when you think you're about to witness violence what do you do?

[jackjohnsonshat]

Bit shaken up here. Talking dd home from a party I got into my car and saw a man and a woman on the street having a very aggressive argument. i was worried for the woman as it looked pretty nasty. I didn;t think intervening was a good idea and wasn;t sure about calling 999. had i got the local police number I might have called but obvisoulsy didnt. anyway it got nasty, she was pushed over and he kicked her before walking off. at this point I got my mobile. I saw a (male) runner had stopped. all of this happened right next to a phone box. I got out of the car and ran over, by whihc time the runner was on the phone to the police. I tried to think of helpful things to say to the woman. waited til the police came and told them what I saw. I'm annoyed with myself that I didn;t ask the police what I should have done. Should i have called 999 earlier - ie just because 2 people were having a barney and I had a hunch (correct) that it was going to get physical? the thing is I see this quite a lot and I am 99.9 per cent sure that we can all tell when there's a pattern of violence involved. Body language, voices - I think we're pretty good at telling when something's going to get nasty. the police came incredibly quick. If I had called them 4 minutes earlier they might have been able to diffuse the situation. But then again - for how long? send him running with a flea in his ear and he'll just save it up for tonight? what's to be done?
(it's the womanwho.... btw)

what I meant when I said I see this quite a lot is that I saw the aggressive arguing and that I am pretty sure it does get nasty but - probably later at home.

This one could be a great debate!
personally if I was on my own, I wouldn't stick my beak in, as you can get dragged into these things and come off worse, I'd probably ring the police and involve them straight away, however if I was with a few people I'd like to think that 'we' whomever we were would intervene, but then you never know if it'd get nasty, so ???? coppers are a better bet I reckon, they get paid to do it right?

Call the police asap. THey have to follow procedures (supposedly) with DV cases that mean that episodes like this are followed up. If in doubt, always 999.

It's difficult, as unless you've actually witnessed violence the police won't come out ime.

I once found a woman stumbling down the road near me, she was clearly terrified and had been in some kind of ruck (no shoes, clothes pulled about and her weave had been half pulled out of her head) She told me she'd got into an argument with her boyfriend, and needed to get home as he was coming. She wouldn't come to my house, and didn't want me to call the police and insisted on carrying on to the high street, my hands were a bit tied as I had DD, and she was just a baby at the time. So, I waited until she had walked off and then I rang the police. They wouldn't/couldn't do anything. I hadn't seen any violence and she hadn't asked me to contact them, so there was nothing they could dp I wanted someone to come out and help her.

In your position, I think I would have done the same thing tbh. It's easy to blame yourself in hindsight but at least you stayed around to help her. Have a sit down and get rid of the shakes.

I suppose it does make sense to call the police anyway as apart from anything they're disturbing the peace which is a crime of sorts.
You forget that 999 is about quick response, it's not about someone's definition of emergency (ever been patronised in an A&E dept?) I read about a woman who was assaulted and afterwards phoned her local police '24hour' line as her attacker was long gone and left a message expecting at least a callback. She got no response at all because the station was unmanned for the bank hol and it really was just an answering machine.

PS always good to have a bar of chocolate in the freezer for emergencies, it's the best treatment for the shakes.

I would always phone the police, not necessarily 999 but hte local number. To my eternal regret I sort of witnessed something (ie, couldn't be sure what was going on) and was too late to do anything. Not violence as such, but horrible nontheless once I realised what could have happened

I would phone police regardless if it has happened or about to happen, if it makes you feel scared or you perceive the other person is scared (state of fear and alarm) then it is a breach of the peace.

Witnessed many situations and if it is a couple and I was on my own no I wouldn't step in as to often they both turn on you.

True about body language, you can tell alot from that. Trust your instincts and let the police sorrt it out if it is nothing it is better that they decide rather than just leaving it and then always worrying what happened.

A few years ago i witnessed a guy punch and kick a woman outside a train station. My natural instict was to run straight over and get him off her. Luckily as soon as i got there he decided to walk off. Considering i was only about 16 at the time i was lucky that he didnt decide to start on me. I tryed to help the girl and got her in a taxi but she wouldnt let me get the police involved because it was her boyfriend!