How do I get involved in possibly serious situations the right way?
January 30, 2010 11:23 AM Subscribe
How do I get involved in possibly serious situations the right way?
I ride public transport in DC. Last night, at the tail end of rush hour on a fairly crowded train, I saw a group of youths (high-school age I'd guess) riding together horsing around. At one stop all but a boy and a girl got off. The boy immediately moved across the train to the girl and sat down next to her. In the span of about 30 seconds he went from sitting to looking like he was attempting to assault her - putting her in kind of a headlock with one and trying to something with his other hand - looked like he was going for the front of her pants - but she was struggling with him. The girl was kind of balled up and was saying no and stop. He wasn't.
But both of them were acting almost playful about it, smiles and stuff. It bugged me out so I went right over and loudly asked if she was OK. She said "yes" and "its fine" but he still had her in the headlock. I said that made me uncomfortable and to remove his arm. He did and they sat quietly together for a few stops kind of giggling to each other until she got off. FWIW One other commuter on the train said the guys actions made her uncomfortable too so it's not just me.
My questions to the hive:
I assume I was right to get involved - correct?
When she said she was fine, should I have listened and let them be or was it OK to press the issue as I did?
And the big one:
When I mentioned this to a friend, they asked what I would have done if the guy told me to fuck off or something.
I didn't know. I had no answers outside of "get physical" which is obviously a bad plan.
We then thought about taking a photo or calling cops but none of those seemed like the right course of action. What do you do in this situation?
I ride public transport in DC. Last night, at the tail end of rush hour on a fairly crowded train, I saw a group of youths (high-school age I'd guess) riding together horsing around. At one stop all but a boy and a girl got off. The boy immediately moved across the train to the girl and sat down next to her. In the span of about 30 seconds he went from sitting to looking like he was attempting to assault her - putting her in kind of a headlock with one and trying to something with his other hand - looked like he was going for the front of her pants - but she was struggling with him. The girl was kind of balled up and was saying no and stop. He wasn't.
But both of them were acting almost playful about it, smiles and stuff. It bugged me out so I went right over and loudly asked if she was OK. She said "yes" and "its fine" but he still had her in the headlock. I said that made me uncomfortable and to remove his arm. He did and they sat quietly together for a few stops kind of giggling to each other until she got off. FWIW One other commuter on the train said the guys actions made her uncomfortable too so it's not just me.
My questions to the hive:
I assume I was right to get involved - correct?
When she said she was fine, should I have listened and let them be or was it OK to press the issue as I did?
And the big one:
When I mentioned this to a friend, they asked what I would have done if the guy told me to fuck off or something.
I didn't know. I had no answers outside of "get physical" which is obviously a bad plan.
We then thought about taking a photo or calling cops but none of those seemed like the right course of action. What do you do in this situation?
It sounds like you did exactly the right thing.
posted by you're a kitty! at 11:27 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by you're a kitty! at 11:27 AM on January 30, 2010
I assume I was right to get involved [by asking if she was okay] - correct?
Yes.
When she said she was fine, should I have listened and let them be
Yes.
posted by spaltavian at 11:32 AM on January 30, 2010
Yes.
When she said she was fine, should I have listened and let them be
Yes.
posted by spaltavian at 11:32 AM on January 30, 2010
I had no answers outside of "get physical" which is obviously a bad plan.
IMO the thing to do initially is ignore the guy and only ask the woman if she's OK. If she says no, or is continuing to struggle physically with the guy, then you tell him to let her go and pull out your cell phone and start to dial the police. Bear in mind that you're standing up and he's sitting down, so even on a moving train you have an advantage if he starts to stand up and go after you. If he escalates, beat the shit out of him. Ask other (preferably large and male) passengers for help in restraining him and to call the police. Either he will cut that shit out real quick and you can report him to a Metro employee or to police directly and they will pursue him, or a bunch of you will have to pin him.
Obviously this is a difficult situation. I think erring on the side of everybody's safety here means intervening, and I think erring on the side of your own safety means you have to be ready to control any physical confrontation rather than merely responding. FWIW I'm in DC too and I see this sort of shithead behavior with surprising frequency, both when it's innocent among younger kids and when it appears to be more serious. In the former case I just keep an eye on things; I don't feel like I need to get involved if two dudes the same age are throwing punches at one another but if it's an adult beating on a kid or a man on a woman I'll step in (and most of the time someone has beaten me to doing so, anyway). In the latter case I do say something and it's usually part of a chorus of people saying it.
But both of them were acting almost playful about it, smiles and stuff. It bugged me out so I went right over and loudly asked if she was OK. She said "yes" and "its fine" but he still had her in the headlock. I said that made me uncomfortable and to remove his arm. He did and they sat quietly together for a few stops kind of giggling to each other until she got off. FWIW One other commuter on the train said the guys actions made her uncomfortable too so it's not just me.
Here, personally, I would have felt OK about letting stuff go for a few more minutes if she was saying "No" in the way that people being tickled, etc. tend to. But what you did was fine and thank you for giving enough of a shit about this sort of thing to get involved.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 11:34 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
IMO the thing to do initially is ignore the guy and only ask the woman if she's OK. If she says no, or is continuing to struggle physically with the guy, then you tell him to let her go and pull out your cell phone and start to dial the police. Bear in mind that you're standing up and he's sitting down, so even on a moving train you have an advantage if he starts to stand up and go after you. If he escalates, beat the shit out of him. Ask other (preferably large and male) passengers for help in restraining him and to call the police. Either he will cut that shit out real quick and you can report him to a Metro employee or to police directly and they will pursue him, or a bunch of you will have to pin him.
Obviously this is a difficult situation. I think erring on the side of everybody's safety here means intervening, and I think erring on the side of your own safety means you have to be ready to control any physical confrontation rather than merely responding. FWIW I'm in DC too and I see this sort of shithead behavior with surprising frequency, both when it's innocent among younger kids and when it appears to be more serious. In the former case I just keep an eye on things; I don't feel like I need to get involved if two dudes the same age are throwing punches at one another but if it's an adult beating on a kid or a man on a woman I'll step in (and most of the time someone has beaten me to doing so, anyway). In the latter case I do say something and it's usually part of a chorus of people saying it.
But both of them were acting almost playful about it, smiles and stuff. It bugged me out so I went right over and loudly asked if she was OK. She said "yes" and "its fine" but he still had her in the headlock. I said that made me uncomfortable and to remove his arm. He did and they sat quietly together for a few stops kind of giggling to each other until she got off. FWIW One other commuter on the train said the guys actions made her uncomfortable too so it's not just me.
Here, personally, I would have felt OK about letting stuff go for a few more minutes if she was saying "No" in the way that people being tickled, etc. tend to. But what you did was fine and thank you for giving enough of a shit about this sort of thing to get involved.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 11:34 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
When she said she was fine, should I have listened and let them be?
Not necessarily. It's hard to say without having been there, but a lot of people might claim to be fine just to avoid making a scene or causing trouble.
posted by you're a kitty! at 11:35 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
Not necessarily. It's hard to say without having been there, but a lot of people might claim to be fine just to avoid making a scene or causing trouble.
posted by you're a kitty! at 11:35 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
Good on you for making sure things were alright. But it seems on the face of it like a young couple fooling about together after being in a large group of people. He did as you asked, and they were giggling about it. Sounds much like what my gf and I do - just playing around.
But if this had been something much worse, thanks for going up and checking to see if things were ok. Not many people would do that.
posted by Petrot at 11:35 AM on January 30, 2010
But if this had been something much worse, thanks for going up and checking to see if things were ok. Not many people would do that.
posted by Petrot at 11:35 AM on January 30, 2010
If she said it was not fine you could use the emergency communications system to reach the driver of the train.
posted by jgirl at 11:36 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by jgirl at 11:36 AM on January 30, 2010
I think you did perfectly well, but food for thought ...
When I mentioned this to a friend, they asked what I would have done if the guy told me to fuck off or something. I didn't know. I had no answers outside of "get physical" which is obviously a bad plan.
... viable responses to this depend on your gender, appearance, the presence of others, etc. A hostile young person will react differently to a large male adult vs. a young woman vs. an old woman, etc. And not in the way you might expect -- for example, my wife can often intimidate young people with her "crazy mother / insane schoolteacher" voice, where if I were to try the same thing, as a large male, I might even make something worse, as my mere presence might trigger something even more hostile. People have asked me if I played NFL football (no), yet I wouldn't even try to intimidate someone in a hostile bar fight situation -- I just don't have the skills, and might trigger a response of "Oh, he's a big guy. It's OK to go off on him. He can take it."
What I'm saying is ... tailor your response to your physical presence, demeanor and surroundings, with a first/last/always regard for your personal safety. There won't be one right answer, but plenty of wrong ones.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:22 PM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
When I mentioned this to a friend, they asked what I would have done if the guy told me to fuck off or something. I didn't know. I had no answers outside of "get physical" which is obviously a bad plan.
... viable responses to this depend on your gender, appearance, the presence of others, etc. A hostile young person will react differently to a large male adult vs. a young woman vs. an old woman, etc. And not in the way you might expect -- for example, my wife can often intimidate young people with her "crazy mother / insane schoolteacher" voice, where if I were to try the same thing, as a large male, I might even make something worse, as my mere presence might trigger something even more hostile. People have asked me if I played NFL football (no), yet I wouldn't even try to intimidate someone in a hostile bar fight situation -- I just don't have the skills, and might trigger a response of "Oh, he's a big guy. It's OK to go off on him. He can take it."
What I'm saying is ... tailor your response to your physical presence, demeanor and surroundings, with a first/last/always regard for your personal safety. There won't be one right answer, but plenty of wrong ones.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:22 PM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
I work with teen girls who become engaged in stuff like this with male peers that starts as playing, but then I consistently see that it morphs over time into unwanted and aggressive advances, and they don't know how to stop it, and boundaries are violated (to the degree of sexual assault, or the degree of being made to feel victimized and uncomfortable). You did absolutely the right thing, and I'd have done just the same.
posted by so_gracefully at 12:39 PM on January 30, 2010 [7 favorites]
posted by so_gracefully at 12:39 PM on January 30, 2010 [7 favorites]
You absolutely handled it the right way.
I'm not at all sure that the girl's "I'm fine," and giggling actually meant that she was okay with the boy's behavior.
As a teenager, I experienced some pretty upsetting episodes of borderline sexual assault that went down much the way your description above reads. Being young and afraid of having the boy or others judge me as prudish or a narc, I also tended to shrug it off and giggle.
If this was the case for the girl on your train, I hope that your insistence that he remove his arm from around her neck at least highlighted to both of them that his behavior was not okay in a larger societal context.
No one ever intervened for me in situations like that when I was a teenage girl. I wish someone had, I might have figured out my boundaries earlier.
posted by dchrssyr at 12:45 PM on January 30, 2010 [5 favorites]
I'm not at all sure that the girl's "I'm fine," and giggling actually meant that she was okay with the boy's behavior.
As a teenager, I experienced some pretty upsetting episodes of borderline sexual assault that went down much the way your description above reads. Being young and afraid of having the boy or others judge me as prudish or a narc, I also tended to shrug it off and giggle.
If this was the case for the girl on your train, I hope that your insistence that he remove his arm from around her neck at least highlighted to both of them that his behavior was not okay in a larger societal context.
No one ever intervened for me in situations like that when I was a teenage girl. I wish someone had, I might have figured out my boundaries earlier.
posted by dchrssyr at 12:45 PM on January 30, 2010 [5 favorites]
Thank you for stepping up and doing something.
posted by sallybrown at 12:48 PM on January 30, 2010
posted by sallybrown at 12:48 PM on January 30, 2010
Whether or not she thought it was "fine," it is grossly inappropriate public behavior. I think you handled it perfectly, and I suspect the young people did too, since they didn't mouth off or challenge you.
posted by Crotalus at 1:02 PM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Crotalus at 1:02 PM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
You did good. I am often in the same situation, except it is in the public library where I work so I have more "power" then you. In addition to asking the female (or obviously weaker male) if they are okay I often follow-up with letting them know they shouldn't put up that behaviour and if the agressive person seems open to communication I try to have a word with him or her about "knowing your own strength" etc. Like I said though, I have staff and patrons ready at my back (I hope!)
posted by saucysault at 1:02 PM on January 30, 2010
posted by saucysault at 1:02 PM on January 30, 2010
You did a good thing. Even if they were only playing it doesn't hurt to check anyway.
When I was in high school I was on the bus with a boy from my school (sort of - technically the same school but the boys and girls had separate buildings and no shared classes) I didn't know him that well (and I can't for the life of me remember how I ended up sat next to him) but what started as somewhat playful horsing around and tickling ended in him physically stopping me from getting off the bus. I kicked and screamed and yelled for help and no-one on the bus tried to help me. It may have been playful but it was still fairly sinister and a little frightening and I was still being physically restrained against my will. If someone had come over I probably would have said I was fine (I was, really) but it would have ended the situation and I would have been able to leave.
posted by missmagenta at 2:14 PM on January 30, 2010
When I was in high school I was on the bus with a boy from my school (sort of - technically the same school but the boys and girls had separate buildings and no shared classes) I didn't know him that well (and I can't for the life of me remember how I ended up sat next to him) but what started as somewhat playful horsing around and tickling ended in him physically stopping me from getting off the bus. I kicked and screamed and yelled for help and no-one on the bus tried to help me. It may have been playful but it was still fairly sinister and a little frightening and I was still being physically restrained against my will. If someone had come over I probably would have said I was fine (I was, really) but it would have ended the situation and I would have been able to leave.
posted by missmagenta at 2:14 PM on January 30, 2010
When I mentioned this to a friend, they asked what I would have done if the guy told me to fuck off or something. I didn't know. I had no answers outside of "get physical" which is obviously a bad plan.
I've heard of people taking camera phone photos in this situation - Less likely to escalate the situation than the threat of violence, but in a sense more threatening because a threat to contact the police is more credible than a threat of physical violence.
posted by Mike1024 at 2:39 PM on January 30, 2010
I've heard of people taking camera phone photos in this situation - Less likely to escalate the situation than the threat of violence, but in a sense more threatening because a threat to contact the police is more credible than a threat of physical violence.
posted by Mike1024 at 2:39 PM on January 30, 2010
I might say something to the guy in a light but firm tone that is totally old fashioned but gets him to let her go. Something like "A gentleman gives a lady her space, why don't you scoot over just a little and let her breathe." Then I'd sit down near them and watch him the rest of the ride.
posted by TooFewShoes at 2:42 PM on January 30, 2010
posted by TooFewShoes at 2:42 PM on January 30, 2010
This doesn't exactly answer your question but supports what you did.
It really is unacceptable to give unnecessary scares to the police or to fellow-members-of-the-public, which is what these kids were (or may have been) doing.
You did the right thing. Assuming that the girl was OK, and they were just playing, you have shown those kids that it is not acceptable to have pretend drama in public. You may have taught the girl not to behave in a way that invites rescue (or allow other people to put her in that situation) unless she wants to be rescued. You may have taught the boy that it is OK to step in if he sees someone who appears to be in trouble. You have shown the girl that what [it appeared] was being done to her is unacceptable. You showed the boy that what [it appeared] he was doing is unacceptable.
You behaved responsibly and it sounds like you used the exact right amount of assertiveness.
posted by y6t5r4e3w2q1 at 3:44 PM on January 30, 2010
It really is unacceptable to give unnecessary scares to the police or to fellow-members-of-the-public, which is what these kids were (or may have been) doing.
You did the right thing. Assuming that the girl was OK, and they were just playing, you have shown those kids that it is not acceptable to have pretend drama in public. You may have taught the girl not to behave in a way that invites rescue (or allow other people to put her in that situation) unless she wants to be rescued. You may have taught the boy that it is OK to step in if he sees someone who appears to be in trouble. You have shown the girl that what [it appeared] was being done to her is unacceptable. You showed the boy that what [it appeared] he was doing is unacceptable.
You behaved responsibly and it sounds like you used the exact right amount of assertiveness.
posted by y6t5r4e3w2q1 at 3:44 PM on January 30, 2010
Wow, you were brave, and did the right thing.
posted by theora55 at 4:03 PM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by theora55 at 4:03 PM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
If the girl said she was fine and then the guy told you off when asked him to move his arm, I would look at the girl and say "I just wanted make sure you were OK. If I hear you say "stop" or "help" again, I will pull the emergency cord and get help for you." then back off a few feet and sit down.
posted by metahawk at 6:20 PM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by metahawk at 6:20 PM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
Frequent DC rider here. You did exactly right, especially in not being dramatic or agressive. Some high school kids have guns, but all of them deserve to be ashamed of this kind of behavior.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:15 PM on January 31, 2010
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:15 PM on January 31, 2010
As a fellow DC resident I am so thrilled that you did this.
This kind of thing happened to me once. I was standing outside with some friends talking to guys (that we knew) at 3 in the morning and we were getting kind of loud. Some woman, from across the street yelled over to me, asking if I was okay. I wasn't offended, put off, or anything. I was floored that someone -- a stranger -- went out of their way to insure that I was okay and that's something I won't ever forget.
posted by citywolf at 8:37 AM on February 2, 2010
This kind of thing happened to me once. I was standing outside with some friends talking to guys (that we knew) at 3 in the morning and we were getting kind of loud. Some woman, from across the street yelled over to me, asking if I was okay. I wasn't offended, put off, or anything. I was floored that someone -- a stranger -- went out of their way to insure that I was okay and that's something I won't ever forget.
posted by citywolf at 8:37 AM on February 2, 2010
Honestly, some of the HS kids that ride the DC metro scare me. I'm pretty sure they could beat me up, so I wouldn't say anything to them directly. Instead, I'd push the call button at the end of the car. When the operator responded, I'd explain that there is a fight in progress in my car. IMO, that's as far as my responsibility would go - I've informed the appropriate people, and it's their responsibility to take action.
But like I said, I'm kind of a wuss.
posted by etoile at 10:49 AM on February 2, 2010
But like I said, I'm kind of a wuss.
posted by etoile at 10:49 AM on February 2, 2010
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