#random violence

Stab.

Stab. Stab.

"Revenge Bandit Stabs Girl Garage Worker," Vancouver Sun. October 13, 1943. Page 2. --- A knife-slashing car thief today made good his threat of a month ago to get even with Miss Larry Corth, 560 Howe Street, attractive young "vulcanizer" at Hire and Drive Ltd., 945 West Hastings.

The thief plunged a sharp blade through Miss Corth's heavy overalls, two sweaters, a shirt and underclothing, causing gashes on her chest, and also cut her on the forehead, when she struggled to prevent his taking the keys to an auto she was about to drive to another part of the garage lot.

BLADE IN HIS HAND "I heard someone behind me when I had my foot on the running board," Miss Corth told a Vancouver Sun reporter, "and when I turned around the man. about 26, already had a blade in his hand. I couldn't tell whether it was a knife or a razor blade."

Miss Corth recognized her attacker as the same man who attempted to steal a car last month.

"I stopped him that time," she said, "because he was getting into a car that I knew belonged to someone else, and he threatened to get even.

The young mechanic is still noticeably scarred on both her wrists, from her last encounter.

MOLE ON CHEEK She identified the man by a mole on his cheek.

Police suspect the attacker to be a dope fiend and urged Miss Corth not to resist, if the man should return.

She was treated in the emergency ward of St. Paul's Hospital and insisted on returning to work despite her injuries and shock.

Video: Male Sucker-Punches 80-Year-Old Shopper, Unknown To Victim, While Exiting A Walmart In Lauderdale Lakes Florida – Miami Florida reporting

– Broward Sheriff's Office officials said the elderly man was leaving the store with a bag in his hand and had gone through the first set of sliding doors when the suspect approached and punched him twice in the face.

"This was a completely brazen and unprovoked attack on an elderly man who was just going about his day-to-day activities," sheriffs department spokesman Codd said.

Let's go back a bit. In 1969 I was born to a Caucasian mother and an immigrant father. My dad is from Haiti. He is light skinned, but you'd never think 'hey that's a white guy'.

I've gotten a lot of flak over the years, mostly over my hair and 'trying to be something you ain't'. I've tried to be brave and just ignore people being rude.

Since I was 16, for reasons unknown, there's been 1 guy who apparently cannot or will not keep his thoughts to himself. It's never the same guy but the results are the same. Unhinged screaming and yelling at me. The screaming usually starts with 'You ugly ass white bitch' and downhill from there. Once a year, I have some random unhinged guy screaming at me because he thinks I'm white.

The past two years have gotten much, much worse. These random people are becoming physically violent, and I've now experienced two attacks in three months.

I don't want to leave my home. I'm afraid that I could be killed because of how I look. Right now, as it stands, I only leave to go to work. Sometimes I stop at the grocery store to pickup orders I placed online.

I don't go outside for any other reason.

And then two days later, this:

A mentally compromised young man is standing in the middle of Broadway & John.

Is he mentally ill?

Is he high?

I don't know.

But he's not right.

He's thin, haggard.

Rough looking.

There are rips in his clothes that aren't born of fashion.

He sees the traffic on all sides and holds his ground against that traffic even as drivers lock eyes with him, even as some shout, even as cars, trucks, and an extended Metro bus carefully thread what little space is available to either side of him as he moves about the middle of the intersection.

Soon, a Metro transit security vehicle pulls to the curb along the east side of Broadway in front of US Bank.

The transit security officer stands on the corner and tries to get the young man's attention.

At some point the young man approaches the transit officer and they talk, seem to talk... until he moves back to the middle of the intersection.

At some point a US Bank security guard joins the transit security officer on the corner.

A half block away, at the bus stop next to me, around me, are three other young men with similar demeanor to the one in the middle of the intersection. One of them steps off the curb, into the street and then into the intersection where he tries to talk, seems to talk, to the young man who continues to stake out his ground in the midst of traffic. He even attempts to physically guide him out of the intersection and into the crosswalk. But to no avail.

And still the traffic flows carefully.

And still the security guards observe from the corner.

And still the haggard young man is either high or mentally ill.

And he will.

Not.

Leave.

At my bus stop, standing by the actual stop at the curb, there's a large young man on his way to school or to work.

Seeing the drama down the street from us, he becomes angry. And the words racing inside his head suddenly find their way out of his mouth.

Now he's yelling down the street toward the intersection as if he's arguing directly with the young man there.

"Get out of the street!"

"You are NOT holding up my bus!"

"You need to take care of your own shit at home!"

"You need to be put down!"

And so on.

Until.

Hand to God, until there's this completely unreal moment when he's not yelling down the street and, in that moment, a woman happens to walk by who catches his eye. And, as sweet as you please, he turns his attention to her and says

"Oh honey... I LOVE those earrings."

And then maybe a half minute later...

He's yelling down the street again.

Enraged.

Outraged.

By this time, somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes have gone by.

Fifteen and twenty.

Minutes.

The haggard looking young man's still taking up the intersection, randomly but intentionally wandering around in there.

Cars and trucks are still carefully moving around him on every side as the traffic lights change.

The security guard and the traffic security officer are still watching from their corner and everyone's watching this drama unfold from every corner and sidewalk and crosswalk up and down Broadway, up and down John.

And the young man standing at the bus stop near me is still yelling down the street.

Until someone finally, finally has.

Had.

Enough.

A yellow sedan pulls to the curb on the north side of John street after passing through the intersection.

A man gets out and he's pissed.

He.

Is.

Pissed.

From more than half a block away I can see that.

I can see the anger that's taken hold of him.

So he gets out of his car, slams the door, walks straight into the middle of the intersection.

And gets in the young man's face.

Gets in his face. Right up close. An act of sheer aggression and intimidation that works. That, on its own, produces the desired outcome.

It's a brief confrontation. And now the young man's walking away to the northwest corner of Broadway and John.

And it's over.

It's over.

And we all go about our days in progress as if what just happened...

Didn't just happen.

Because that's how we do life anymore.

Of course I have any number of opinions about crime and homelessness and drug use. I can riff on public policy and city government and the use of the force. I can even hum a few bars of mental health professionals instead of police, if you like.

But.

After a day of thinking about what happened...

Here's what I know.

The first thing is that I'm reasonably sure that no one, least of all the security guards, wanted to play a leading role in this potential viral video.

Second, I'm absolutely sure that everyone on Broadway and John, people of all demographics and ideologies, would've been satisfied or, at least not outraged, even if the pissed off man struck the young man in the intersection. Knocked him down. And hauled him out of the way of traffic.

Third (and if this is super obvious, forgive me if I'm late to the party), I'm struck by how close to the surface is frustration and anger and violence...

On public streets.

In the middle of the day.

In broad daylight.

And.

I know for a fact that when no authority, no professionals are around to take control of these situations...

The situations get handled anyway.

No holds barred.

No matter what.

Regardless of my opinions or yours...

They get handled.

One of my college psych professors, on the last day of class, bade us a farewell with this cautionary observation: we are nowhere when it comes to helping people who are mentally ill, living on the street. For a lot of reasons... we are nowhere.

That was decades ago.

And we are still.

Nowhere.

Whether it's mental illness on the street, homeless encampments, or drug addictions...

We.

Are.

Nowhere.

And in those decades since our professor brought that state of affairs to our attention, both the circumstances of street life and the context in which that life is spiralling out of control, the frustration, anger, and violence bubbling just under the surface...

All of it, all of it's giving the impression that there's simply nothing that can be done other than address it by force at the point where "danger to self or others" is absolutely what's going on.

Which is too late.

That was our professor's point.

"Danger to self or others" is too late.

You know?

Anyway...

What I know is that, in the absence of effective early interventions, in the absence of professional interventions at the time of "danger to self or others" in public whether that's police or mental health professionals or something we haven't thought of yet...

In the absence of actual answers, people will handle these situations themselves.

And they will be angry when they do it.