I’ve sat this out until now, but I feel the need to chime in and get flamed if necessary.
Some of you guys need a serious reality check. Maybe you live in a fairy tale world where the cops swoop in like Superman to save the day and criminals always learn their lesson after going to jail once, but when dealing with the breed of punks that mazilla describes, sometimes you are left with no other choice but to handle it in-house.
Let me break it down for you: These little shits respect nothing but brute force, and fear for their own pathetic lives is sometimes the only thing that gets a message through. I’m not saying it is the only way to go all of the time, but sometimes it is the only way you will ever get any peace.
For those of you who don’t get why going to the police is oftentimes like throwing water on a grease fire, let’s use mazilla’s case as an example: Suppose he went to the cops and actually managed to finger the 4 or 5 guys he could actually see while getting jumped and they go to the pokey for a few weeks (if they are minors, probably not even that).
Meanwhile, the ones that didn’t go to jail are putting the word out to all of their thug-wannabe friends that mazilla is a “snitch”. Since these little turds have no purpose in life other than to live out whatever gangsta rap lyrics/movies they’ve seen/heard, they now have a focus. Now mazilla has 50-60 people gunning for him that may not even know him or have had any previous beef with him; people who think nothing of targeting his home, property, friends, family, whatever to “get back” at him, regardless of whether or not he’s done anything to them other than “snitch” on a friend of a friend!
Stupid? Yes! Immature? No argument here! But make no mistake; these morons are out there and they are legion, especially in high school! The truth means nothing, the word on the street is their only gospel and once you have a rep as a snitch, it stays with you a looong time, possibly for life.
Now for all of you fine, upstanding citizens on your high horse who are thinking, “well that’s what you get for associating with a crowd like that” or some such nonsense, let me tell you something: These fuckers will prey on whomever they choose and can pull you right out of your safe, secure little world and into their circle of bullshit without warning. You don’t even need to live in a bad neighborhood. All it takes is being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or just having some bullshit rumor make it into the wrong punk’s ear. I know this because when I was in high school, two carloads of goons rolled up on my front lawn because one of them heard from someone, who heard from someone, etc., that I had “talked shit” about his “crew”. Luckily it ended without violence (I had played football with one of the guys in the gang), but I can easily see how it could have escalated out of control.
Suppose mazilla chose option C and didn’t call the cops AND didn’t retaliate. Now he becomes a “bitch” or a punk, which is almost as bad as a “snitch”. Again, the fact that it was a cowardly mob attack becomes irrelevant; the only thing anyone will hear after the fact is, “he got his ass whupped and didn’t do shit”. Now he is looked upon as an easy target, and any/all of these so-called “thugs” who are looking to make a name for themselves have him at the top of their “let’s go fuck with this guy to show off” list.
Now, as far as lawful consequences outweighing just “proving you’re a bad ass”, I couldn’t agree more (see my first post on this thread). If you can defuse a situation before it gets out of hand (i.e.; comes to blows), then you should put your pride aside and do it. I know all about how a criminal record can haunt you and hold you back years down the road, but in this case, we’re not talking about just showing off. Like I said before, these punk-asses see backing off as a weakness, and making one of them piss their pants and beg for his life in front of a large group of his ilk may be just the ticket to sending the message that you are the wrong guy to fuck with. Yes, mazilla could have gone to jail, but he played the odds because he knew the value system of the people he was dealing with and it paid off in the form of getting a group of violent punks to back off. Stooping to their level? No doubt, but sometimes it’s not about standing tall, just standing up.
Again, I’m not saying it’s the cure-all or that such a narrow set of circumstances will even come up in most people’s lifetime, but it does happen; I’ve been close enough to the edge of it to know. Would I have done what mazilla did? I really can’t say; I’ve never been beaten that bad and I didn’t have access to firearms when I was a teenager. For those of you that haven’t lived through a similar experience, feel free to sit in your ivory tower and throw all the stones you like. I sincerely hope you never have to deal with society’s slimy underbelly, and that you live long, peaceful lives.
