Instances of sudden, unprovoked violence are relatively rare in Victoria, but they do on occasion happen in the downtown core.
Last weekend, two men came to the aid of a person who was being randomly attacked by a man with a street sign.
Intervening immediately, the two bystanders chased the man down as others called 911. The attacker was quickly subdued and arrested by the police.
The two men who were bystanders to the attack are being lauded for their quick responses and their willingness to get involved. Victoria Police Department spokesman Bowen Osoko praised their actions, although he observed that they were lucky not to have been harmed themselves.
That caveat is an important one to me, because I’m using it to rationalize my own actions.
Last weekend, in the shopping centre close to my apartment, I was witness to the fallout of what appeared to be a burglary. Two women, close to my own age, were chasing a middle-aged man through the parking lot, calling out for security as they sped after him. The man ran right past me, as did they, seconds later.
I didn’t do anything to help, other than get out of their way, and my inaction had a lot of causes.
Both my training and my sense of self-preservation prevented me from getting involved as the man ran past me. Not only did it seem obvious to me that I couldn’t do anything helpful (he was much larger than I was), but I also couldn’t do anything that would be helpful to them without putting myself in harm’s way.
Which, you know, was a pretty big deal for me.
At the same time, here were two women, my age or younger, chasing after this man, and they clearly needed help.
And as sure as I was that I wasn’t the person to give it, I also felt slightly ashamed of that fact as they turned the corner and disappeared from my sight.
As a woman, I’ve been taught to avoid dangerous situations, rather than physically intervening in them. I imagine that if I were a man, the gendered expectations of my role in such a scenario would have been even more fraught.
People are OK with a woman refusing to intercede in a situation such as this one — would it have been OK if I were a man, and were watching two women try to chase down what appeared (at first glance) to be a burglar?
Physically, I’m not a small person — would it have been the same if I were a larger man? Or would the usual social imperative for individuals to avoid violence be different in that scenario? Would I have felt more responsibility to physically intervene, and would that have been a good thing or a bad thing?
Because at the end of the day, the thing that got in my way was my realization that the only way to “help” would have been to use physical force (even if the concept of “Shannon” and “physical force” in the same sentence is laughable).
And I’m not sure what kind of “help” that would have been. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that I balked at the idea of potentially harming a stranger (or myself).
I didn’t know anything about the situation, and there was something about the man that suggested that he might have had other problems than the fact that he was currently having security called on him. And security handled it.
In most situations, it’s easy to know what to do. When I saw a fight break out downtown a few months ago, it was easy enough to cross to the safe side of the street and whip out my cellphone.
Ditto for the downed power lines and the woman I heard in distress in the park. As long as interpersonal contact isn’t required, I’m the best Samaritan you’ve ever seen.
Every now and then, though, we find ourselves in situations that challenge what we like to think about ourselves. I always thought I would be the person to help out in a situation like that.
But as it turns out, there was nothing I could have done, aside from getting out of the way and letting the pros handle things.
