To be a Good Samaritan?
Published 1 year, 5 months ago in Making News.A man was shot dead on Monday morning in Melbourne trying to help a woman he thought was in trouble. Leaving out what you think of the shooting, will this stop you from helping strangers?
8 Responses to “To be a Good Samaritan?”
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No… shootings like that are very rare here, and I’m sure even the guy who tried to help the woman wasn’t expecting to be shot.
I would say it’s not worth being too cautious… many of the times I’ve chosen not to help or stand up for someone else I have regretted it, and the times I have chosen to help I was glad I did.
Still, there’s no sense in trying to intervene physically in an impossible situation, e.g. if an assailant is armed and you aren’t. In those situations it’s best to call the police.
Very interesting question, I have intervened in the past and I would like to think I always would, my actions at the time were spontaneous, would I do it again without thinking I hope I never have to find out. I think if I was in an area like King St. or the Cross I’d think twice, maybe.
Sometimes I would, sometimes I wouldn’t. Sometimes I have, sometimes I havn’t. Not only because of a high level of perceived danger but because sometimes it’s just a waste of time, the person your trying to assist won’t appreciate it and/or 5 minutes latter they’ll only put themselves back into a similar situation and other times I just couldn’t be bothered. Might sound callous, but in this life it’s survival of the fittess. Trust your gut instincts.
I work in between 3 methadone clinics. I see some amazing things on the street. We now pay for security guards to patrol ( no its not the USA……..just down town melbourne somewhere) Yesterday, One druggy mother, goes down for her ” cordial” and as many of them do, when they are desperate for a fix, she screamed all the way down the street at her little 3 or 4 year old boy. She called him for everything, whilst pushing the pram eratically. No one said anything but as I stood at the door of the shop watching, ready to go and do something, Like try and alert her to the fact, she was scaring the child for one. He cried once again and she wheeled around on him and was pushing him away, screaming at him that she hated his guts and wished hed never been born. One lady stopped and spoke to her, and with that she started screaming at her. ” shall I take it out on you then, would you prefer that” The youngish woman said a few more things and managed to walk away. by then druggy mum realised there were too many onlookers and took off. But I made sure the woman who spoke up was not too upset to go on home, and she said, I had to say something……….those babies. Sad part is, that poor little boy probably gets much worse at home. That woman was brave to stand up and say something, because that was such an unpredictable scene.
Winn, I work in a similar situation and see the same stuff all the time what genius ever came up with the idea of putting drug rehabilitation in a shopping centre its easy to see its not working, its one of those under the carpet ideas that allows the pollies to think their doing something.
winnie if you had a camera phone you should of taken her photo and made a report to DHS. Trouble is children in this sort of situation are at higher risk of becoming the next generation of drug users and crims. Hopefully the new laws (giving DHS power to intervene prior to birth) introduced today may help in alleviating this type of thing occuring.
“Intervene prior to birth”, if that means what I think it means, again the kids suffer, what are we doing?
Maybe if we didn’t use low income and unemployed parents as scapegoats for the politics of resentment, less people would be on drugs or feel utterly hopeless?