What do people think of this

[andydo]

with the amount of teenagers/young 20s that come into the tesco where i work after a drink nd start kicking off with abusive language/threatening violence there really is no wonder theyve got the reputation they have. i have to admit ive picked up a teenager and actually carried him out of our store yeah we've all done stuff we shouldnt some worse than others but i dont recall youths being half as foul mouthed then as what they are now but is that due to there being no fatha waiting to clip your ear these days

[GeoffWessex]

I'd been keeping out of this one...... can't really win in this situation. Yes, the 'Big Man' was heavy-handed and perhaps just bursting for some 'action'...... but do you just ignore the behaviour of the student towards the conductor and trying to be the smart-***.

Either way...... our 'Big Man' has now been charged with assault. So that kind of persuades me to keep my nose out of it in a similar situation. Same with most people, I expect. Which is similar to ignoring the screams of a woman in a back street at night.

[Cathus]

Another nail in the coffin for society.

[Beers]

According to the news the big man has been charged with assault.

[karenoliver]

I think he was always going to get charged because of the injuries to the boy's face. I just don't understand why the guard did not just carry on, and let the train leave the station to avoid confrontation. He could easily have radioed ahead to the transport police at the next station! It would have been easier to ignore the ticket issue and have it dealt with off the train surely?

Karen

[Cathus]

Karen,
unless the next station was Edinburgh central the chances of having a BTP officer at the next station are practically zero.

Life would be so much easier if we just ignored stuff to avoid confrontation, but if you ignore stuff you encourage the behaviour you are ignoring. The confrontation is caused by the offender, not the person trying to sort it out.

It's because everyone has ignored things to avoid confrontation that we are in such a mess now and people take their own lives and kill their children because they see everybody ignoring behaviour which blights their lives (thinking about the woman who set fire to her car with her disabled daughter in it a year or so ago - if her neighbours had intervened to stop all the kids blighting her life, perhaps she and her daughter would still be here)

It takes two people to create a child but a whole village to raise it, so the saying goes, so when the village fail to raise the child who is to blame when it goes off the rails?

[karenoliver]

Originally Posted by Cathus

Karen,
unless the next station was Edinburgh central the chances of having a BTP officer at the next station are practically zero.

Life would be so much easier if we just ignored stuff to avoid confrontation, but if you ignore stuff you encourage the behaviour you are ignoring. The confrontation is caused by the offender, not the person trying to sort it out.

It's because everyone has ignored things to avoid confrontation that we are in such a mess now and people take their own lives and kill their children because they see everybody ignoring behaviour which blights their lives (thinking about the woman who set fire to her car with her disabled daughter in it a year or so ago - if her neighbours had intervened to stop all the kids blighting her life, perhaps she and her daughter would still be here)

It takes two people to create a child but a whole village to raise it, so the saying goes, so when the village fail to raise the child who is to blame when it goes off the rails?

I can understand what you are saying Garry and in an ideal world it would work just like that, everyone would stand up to thugs and life would be peachy. Except it doesnt always work out in the way it should. One night I was out with friends in town , I was 17 and a group of older girls were kicking the living daylights out of a girl. Me and a friend went over and shouted for them to stop, result was me ending up in hospital for 2mths with a fractured skull, had my spleen removed and multiple fractured ribs. That was the reason I never went out of the house for nearly 20 years, the effect it had upon me was awful.
These days people carry knives and guns, you need to be careful what you get involved in.

Karen

[Cathus]

I'm sorry you had such an awful experience Karen, and I know that people have been killed for stepping in and doing the right thing.

That doesn't mean that society should just step back and nobody should intervene. Life is full of risks and we must weigh up those risks when we decide to take or not take action. I think in your initial post you said the big man was a total thug. I had a different take, I said he weighed up the risks, thought about his size, age, physical ability and decided he could win the encounter, you cal it acting like a thug, I call it weighing up the risk and deciding the risk was worth taking. To do otherwise would be stupid and this is when people end up getting hurt, they have not properly assessed the risk or have been heedless to it.

So, there are times when it would be foolhardy to intervene.

Having said that, intervening doesn't necessarily mean getting hands on and physical with someone, though sometimes this is necessary, a comment, a disapproving look, calling someone else to do the intervening, all add up to make sure that the person in the wrong knows he is in the wrong.

The problem with society today is everybody thinks only of themselves and something is always somebody else's fault or problem. This is why people don't tell other people's children off, teachers allow kids to get away with bad behaviour. There are no consequences for bad behaviour. Kids grow up demanding rights but not accepting their responsibilities, because nobody has instilled in them that rights go with responsibility and every action has a consequence. This goes from the schoolyard, to the courts, to the prisons and directly to the government, and the people who suffer are individuals sometimes with massive consequences.

So far, I've spent 33 years in law enforcement. I have seen at first hand the destruction that attitudes which prevail today have wreeked on society. Where we once were a society of good Samaritans we are now a society of bystanders and we sow what we have reaped.

I have been assaulted countless times over the years. I was put in hospital and had 3 operations, I had a cut on my forehead for my wedding photos and a cut on my cheek for my first child's christening photos because people thought they could do whatever the hell they pleased and get away with it.

I am no longer directly involved in law enforcement, having retired 3 years ago (but still work for the same people as a civvy) I continue to intervene when I see fit. I'll weight up the risks and make a judgement on whether I'll win if it turns violent and act accordingly. Being 6'3 and 18 stone sometimes helps, but being 50 plus can hinder.

Will I step in and kick someone off a train if they are breaking the law, acting like an ***, are younger and smaller than me? Absolutely, will I do the same if they are built like a cage fighter and have several mates around them, absolutely not, that would be crazy, does that make me a thug?

[karenoliver]

Originally Posted by Cathus

I'm sorry you had such an awful experience Karen, and I know that people have been killed for stepping in and doing the right thing.

That doesn't mean that society should just step back and nobody should intervene. Life is full of risks and we must weigh up those risks when we decide to take or not take action. I think in your initial post you said the big man was a total thug. I had a different take, I said he weighed up the risks, thought about his size, age, physical ability and decided he could win the encounter, you cal it acting like a thug, I call it weighing up the risk and deciding the risk was worth taking. To do otherwise would be stupid and this is when people end up getting hurt, they have not properly assessed the risk or have been heedless to it.

So, there are times when it would be foolhardy to intervene.

Having said that, intervening doesn't necessarily mean getting hands on and physical with someone, though sometimes this is necessary, a comment, a disapproving look, calling someone else to do the intervening, all add up to make sure that the person in the wrong knows he is in the wrong.

The problem with society today is everybody thinks only of themselves and something is always somebody else's fault or problem. This is why people don't tell other people's children off, teachers allow kids to get away with bad behaviour. There are no consequences for bad behaviour. Kids grow up demanding rights but not accepting their responsibilities, because nobody has instilled in them that rights go with responsibility and every action has a consequence. This goes from the schoolyard, to the courts, to the prisons and directly to the government, and the people who suffer are individuals sometimes with massive consequences.

So far, I've spent 33 years in law enforcement. I have seen at first hand the destruction that attitudes which prevail today have wreeked on society. Where we once were a society of good Samaritans we are now a society of bystanders and we sow what we have reaped.

I have been assaulted countless times over the years. I was put in hospital and had 3 operations, I had a cut on my forehead for my wedding photos and a cut on my cheek for my first child's christening photos because people thought they could do whatever the hell they pleased and get away with it.

I am no longer directly involved in law enforcement, having retired 3 years ago (but still work for the same people as a civvy) I continue to intervene when I see fit. I'll weight up the risks and make a judgement on whether I'll win if it turns violent and act accordingly. Being 6'3 and 18 stone sometimes helps, but being 50 plus can hinder.

Will I step in and kick someone off a train if they are breaking the law, acting like an ***, are younger and smaller than me? Absolutely, will I do the same if they are built like a cage fighter and have several mates around them, absolutely not, that would be crazy, does that make me a thug?

I know things need to change but its got to start at home I think. I see so many little kids with loser parents! I know that sounds harsh but they are boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 10 and they are smoking, swearing and basically out of control. Their Mums and Dads just seem to let them get on with it. Then the little kids grow up and well, the rest is history..

Half of my family are in the police force, one a local chief inspector and one in the drugs squad. I know the kinds of things they come up against and I do agree that if society helped more that crime could be reduced. I suppose my judgement is just influenced by my own experiences. If I did see someone getting their head kicked in and nobody was around to help I probably would try and help but I know I'd probably cop it as well!


I wouldn't class you as a thug, of course not if you took action, I think maybe the difference though between you and the " big man" is that I got the impression he was a bit of a lad, maybe liked a bit of bother, whereas you with your experience would be different, hope that makes sense. :-)

Karen

[Cathus]

Thanks Karen,

I think the big man was just doing something he saw as his civic duty, if reports are correct I believe he is a fire fighter and therefore someone whose life is based around helping others and 'serving' society.

Unfortunately, we have a couple of generations who have not been brought up with consequences, therefore trying to get them to bring up their children in something which wider society would regard as a decent way is something of a lost cause, as I said, the genie is out of the bottle.