Went to see a friend at her new house today and stopped by the local high street with DH, Dd and ds. There was 3 boys standing outside a kebab shop and my DD 2.5 brushed against one of the boys bikes and it fell to the ground, I immediately apologied and thought that was the end of it. A few minutes later the boys are following us across the high street saying we've scratched their bike and telling us the bike is 3000 pounds to which DH responds something like "in my day a bike like that would have cost 50 quid" and we walked off.
Again we thought that was the end of it and went across the road to a coffee shop to eat-in. We sat down and after 5 mins realized that the boys were outside circling the coffee shop, waiting for us. They wanted us to know they were waiting for us and making it very obvious. I started to panic at this stage but DH said they would get bored and leave. 20 mins later they are still there and because we have two small children with us (2.5 and 1) and I'm not sure what they'll do I'm reluctant to leave and say I'm going to call the police which I do explaining to the operator that although they haven't actually threatened us, I do feel threatened by their behavior and like we can't leave safely. There is no one else in the coffee shop and not many people on this quite desolate looking high street.
More teens join the three boys and there is now 10-12 outside, all just circling the coffee shop and making it clear they are waiting for us. We explain to the women at the counter what has happened and that we've called the police.
One of the boys (not the original 3), older, with his face covered comes into the coffee shop with his hands in his pants and clearly under the influence of something. At this point im terrified that he'll attack my DH (as he made the comment about the bike being worth 50 quid in his day) and im not sure what he has in pants (i was worried it would be a knife). Luckily the waitress is very firm and asks that he leaves when he tries to sit on the table directly next to us and he does.
The waitress goes out and asks the boys what the issue is and comes back and explains they want an apology and maybe £20 for the scratches for the bike. My husband was prepared to do this but I couldn't believe at this stage when there was at least 10-12 teens they would just leave it at that so asked him not to go and just wait for the police to come. One of the boys starts making rude gestures at my husband at this point.
Police came and I explained what had happened and apologized for calling them but said that I really did feel scared to leave as I thought they might attack us. Police said the boys had been rude to them and we were right to call. We were able to leave safely while the police were there.
Re-telling the story to family I did wonder whether I had done the right thing by calling the police as to be honest it sounded quite trivial (it's not like the boys had actually threatened us directly) and it may have been that they might have just thrown something at us/sworn at us and that would have been the end of it-not great but not a police matter either.
Was I wrong/overreacted to call the police? I don't think I would have done so pre DC but I think having the kids with me made me panic more than I otherwise would have as it's not like we could have just got into our car quickly and left (faffing around with car seats)