My Thoughts on Stopping Violent Crime

I know there are several of you who feel the urge to patrol the streets and stop violent crime (bar fights, domestic disputes, etc). For that, I commend you.

However, I really feel that unless your life or the life of a loved one is in danger, the way to respond is contact 9-1-1. DO NOT GET INVOLVED DIRECTLY. Let the authorities handle these situations.

Is this a cowardly attitude? No, it's a smart one. After all, you can't help anyone if you're dead.

A lot of violence stems from males lured into social dominance games (e.g. the following dialogue I've heard a million times at bars):

Quote :

“What are you looking at, asshole?”

“Who are you calling an asshole?”

“You, bitch. What are you going to do about it?”

The best way to diffuse this situation is to contact 9-1-1. Don't become part of this stupid game.

A true story: I have a friend who tried to diffuse such a situation outside a bar. They got into a fight, and he hit one of the men. The man fell and hit his head on a fire hydrant and died.

As a result, my friend spent a year in jail.

Was it worth it? My opinion: no.

If you're going to patrol the streets for violent crime, your only weapon should be a cell phone to call 9-1-1.

Just my two cents. Be safe out there.

[quote="Zimmer"[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]][/quote]

This brings back memorys.

Haha, it's not often you get to see a meme on here. Priceless.

You're right though, calling 911 should definitely be one of the first steps when dealing with a violent confrontation. That being said, are you really going to stand there and watch some dude get the snot kicked out of him until the authorities come?

Some cities have so much to deal with in a single night that their response times to an event like this could be well over the time needed for these individuals to severely harm or kill someone.

So one should act, this doesn't mean you need to go in with fists flying, sometimes just letting them know theres another presence there could scare them off. Using comprehensive crisis intervention tactics to talk them down could help, if all else fails then yes, maybe some kind of physical intervention is needed. Although most people who do crime patrols like this have some form of back-up so they aren't going in alone either.

Just a heads up, you don't need to stop crime, its not expected of you as an RLSH, but there are those out there who choose to do it, and they may not take lightly to someone, especially a newer member, telling them how they should do something they've been doing for a long time.

Not criticizing you about this but i'd highly recommend you go and read several of the patrol logs in the patrol sections and find the ones where they've dealt with this scenario and read how they handled it. They're speaking from experience and you'll see that the police don't always arrive right that second.

Not that i'm knocking the police, they've just got a lot on their hands for how small their force generally is in every city, I know where I live the average response to a reported crime can be around a half an hour to eight hours depending on the priority of it, and mine is one of the ones with the lowest crime rates in Canada.

The only reason I can carry a police baton is because of a loop hole. I just want to be able to use that loop hole with other things if I'm able to.

Blue Rattler wrote:

I know there are several of you who feel the urge to patrol the streets and stop violent crime (bar fights, domestic disputes, etc). For that, I commend you.

However, I really feel that unless your life or the life of a loved one is in danger, the way to respond is contact 9-1-1. DO NOT GET INVOLVED DIRECTLY. Let the authorities handle these situations.

Is this a cowardly attitude? No, it's a smart one. After all, you can't help anyone if you're dead.

A lot of violence stems from males lured into social dominance games (e.g. the following dialogue I've heard a million times at bars):

Quote :

“What are you looking at, asshole?”

“Who are you calling an asshole?”

“You, bitch. What are you going to do about it?”

The best way to diffuse this situation is to contact 9-1-1. Don't become part of this stupid game.

A true story: I have a friend who tried to diffuse such a situation outside a bar. They got into a fight, and he hit one of the men. The man fell and hit his head on a fire hydrant and died.

As a result, my friend spent a year in jail.

Was it worth it? My opinion: no.

If you're going to patrol the streets for violent crime, your only weapon should be a cell phone to call 9-1-1.

Just my two cents. Be safe out there.

Thank you!



We all need reminding of the basics

first responders are taught not to become part of the problem. you dont want to have to be rescued from trying to rescue someone else. it's about using your commen sense and assesing the scene to formulate a plan of action, of which 911 is the first action.

Calling 9-1-1 should almost always be the first action, and intervention should almost always be the last. Nothing is absolute, and there are times when stopping to make the call could be the difference between life and death for another. I've never been in that situation myself, and hope nobody ever is. Yet another good reason to have backup.

What if you are witnessing someone being attacked and calling 911 would consume too much precious time? If you intervene during the violent attack you could be killed so calling 911 is a priority as a fail-safe should you be incapacitated but efficient time is lacking because someone is in immediate danger. What's the proper course of action?

Would you really just watch someone be maimed or murdered?

I always find myself calling 911 while running towards the incident, no reason you can't do both.

I know the natural feeling many of us have may be to try and help. But the truth is, we are not trained as first responders (by that, I mean trained professionally by a professional law enforcement agency).

So, to answer your question, no I would not intervene directly if I came upon someone in a violent crime. Ask any police officer how a witness to a violent crime should act and this is their answer is this:

- Call 911
- Let the person committing the violent crime know the police have been alerted
- Keep your distance
- Don't become physically involved
- Get a detailed description, including the direction in which the person committing the crime fled (this is usually the result after notifying them the police have been called)


There is a lot of good we can do in acts of altruism.

I don't mean anyone disrespect. I just want us to be safe while we do good.

If you do feel passionate about being a first responder, I would seriously consider a career in law enforcement.

Speak for yourself when you boast about having no training.

Some of the best in this movement have a background in military, law enforcement, security and emergency service.

Furthermore, I don't need permission from the police to intervene if someone is being attacked right in front of me. That's silly.

What Zimmer said.

Many RLSH have a great deal of experience and training. Combine this with specialized armor and a group working as a unit. They could be quite formidable.

I think it'd be a big mistake to sit on the phone with 9-1-1 while someone was being brutalized right in front of you. There isn't always time to call, but you can direct someone else to call if other people are present. If not, it's your choice of what to do, depending on your personal sense of right and wrong.

But we dont have 9-1-1 in Iqaluit or anywhere else in Nunavut I dont think we have 9-1-1 in the NWT or the Yukon so we just call the local police number here In Iqaluit 979-1111 Fire\Ambulance 979-3333

However There isnt always time to call because you have to answer a bunch of questions before they can even send out someone to stop the fight



Here is one for you What would you do if you opened the newspaper and saw a story about someone you have known all of his life now being charged with a very serious sick offence?

Each situation is different. Sometimes you can defuse the situation, sometimes you can't. Sometimes you need to call the police, or in extreme circumstances 911, sometimes you don't. Use your own judgement.

I'll add that if you have little or no training, try to find other RLSH in your area to patrol with, or if you can't, patrol in your car.

Patroling in a car is something almost nobody ever considers doing.

I'm not sure why, except that it doesn't seem very superhero-ey, maybe.

It has advantages.

That's not true, I know a few people that do car patrols. It depends on if you want to cover a lot of ground or take in more details slowly. The happy medium the NYI found is to use longboards, but we also do foot patrols and car patrols.

If you have little training, the best thing you can do is call the police. But to say that no one should ever help another person in a violent scenario, that's silly.

This is a touchy subject, but it is a necessary one. It is important to understand that you, as an RLSH are governed by the same laws that govern those involved in that violent crime you are about to intervene in. While the law does make concessions for "good Samaritans", there's still a question of liability. Remember that we live in a country where a criminal who is injured while breaking into a business can successfully sue the business owner for damages. This is not to suggest that anyone is going to put their wallet above helping someone, but you stand just as much at risk of ending up in handcuffs at the end of it.

Regardless of training or qualifications, unless you are a trained, currently employed, active law enforcement officer, that means you are a civilian, and while jumping in may get you a pat on the back today, it could just as easily get you locked up tomorrow.

Calling 911 is what the average bystander normally does as they simply watch someone be beaten, all the while waiting for the police to show up. The police do show-up, of course, but only 8 plus minutes after the call is made, if you're lucky. 8 minutes seems like a short amount of time if you're just sitting around but in a life or death situation it is an eternity.

If you're not training yourself with life or death situations in mind than you're doing something disturbingly wrong.

If you're training yourself to expect life or death situations -- which happen rarely -- then 99% of the time you're going to overreact or be completely useless.

:/

Also, individually and (if applicable) with a team, the number one priority in your mind should be that you all survive to "superhero" another day.

:/

IMO.

How much danger you expect to run into is relative to your actions. I'm aware of instances where bystanders attempted to help someone in mortal danger but were incompetent due to their inexperience in dealing with life or death situations, resulting in extreme injury and death to the person being attacked. If I can train for and assess a situation properly, then I can do what's necessary to de-escalate a heated situation or stop a violent act apporpiately. Not training properly would be the real mistake.

One thing that training does is that it teaches you your limitations. I am better at looking at an engagement and knowing what my chances are now than I was prior to martial arts training.

If you work with a team, you can always work on situational drills to emphasize deescalation techniques and how to react when SHTF. If you're at least prepared for bad stuff to happen, you're less likely to over-react to a situation.