A question of intervention

This chap, returning to college after a visit home, obviously believed in social capital, though he may not have heard of it. He did something about what he saw. Now he’s dead, as a consequence.

Some time ago, I met a teenager who’d been gang-raped. A regular, sober, sorted out kid, getting good grades and headed for University who’d taken a short-cut through a park. Now, you often come face-to-face with this sort of thing in inner-cities. Wide gaps between the privileged and the underprivileged, drugs, alcohol, migration, the clash of cultures and old-fashioned criminality all play their part. Years of encountering it sort of resigns you to some aspects of it, and you just buckle down and help people as best as you can. However, there was something about this kid that was different. Of course, she had bad psychological and not-so-bad physical problems. But what struck all of us was that she seemed so remarkably composed and dignified while coping with all of this. I mean, she had two broken ribs, a broken metacarpal, nightmares, flashbacks, panic, depression et al. But she was smiling on the surface and seemingly more worried about her mum than herself. And this was three months afterwards.

This started me thinking. What would I have done if I was walking alone through that park at the same time, and heard her cries? What would anyone else have done? Call 999 or 100? Sure. But that takes time. What else? I mean, she is getting assaulted while you think.