It's 8am - I just got home from some friends' house. We'd had a pleasant enough evening that went into the morning just sitting and talking and listening to music. They live near me, but in a dodgy neighbourhood, so one of my friends - a guy named W - walked me home. It was still dark out when we left (about 6am.) About a block from their house, we saw a girl walking towards us sobbing. I was expecting her to just be crying about some fight with a friend or a boyfriend or something. But when we got closer we could see that she was barefoot, walking a bit drunkenly and her dress was torn. So, we asked if she was alright and she started crying that she just wanted to go home.
She lived somewhere pretty far away - on the far side of the very worst neighbourhoods. She had scratches on her chest and a bruise on her face and one strap of her dress was torn and she had no shoes or purse. So was saying she wanted a taxi and could we get her a taxi but was just incoherent and crying.
At first I thought about the logistics of calling her a taxi. We were on a residential street and didn't know what address to give. And, how could she pay for a taxi with no money? It seemed to me that she was in no condition to be sent into a taxi - I wasn't even sure if she could give her address. I said, "Do you want me to call the police?" and she was wailing that she wanted to go home and I said, "I really think you need the police." And she said, "OK. Call the police."
And this is where shit got weird. W goes, "No, no. Don't call the police. They'll just ask a bunch of questions. Call her a taxi." I said, "No taxi is going to take a half-naked hysterical woman with no money. She needs the police." He said, "No. No police, man. Just get her a taxi and let her go home." I said, "No - I am calling the police." And W said, "I don't want to be involved. I'm going" and he walked away towards his flat.
So, I called the police, managing to give them the intersection we were standing in. The girl was sobbing hysterically and crying - I was hugging her and she was crying "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" over and over. I hugged her and rubbed her back and said it would be alright and she started to cry "Please don't leave me - I'm so sorry! Please don't leave me!" So I hugged and shushed her like a baby and told her of course I was going to stay and no need to be sorry. The police came in a couple of minutes (two cars and about four cops) and she clung to me for a couple of minutes until we coaxed her into sitting in the car. I asked if I could sit with her a bit and they said I could so I rubbed her shoulder and patted it until she seemed to be able to start to talk to the police. I didn't understand what she was saying - something about some men in a taxi - and once I could tell that she was OK talking to them and didn't need me I figured I should go. I didn't think it was my business to listen to her story, for some reason. It felt like rubbernecking and she didn't seem to need me anymore - the police were very kind and supportive and I figured I should go. The police agreed (they have my name and number) and I left.
W called me right away - he'd been watching from his balcony and wanted me to come the other way and he'd walk me home. So, he walked me home. And I asked him why he'd left and wanted to avoid the police. He said that he didn't want to be involved and be asked a lot of questions. "I think that girl is probably just making drama. She's drunk." I said she had a torn dress, scratches and bruises, no shoes, and it looked like her weave had been pulled from her head on one side. Something violent had happened to her. "Yeah, maybe. I don't know. You should have just called a taxi."
We stopped at McDonald's (the original plan as we were hungry but in truth I had no appetite) and I was just really puzzled and wanted to ask him more about it but I didn't want to be naggy about it - it bugged me, though. I said, "What would you have done if I hadn't been there?" "I would have ignored her. I dunno. Maybe called her a taxi." Then he said, "That's a really bad neighbourhood. A girl was dragged into the bushes right by there and raped by a guy with a knife this summer."
So he would have just let her walk through there - clearly vulnerable to anyone who wanted to prey on a drunk, hysterical woman. And I always thought of him as a really nice person - I consider him a pretty good friend. I am just really shocked and disappointed. At most, he would be contacted by investigators or maybe - just maybe - be asked for testimony in court should someone be tried for a crime. And he said, "Yeah, that's what I don't want. I don't want to answer a bunch of questions, like I'm the guilty one." He did say something about how in his home country, the police may just lock someone up because they were at the scene of a crime, even if all they did was report it. So, maybe he has a distrust of the police. But he knows that that is now how it is in England.
It was an alarming and upsetting thing to encounter someone in such distress in the first place and my friend's reaction to it has really disturbed me, as well. I don't hate him or anything but I am very disappointed in him and I have lost a lot of respect for him.
I had mentioned to the girl serving us at McDonald's that we'd come across a woman who seemed to have been violently attacked and she just laughed and said, "Oh, typical night around here!"
I'd also posted something abbreviated about it on Facebook (not all the details about my friend W's behaviour, but just that I'd called the police to help a hysterical woman in a torn dress who had clearly been attacked) and someone I don't know that well has just commented "LOL... must have been a Saturday night!"
Am I crazy? AIBU to think that this is a shocking and awful thing and that everybody else's reaction is bizarre?