[ganesh7]

Of course the real problem is the uplifting attitude that is written.

Where really violent crime is happening as now in Western European cities, London, Berlin, etc. people got to know the very real consequences of 'intervening' frequently resulting in seriously harming oneself or even getting killed. There have been instances where the police was not able to help. There are regular occurances of rescue teams being attacked to prevent them rescuing the victims of attacks. The even started a campaign to promote not attacking rescuers.

Also, in a democracy the use of force is supposed to lie with the administration only and of course there should only be very limited room for 'bystanders' 'to self-police to protect their communities and others' unfortunately we know the opposite is true.

[semi-extrinsic]

Hmm, searching around for the type of statistics you are talking about, I get articles to a couple of anecdotal stories that are frequently repeated on sites like Jihad Watch, Voice of Europe, RT, etc.

Unless you can provide some actual statistics, I would dismiss this as unfounded far-right propaganda.

[thinkingemote]

It's conflating a couple of recent examples (london bridge knife terror attack trial reports is one) where the police protect themselves and wait for backup but the public try to intervene against their orders and trying to imply there's an agenda by the police to let these things happen.

[cf141q5325]

The attacks on firefighters and medics have been increasing at least in Germany, though finding reporting about it is a bit difficult since politicians used it a s a pretext to change the level of penalty for attacks on medics and firefighters and included cops in the category. Especially including the last group but not doctors and nurses in clinics makes it look more like another law and order push then anything else. As such statistics often tend to group together cops with first responders, which makes any comparison useless.

This is especially problematic since its a historical logical loop in Germany to charge people getting beaten up by cops for attacking a police officer. If they hadnt attacked a police officer it would have been illegal for the cop to beat them up and the prosecutor would be forced to charge the officer for assault. If there is however a open case against the victim, the charges will get dropped most of the time or at least paused in especially controversial cases till after the trial is over. As such you are highly incentivized to never report a cop for assault, especially as even statements of singular police officers get routinely valued higher then reports from multiple bystanders who dont know the victim. If you dont have a tape of what happened your chances of going to jail are high. This isnt something limited to protests and other large public events, there is an infamous case where police officers mixed up a 60yo translator assigned to a suspect with being connected to the accused and she ended beaten up in a police station and charged with attacking police officers. She was lucky that the judge believed her medical examiner that the reports of the cops at the station couldnt be true given the evidence. The other witnesses disagreeing with that story would have likely not been enough. The charges for assault against the cops were however dropped as usual.

German source: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/prozess-um-gewalt-auf-d...

You can find statistics about attacks on firefighters and medics (and not police officers) here for Bavaria (in German though but just scroll to the first graph)

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/gewalt-gegen-rettungskr...

It is more problematic then the shown increase from 250/265 to 327 since medics and firefighter representatives mention a high number of unreported cases. The article mentions a survey among 800 of them had 92% reporting getting insulted or threatened and 1/4 getting physically attacked during the last 12 month. Link to the study in the article is unfortunately down.

[kristiandupont]

I am curious: do you consider yourself to be on the left or right end of the political spectrum?

I ask because even if your message is not explicitly political, it indicates to me that you might be leaning to the right and I am curious about what the root-differences between that and someone like myself who is probably more left leaning really are. Clearly it's related to fear, but I have fears too (like climate change or fascism). It's really interesting to me why people fear one but not the other, in each direction. It feels like there is some sort of fundamental psychological principle that decides whether you are one or the other.

[pessimizer]

I agree with everything said here and I'm unambiguously on the very far left. Its just observational. Sometimes it's dangerous to intervene. Sometimes the people who intervene get killed. That's just a fact. If somebody is drowning on the Chicago side of Lake Michigan when the waves are bad, if you jump in to help you're 80% going to die. You're as likely to die as the person you're trying to help. You might not even help their odds, they may manage to swim back and you will still drown. If a pimp hits a prostitute, and you intervene, he may kill you. In some places, he probably is going to kill you. And he's not going to kill her. He's going to kill you.

I don't know how to convince someone that happens a lot. It happens a lot, though. A lot of people still intervene, especially if everything happens quickly, and just get killed. But most people I think need to start sharing looks with strangers, figuring each other out and who looks like they can think of a plan, and who might be able to fight, and hope that you time and execute well enough with your new confederates so none of you get seriously hurt.

Somebody can be Islamaphobically screaming at two south asian women on the train, maybe hit one of them, and you and a couple other strangers get up to protect them, and that person stabs all three of you to death.

[jacobolus]

> really violent crime is happening as now in Western European cities, London, Berlin, etc.

Can you elaborate? Judging from statistics these both seem like reasonably safe large cities.

I wouldn’t recommend getting personally involved if two criminal gangs are in the middle of a knife fight or something. Getting the hell away and then calling the police from a safe distance seems like a better idea.

[thinkingemote]

Yep. Crime statistics actually mean it's safer to be in these cities than a small village. Safety in numbers! Oxford Street in London may have the most pickpockets operating but it also has vastly more shoppers making it safer than your local towns shopping area.

[thinkingemote]

It's a different thing really. The old theory is not bystander doesn't intervene because it's dangerous but that they thought otter people would help.

In the UK when it's dangerous the police protect themselves as a matter of priority often retreating. This led to one situation of the knife terrorist attack on London bridge where the public did intervene and risk their own lives when the police stayed back. However it's not the case all the time with groups of people and the bystander effect and that example actually disproves the bystander effect too!

[somehowadev]

Speaking for London, although many feel safe in the city. Most people (including me) aren’t stupid enough to get involved in a violent altercation if you happen to stumble across one.

It’d be foolish to get between 2 gangs fighting.

Alternatively if someone just collapsed on the street during rush hour, many will come over to help.