Another Woman beaten in Atlanta

[Guest DianeATL]

This makes me sick - I'd love to do some stomping of my own on him. Little 5 Points should be safe, I shop there often as it is a funky kind of village where you can find vintage clothing shops and things like that. I would not think this would happen there.

http://thegavoice.com/trans-woman-brutally-attacked-little-five-points/

[Ravin]

The thing I don't understand is how anyone can just stand there and watch. On the one hand, capturing it on film, if you're truly helpless to intervene, could be very helpful if placed in the right hands as evidence of the crime. On the other, if I actually saw someone being attacked, there is no way I could just stand there. I would call 9-1-1, or shout at the assailants, at a BARE MINIMUM (probably I'd shout first, then I'd either be on the phone or if the situation seemed clearly unambiguous--and a woman having her head stomped into the pavement by several attackers would seem unambiguous enough to me, I think--I'd act. Probably without entirely thinking about the wisdom of such action or my own safety. But I wouldn't stand there and just watch. I will never understand why people do that.

If you follow the update link, it looks like people DIDN'T just stand around while people beat the woman up. The man who posted the video said the woman was intoxicated, verbally provoked the man who stepped on her, and he pushed her away whens he approached him--then stepped on her shoulder, not her head, and was promptly told off by the other people present.

Based on that description, it appears to be a case of "unstable homeless woman under the influence started trouble, and most of the people around her did their best to de-escalate the situation." It also sounds like her transgender status had nothing to do with the incident. That she was hurting and broken and lashing out at random in a public place is just sad, of course, and stepping on her was out of line--but most of the people there behaved reasonably.

[Carolyn Marie]

Thanks for that reasoned perspective on what happened, Ravin. It appeared to me also that the woman was the one provoking a fight, although I can't be sure because there was audio. No excuse for violence, but we do reap what we sow.

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Sarah Faith]

The thing I don't understand is how anyone can just stand there and watch. On the one hand, capturing it on film, if you're truly helpless to intervene, could be very helpful if placed in the right hands as evidence of the crime. On the other, if I actually saw someone being attacked, there is no way I could just stand there. I would call 9-1-1, or shout at the assailants, at a BARE MINIMUM (probably I'd shout first, then I'd either be on the phone or if the situation seemed clearly unambiguous--and a woman having her head stomped into the pavement by several attackers would seem unambiguous enough to me, I think--I'd act. Probably without entirely thinking about the wisdom of such action or my own safety. But I wouldn't stand there and just watch. I will never understand why people do that.

If you follow the update link, it looks like people DIDN'T just stand around while people beat the woman up. The man who posted the video said the woman was intoxicated, verbally provoked the man who stepped on her, and he pushed her away whens he approached him--then stepped on her shoulder, not her head, and was promptly told off by the other people present.

Based on that description, it appears to be a case of "unstable homeless woman under the influence started trouble, and most of the people around her did their best to de-escalate the situation." It also sounds like her transgender status had nothing to do with the incident. That she was hurting and broken and lashing out at random in a public place is just sad, of course, and stepping on her was out of line--but most of the people there behaved reasonably.

Well during orientation at my University there was a segment exactly about this. It's actually pretty common for bystanders to mentally freeze when they see something like this happen. There is a mandatory workshop we all have to go to before semester begins to try to teach people tools to act and not freeze. So it's not that people are bad or indifferent, it's just really common for people to freeze up when they see something like this.

[Carolyn Marie]

I do think that the current video and social media era has led many to have a strong desire to "take part" in events by capturing them on video. The desire for recognition, even fame, is a big reason for that. So we see more examples of what happened here every day on the news. Events that used to be mundane (a purse snatching, for example) get national attention; not because they are especially newsworthy, but because someone has "exclusive video."

Certainly events occur that are worthwhile and newsworthy. But capturing them, or the mundane stuff, on video seems too often to take precedence over actually intervening to save a life. Getting a million hits on Youtube seems far more important than stepping in to stop an attack, give CPR or put out a fire.

Carolyn Marie

Edited July 6, 2014 by Carolyn Marie
Bad grammar and syntax repaired

[VickySGV]

For much of my working life I have been a health and safety officer for my job sites. Having taken and completed many courses in emergency preparedness and response over the years, I do respond to many things much faster than most people do, it is a trained response though, and is trained in even more so by regular drills involving those skills. Part of the training though is to assess danger to yourself and method of approach to the emergency which can give a moment or so of what can be interpreted by others as inaction. My moment of checking for approaching traffic when I saw a fallen person in the middle of a street, resulted in a complaint that I was not acting fast enough on one occasion. At the time, an approaching vehicle going at a high rate of speed did not have to figure out which one of two targets to miss. My pausing let it miss the single target safely.

I am glad to hear the Sarah will be getting training on how to respond to things such as this one. Her training will NOT involve a need to whip out her cell phone instead of thinking about First Aid priorities, and personal observation skills that tell you far more about the situation at the time it is happening, than does an instant replay several minutes later. Community safety and First Aid classes are taught by several sources, and it is one place where we will not be kicked out for being Trans* if we take those classes and use those opportunities for getting to know people. We can even become qualified instructors who can help people kick the camera phone habit as opposed to kicking someone in the head.

[Ravin]

For much of my working life I have been a health and safety officer for my job sites. Having taken and completed many courses in emergency preparedness and response over the years, I do respond to many things much faster than most people do, it is a trained response though, and is trained in even more so by regular drills involving those skills. Part of the training though is to assess danger to yourself and method of approach to the emergency which can give a moment or so of what can be interpreted by others as inaction. My moment of checking for approaching traffic when I saw a fallen person in the middle of a street, resulted in a complaint that I was not acting fast enough on one occasion. At the time, an approaching vehicle going at a high rate of speed did not have to figure out which one of two targets to miss. My pausing let it miss the single target safely.

I am glad to hear the Sarah will be getting training on how to respond to things such as this one. Her training will NOT involve a need to whip out her cell phone instead of thinking about First Aid priorities, and personal observation skills that tell you far more about the situation at the time it is happening, than does an instant replay several minutes later. Community safety and First Aid classes are taught by several sources, and it is one place where we will not be kicked out for being Trans* if we take those classes and use those opportunities for getting to know people. We can even become qualified instructors who can help people kick the camera phone habit as opposed to kicking someone in the head.

I guess maybe I just underestimate the importance of that training in how people react to those kind of situations. From the time I went to boot camp on, I've periodically renewed my first aid certs and been trained in how to handle an emergency. I guess I just see that kind of training as part of being an adult. I will probably take my 10yo. with me the next time I take a class to renew my certs.

Last year, I was in a car accident with my kids, and I did pretty much everything you're "supposed to do" in the aftermath--evaluated the scene, got the kids out because there was fuel leaking, rendered first aid, called 9/11, actively co-opted bystanders into helping.

Then I got a little irrational and focused on getting our belongings out of the car, probably because I was in a bit of shock. So I'm not perfect.

I've had occasions where I came across complete strangers who needed some help--once it was an old woman and I think her daughter or granddaughter. She was bleeding all over the place, and was refusing to cooperate with her caregivers in the middle of a rest stop somewhere between here and Tuscon. Initially I didn't know if it was some kind of domestic dispute or what, but I offered help to them, and my first aid kit came in handy, as I think did a witness whose presence gave the caregiver time to calm down her frustration. Evidently, the woman had fallen because she refused to use her walker or cane or a helping hand, and her skin was paper thin and easily torn, so she cut herself just by hitting the pavement.

I would never jump in without evaluating a situation first--and pulling out my phone to call 9-11 might be my response rather than direct intervention, depending upon all factors. I might pull out my phone to take a shot of a license plate if I saw a shoplifter fleeing Wal-mart, but I can't think of many other occasions that I'd think of using my camera phone. Certainly not to record altercations between strangers to post on YouTube without their permission for shock value. Just ugh.

I am disgusted that the person who filmed the footage referred to in the original post "didn't want to be involved." You got involved when you started recording a possible crime in progress, dude. But he did have a very good point that the ultimate problem that led to the altercation was homelessness and the lack of safe places for homeless people to go/be in his community, and there were others who came to the woman's defense when the guy stomped on her.

Those people did right. It can be very alarming dealing with someone lashing out--that doesn't make it reasonable to lash back. I wouldn't even find it troubling that the guy pushed the woman away when she got in his face--but once she was down, he should have just walked away. I'd like to hope they find the guy and charge him with assault, but my gut tells me it's unlikely.