Mob attack

Kid gets killed when a mob turns on him. Looks like he was a good kid that got caught up in a wrong time wrong place situation.

Doubt this video link will last long, since they seem to be pulling them across the web.

http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/chicago-teen-beaten/2948682750




News story behind this... sorry I should have posted this to. http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/28/chicago.teen.beating/index.html

Any background story on this?

It's a little bizarre... but looks like school just got out and a few were spoilin for a fight... but where the hell did the 2x4 wood, fencing, whatever come from? Guess someone just decided to pick it up and make 'bad' with what they had?

Everytime I see a clip like this it seems that the casualties/fatalities stuck around and then end up caught up in the mob's wrath. Now sometimes a swarming happens too fast for some people to react to, but often it seems to me, that the best thing to have done was simply exit the area as fast as possible before people become empowered by the anonymity of the mob identity.

Everytime I see a clip like this it seems that the casualties/fatalities stuck around and then end up caught up in the mob's wrath. Now sometimes a swarming happens too fast for some people to react to, but often it seems to me, that the best thing to have done was simply exit the area as fast as possible before people become empowered by the anonymity of the mob identity.


There may have been some social motivation for the kid to stick around during the mess but generally speaking, people do not react much to danger these days. I saw a clip recently of a semi-local drunk guy threatening some other guys at a gas station with a chainsaw. What did they do? Take a few steps back and kind of stand there like idiots while he was walking around revving the thing.

Another clip of some comedian basing some humor on the terrorist bombing scare. He's wearing the "uniform" and does anything he can to make the unsuspecting candid camera victims assume that the briefcase he just left right by them is a bomb. And what happens? Some worried looks, and they step about three or four steps away from what they suspect is a bomb!

This is probably a fairly standard pattern of behavior. Survival instincts just aren't in fashion these days. So people sort of get stuck on the half-ass stage rationalizing danger signs away and trying to not show anyone what a total useless cowardly loser they are by doing something silly like reacting to the danger signs. That would be unfashionable!

RichardB wrote:

Everytime I see a clip like this it seems that the casualties/fatalities stuck around and then end up caught up in the mob's wrath. Now sometimes a swarming happens too fast for some people to react to, but often it seems to me, that the best thing to have done was simply exit the area as fast as possible before people become empowered by the anonymity of the mob identity.



This is probably a fairly standard pattern of behavior. Survival instincts just aren't in fashion these days. So people sort of get stuck on the half-ass stage rationalizing danger signs away and trying to not show anyone what a total useless cowardly loser they are by doing something silly like reacting to the danger signs. That would be unfashionable!

inclined to agree with you both on those points...especially when you consider the age.
tragic to say the least. it's going to haunt many of those that sort of follow the crowd and
don't run. the end of innocense.

Absolutely horrible. I feel such sorrow for all the families involved.

Weird isnt it, that you train for something like this & in the back of your mind a little voice is saying Paranoia! Paranoia! It will never happen & then you watch something like this and realise, yes it could & it happens somewhere every day.

Makes me scared for my son, too.

Off to training in a bit. Hope that everybody has a nice evening.

Matt

This is why I dont argue with anybody in the street at anytime,society now rhyms with sociopathy.It would take a few generations of enlightened dictatorship to straighten things out.

Danite wrote:

It would take a few generations of enlightened dictatorship to straighten things out.

I just have to ask... what does that mean?

Roadkill said.

Danite wrote:
It would take a few generations of enlightened dictatorship to straighten things out.


I just have to ask... what does that mean?




Thoughtcrime!

Do you think that most people are desensitised to actual risk?

That we are so often simply the voyeurs of violent acts or dangerous situations via the medium of television & other video media, with no direct fallout, that when it happens in real life, we simply repeat the patterns we've learned. i.e. Just observe, rather than act?

Does that tie-in with the fear of acting? Of looking foolish?

Roadkill, I really dont think I should get into that subject too much.Suffice it to say, to rectify certain things in our society would take national effort and a national intervention,in short a total take over of certain areas and the micro managing of just about everything for a generation or two.The brains of of the underclass youth need to be rewired.

its a very sad story and we do live in times when people are so used to watching tv and playing computer games there does seem to be an observer + "reality disconnect" flavour to the behaviour of people when faced with danger sometimes

so used to watching drama unfold we are greedy for it when perhaps once we would have had the sense to also be wary of the spectacle (obviously drama and violence as entertainment isnt new, the reality disconnect might be)

Richard Grannon wrote:

its a very sad story and we do live in times when people are so used to watching tv and playing computer games there does seem to be an observer + "reality disconnect" flavour to the behaviour of people when faced with danger sometimes

so used to watching drama unfold we are greedy for it when perhaps once we would have had the sense to also be wary of the spectacle (obviously drama and violence as entertainment isnt new, the reality disconnect might be)

agreed mate, and i've seen ALOT of kids raising kids on this end of the pond. i lived on chicago's south side for a year--talk about pervasive numbness to violence, and whatever reasoning could exist was replaced by a sort of survival-disassociation sadistic offbrand humor...exceptions--of course, always exist but it's more about the dominant and opressive flavor, init?

Interesting points on 'sticking around to watch' and observer detachment.

I've see an attack like this twice. Interestingly, one of which involved planks of wood too

Anyway, to be honest I felt nothing for the victims at the time. In the first incident I was walking home when I saw these two homeboys on the other side of the road looking a bit suspicious. Very nervous looking and they were looking all around them. So I assumed they were looking for witnesses and were planning on cross over to try and mug me. I had a huge adrenaline dump and just figured, OK, here we go. I used to carry in those days so I put my hand in my pocket ready to draw my trusty friend.

So they carry on walking past me and I feel relieved (big time) when I hear a rumbling kind of sound. Then I realized it sounded like a crowd of football fans. Then, and I shit-you-not, at least FIFTY homeboys and homegirls (home-persons if you like) come round the corner, spot these two guys and they go ballistic. One guy comes running over to me, I'm crapping my pants by this point, my hand is still on the equalizer, I don't have a clue what I'm gonna do against 50... anyway, this guy stops right in front of me and picks up this lump of wood by my feet which I never noticed (phew!) again instant relief as it's not me he's after. Then, I carried on walking. I looked back once and it just looked like a total gang-fuck. Those two guys were toast.

And at the time, I didn't feel anything for the two. From the way they dressed/acted I think I just assumed that they were all as bad as eachother. A feeling of, these are the guys I train to protect myself from, so if there are two less in the world, then good. I think maybe it would be different now... I've got softer since becoming a dad.

The second incident was just like the video (similar numbers and situation). I just watched without really caring for anyone involved . I was really just reflecting on society in general - they could all go to hell for I cared. I figured that - like in the first incident - that if they are involved in this sort of lifestyle - then whether they are getting beaten or doing the beating they are all peers and therefore as bad as each other.

And in both cases, I didn't have any inclination of running away from the scene. Which would have been the most sensible thing to do it seems. Maybe we are instinctively aware of other people's chase instinct? I can honestly say that I have been in a few scenarios where I had no inclination to run, even when running would have been the best tactical option. Intreshting...

I think living in London has numbed you laa

Richard Grannon wrote:

I think living in London has numbed you laa

Isn't emotional numbness a symptom of PTSD? Oh dear... London really has messed me up

An African American friend and I were laughing about this blog called something like: 'What White People Do' - It's pretty funny and I'm sure you could find it if you are so ineterested. Anyway, we started talking about different reactions, and he said he always thought it interesting that if he, or any of his (black) friends saw another brother running, their automatic reaction would be to run too. Whilst running, they would then ask the first guy "Hey, what's going on, why you running?" but they would definitely run first, before asking.
Conversely he said that in his experience, white guys tend to just stand there looking around, but not move. His conclusion was that black men in the US tend to experience more threat their white brethren, so tend to react quicker to 'getting out of Dodge' as it were.
OK, totally anecdotal, but perhaps interesting all the same as a counter point to getting inured to violence from inner city life.

maija wrote:

An African American friend and I were laughing about this blog called something like: 'What White People Do' - It's pretty funny and I'm sure you could find it if you are so ineterested. Anyway, we started talking about different reactions, and he said he always thought it interesting that if he, or any of his (black) friends saw another brother running, their automatic reaction would be to run too. Whilst running, they would then ask the first guy "Hey, what's going on, why you running?" but they would definitely run first, before asking.
Conversely he said that in his experience, white guys tend to just stand there looking around, but not move. His conclusion was that black men in the US tend to experience more threat their white brethren, so tend to react quicker to 'getting out of Dodge' as it were.
OK, totally anecdotal, but perhaps interesting all the same as a counter point to getting inured to violence from inner city life.

A 'sub-collective consciousness' kinda thing. I hear what you're saying. I find it very interesting.

maija wrote:

he said he always thought it interesting that if he, or any of his (black) friends saw another brother running, their automatic reaction would be to run too. Whilst running, they would then ask the first guy "Hey, what's going on, why you running?"

I tried this today… As I stood in my front yard, this guy went running buy. So I started running too and when I caught up with him I asked, what's going on, why are you running. He told me it was for his health and exercise.


I said... Oh… ok… see ya


Not sure I'll try this again.