EYEL1NER
Member
I've had something on my mind for the last 24 hours and am curious what GAF says was the right thing to do, especially since we just had the thread where the guy called the cops on the two guys who were probably just working on their car.
Yesterday at about this time, I was driving down the highway to Board Game Night at a local store. I was driving towards the sun, which had begun setting already. I had to flip my sunvisor down because it was hard to see. The highway has two lanes going both east and west with only a small width of grass separating the groups of lanes. At the point where the following incident happened, there was a military base to the right of the highway with a perimeter fence that butts right up to the road, and a large empty field to the left of the highway with a small abandoned nightclub to one side of the field. The speed limit was 55mph, and traffic was moving at ~60mph (I had my CC set at 60). An F-16 was on his approach and was descending so as to land.
As I was driving down this stretch of road, behind two or three cars with some cars in the left lane alongside me as well, I caught a glimpse around the car ahead of me of what looked like a figure standing in the grass further down the road. It was hard to see with the sun setting, but I assumed it was someone crossing the highway, which I then thought odd since the side they would be crossing to has nothing there, it is a large fence with a flightline on the other side. As we got further down the road towards where I thought I saw someone, traffic started to slow a bit.
Suddenly everyone ahead of me in both lanes slams on their breaks, as do I and everyone behind me. There was in fact a guy that had been standing up there and when the group of traffic got close enough, he had walked out onto the road. He was a black male, maybe in his 30's. He begun walking around in front of the now-stopped cars that had begun honking at him and was trying to prevent them from going anywhere. Then he began walking down between the lanes, passing my vehicle, and finally proceeded back to the grass. The entire time, he was yelling (couldn't hear what he was saying over the jet engines and honking), looked extremely upset or angry about something, and had his arm outstretched above his head with a finger pointing directly up towards the sky. As I drove away I saw him walking into oncoming traffic on the other side of the highway, causing the cars there to slam on their breaks.
My first thought (after 'Oh fuck, why are we all slamming on our breaks!!!') was 'Holy shit, that is dangerous as hell! He's going to get someone killed, maybe even himself.' I did not have a phone on me (could have made a car phone call through OnStar though, now that I think about it) so I couldn't make a 911 call or call the police. I figured 'I'll ask someone to borrow their phone and make a call as soon as I get to the game store.' After that I began thinking that calling the authorities may not be the best idea at all. There was a chance that he was extremely angry at something, had something going on in his head mentally, or was extremely high on something (the area directly across from the base has a huge drug problem). Maybe he was looking to get hit by a car, maybe he had no awareness of where he was or what was going on. But a very possible outcome from the police arriving is him being shot and killed. We've seen recently that the police are not equipped to handle situations involving the mentally disturbed. And they don't have the best track record on the "not gunning down black men in the streets" front either. So I then decided "I'll bring it up as soon as I get into the store and see what the consensus is regarding how to proceed." Turns out no one showed up for game night, so that sucked. The store owner was there though so I described the situation to him, leaving out the man's race and my concern that the police would show up and shoot on sight (mainly because I am not sure that this guy would have the same concern for the man's life as I would, I don't know where he falls on BLM issues), and he didn't seem like he thought it was a big deal at all. So I did nothing about it.
When driving back home shortly after, I passed that area and saw no sign of the man, nor did I see any evidence of a wreck. It seems like everything wound up being fine. But there was a possibility that things could have gone horribly wrong. So that is when I started wondering if I should have called the cops or not. If he had caused a wreck and and someone died, or if he himself had been struck and killed, I imagine I would feel extremely guilty for not doing anything. But if the cops showed up and killed him, I would feel guilty too. But if the latter scenerio is how it actually played out, should I have felt guilt? It was a situation where someone could have gotten hurt with him out there on the road, and I can't control what some improperly trained racist cop does. I then started thinking 'Well, you could have pulled off the road and gotten out and tried to coax him off the highway, maybe see what the issue was.' That could have worked, it could have also led to me being hurt, but I didn't think of doing it at the time, so it was too late for it anyway.
So that is what happened. I'm not super-stressed over it or anything but I am unsure what the proper course of action should have been. I spoke to a family member about it and we couldn't really figure out what the best course of action would have been; she agreed that the some of the possible outcomes from calling and not calling were all pretty terrible. Maybe 99 times out of 100 he would have wandered off without incident. And maybe calling the cops would have led to them showing up and sorting the situation out without violence. Too late to figure it out now. I just don't know what was the 'right' choice.
Yesterday at about this time, I was driving down the highway to Board Game Night at a local store. I was driving towards the sun, which had begun setting already. I had to flip my sunvisor down because it was hard to see. The highway has two lanes going both east and west with only a small width of grass separating the groups of lanes. At the point where the following incident happened, there was a military base to the right of the highway with a perimeter fence that butts right up to the road, and a large empty field to the left of the highway with a small abandoned nightclub to one side of the field. The speed limit was 55mph, and traffic was moving at ~60mph (I had my CC set at 60). An F-16 was on his approach and was descending so as to land.
As I was driving down this stretch of road, behind two or three cars with some cars in the left lane alongside me as well, I caught a glimpse around the car ahead of me of what looked like a figure standing in the grass further down the road. It was hard to see with the sun setting, but I assumed it was someone crossing the highway, which I then thought odd since the side they would be crossing to has nothing there, it is a large fence with a flightline on the other side. As we got further down the road towards where I thought I saw someone, traffic started to slow a bit.
Suddenly everyone ahead of me in both lanes slams on their breaks, as do I and everyone behind me. There was in fact a guy that had been standing up there and when the group of traffic got close enough, he had walked out onto the road. He was a black male, maybe in his 30's. He begun walking around in front of the now-stopped cars that had begun honking at him and was trying to prevent them from going anywhere. Then he began walking down between the lanes, passing my vehicle, and finally proceeded back to the grass. The entire time, he was yelling (couldn't hear what he was saying over the jet engines and honking), looked extremely upset or angry about something, and had his arm outstretched above his head with a finger pointing directly up towards the sky. As I drove away I saw him walking into oncoming traffic on the other side of the highway, causing the cars there to slam on their breaks.
My first thought (after 'Oh fuck, why are we all slamming on our breaks!!!') was 'Holy shit, that is dangerous as hell! He's going to get someone killed, maybe even himself.' I did not have a phone on me (could have made a car phone call through OnStar though, now that I think about it) so I couldn't make a 911 call or call the police. I figured 'I'll ask someone to borrow their phone and make a call as soon as I get to the game store.' After that I began thinking that calling the authorities may not be the best idea at all. There was a chance that he was extremely angry at something, had something going on in his head mentally, or was extremely high on something (the area directly across from the base has a huge drug problem). Maybe he was looking to get hit by a car, maybe he had no awareness of where he was or what was going on. But a very possible outcome from the police arriving is him being shot and killed. We've seen recently that the police are not equipped to handle situations involving the mentally disturbed. And they don't have the best track record on the "not gunning down black men in the streets" front either. So I then decided "I'll bring it up as soon as I get into the store and see what the consensus is regarding how to proceed." Turns out no one showed up for game night, so that sucked. The store owner was there though so I described the situation to him, leaving out the man's race and my concern that the police would show up and shoot on sight (mainly because I am not sure that this guy would have the same concern for the man's life as I would, I don't know where he falls on BLM issues), and he didn't seem like he thought it was a big deal at all. So I did nothing about it.
When driving back home shortly after, I passed that area and saw no sign of the man, nor did I see any evidence of a wreck. It seems like everything wound up being fine. But there was a possibility that things could have gone horribly wrong. So that is when I started wondering if I should have called the cops or not. If he had caused a wreck and and someone died, or if he himself had been struck and killed, I imagine I would feel extremely guilty for not doing anything. But if the cops showed up and killed him, I would feel guilty too. But if the latter scenerio is how it actually played out, should I have felt guilt? It was a situation where someone could have gotten hurt with him out there on the road, and I can't control what some improperly trained racist cop does. I then started thinking 'Well, you could have pulled off the road and gotten out and tried to coax him off the highway, maybe see what the issue was.' That could have worked, it could have also led to me being hurt, but I didn't think of doing it at the time, so it was too late for it anyway.
So that is what happened. I'm not super-stressed over it or anything but I am unsure what the proper course of action should have been. I spoke to a family member about it and we couldn't really figure out what the best course of action would have been; she agreed that the some of the possible outcomes from calling and not calling were all pretty terrible. Maybe 99 times out of 100 he would have wandered off without incident. And maybe calling the cops would have led to them showing up and sorting the situation out without violence. Too late to figure it out now. I just don't know what was the 'right' choice.
