Last night I was sitting on the couch twittering and watching the Nanny. It was about 11pm. TheCount was in the bedroom exercising and listening to music. All of a sudden I hear tires screeching. Being the forever nosey person I am, I run to the window. I see a car spun out in the street and two guys with bicycles standing on a corner. I immediately thought that the car and the bikes got into an accident. I'm looking to make sure everything is ok and the car pulls down the side street and stops. The driver gets out with something in his hand and walks over to the bike guys. One of the bike guys goes and grabs a huge stick. There were two other passengers in the car and they get out and stand by the car just watching. At this point I get a little worried and I really don't want all this going on outside my window. I call for TheCount while reaching for my phone to call the police if need be. The driver and one of the bike guys start fighting. I call 911- not because I was mad they were fighting, but because I wanted the police to come break it up so it wouldn't get any worse. As I'm talking to the 911 operator, one of the car passengers reaches in the car, grabs something and walks over- I told her- but I didn't see what he grabbed, could have been a cell phone for all I know. I made it clear that only 2 people were fighting, the other 3 were just watching. Being that I live in a really "good" town, the police were there super fast. Over the next hour I saw: sobriety tests, handcuffs, a car get impounded, and at least one person get arrested. A total of 10 police cars ended up coming- either I broke up something dangerous, or the cops were very bored last night. Considering I live in a "good" town, I believe they were just bored.
 
Over the course of the hour when I watched all this go down, I began to feel insanely guilty. What if I just ruined the lives of these young men by calling the police? What if the cops treat them unfairly? They were mostly hispanic- I think at least one was white, though. It would be my fault because I called the police on them. I'm not the type of person that feels as though "they needed to learn a lesson- act up suffer the consequences." It's ok, if that would be your rationale- it's just not the way I think. The reason I called is because I like my "good" town. I don't want to not be able to walk down the street without folks fighting and carrying on. And what if the loser of the fight got mad and decided to cheat? What if somebody pulled out a gun, or a knife, or beat somebody with that big ole stick. I would have felt guilty for watching and not acting if the situation got worse. During the course of their little tussle, folks were walking by with their kids just trying to get home after a long day- what if they would have hurt somebodies baby? Look at the picture, they were close to my apartment. Close enough for a stray bullet. Close enough that I had to react and do something. But did I do the right thing?
 
How would you have responded? Ignore it, call the police immediately, wait and see if it gets worse, go outside and intervene, what?



{I went to sleep praying for them, I thought I was going to have bad dreams because of my guilt. Thankfully I am greedy, and apparently shallow because I dreamt of my new pineapple slicer that I bought yesterday. All night I dreamt of eating pineapples.}

5 comments:

Product Junkie Diva said...

LOL @ dreaming of your pineapple slicer...hahah.
I would have done the same thing just because it was dark and you couldn't see what the person pulled out of their car. They do these things on 20/20 all the time to see how far people can go before others react. They had a guy who CLEARLY wasnt with this little girl, start talking to her and asking her to help him look for his dog. While most parents in the park reacted and made sure the girl didn't go with the man, there were others who just watched as this man who they KNEW wasn't with the kid...walked off with the girl. They started the skit by allowing the people to see the girl with her nanny who would then say she was running to the bathroom or somewhere and then this stranger would appear. Now when the reporters asked the people who did nothing, why they didn't recact they would say well I had my eye on her or I didn't want to get invovled. For all they knew that was a real situation going down and they did nothing...long story short, I think you did the right thing...sleep well..oh you already did..lol
PJD

Anonymous said...

I think that you reacted just as you should have. You never know what might have happened had you not interfered, or what they were fighting about. Or, more importantly, what it was going to lead to in the future. I definitely would have called.

SimplyB said...

I would have called the police too! Like you said anything could have popped off out there especially with them constantly going in their cars.

yummy411 said...

yeh i would have called... i would be scared someone was going to get shot. to lessen that chance.. call!

Unknown said...

Hi, I don't know how I ended up at your blog (oh, I was searching for chick tenders recipes)and saw this. I know it is old post, but must comment.
Of course you did the right thing. If nothing bad was going on, the police would have come but done nothing. Why would you think that YOU have the power to ruin these young men's lives? Whatever they were doing was their choice and if it was bad/illegal then why would you feel guilty for their choices? If being caught doing something bad ruins their lives, then it is the consequence of their actions, not yours. I don't think their race makes any difference to whether they were acting legally or not, but of course, people of color are treated differently in our justice system. Now THAT'S something we should feel guilty about and work to change.
Oh, and thanks so much for the great looking Chicks Tenders recipe. Am trying it tomorrow with oven roasted sweet potato fries. Yum

 
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