| Let's evaluate for real, the cost-benefit of intervening physically against a knife-wielding crazy person: -- Minimum: you'll miss the day of work, have an arrest on your record which you'll have to disclose forever and which may cost you your career, may make it impossible to enter foreign countries, and so on. -- Probable: you'll miss many days of work due to police/legal complications. Significant chance of losing your job. Significant chance of grievous personal injury. Significant chance of assault charges which will cost you (minimum) tens of thousands of dollars to defend against (more likely >$100,000). -- Possible: Killed by knife. Killed by cop. Jailed for assault. Jailed for murder (if attacker ends up dead, you're going to be charged for sure). Newspaper columnist heaps scorn on your actions. -- Benefits, maximum: a newspaper mentions your name in a good way. Victim says "thank you". Yes, everyone is wondering if someone else will intervene. But also, individually, the calculus for intervening is just terrible. Highly likely consequences include months in the hospital, months in jail, cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The joke about a knife fight is that the winner is in the hospital, the loser in the morgue. Which one of those two will you be? |
I, being in an orthopedic boot, was unable to move at anything more than a quick hobble.