Those are excuses. The decent thing to do is act. You act, not knowing how it will turn out. You act, knowing full well that there are other people who would do things better than you. You act, because it's the decent thing to do.

I've worked in the US urban poor mission field for most of the last 12 years. I've seen people doing bad things to other people. I've stepped in. My friends have stepped in. Sometimes it didn't change anything. Sometimes what we did was one positive step among many that ended changing a life dramatically. I'm white and a yankee, but I stepped into situations in the poor black south. I was definitely not the best or the ideal or the most suited or the most trained person for the situation. But I had one thing going for me that nobody else did: I was there. That made me the guy for the job.

If you're there, you are the guy for the job. Do the decent thing. Don't make excuses. Don't let fear and over-analysis make you inactive.

Cheers.

I believe you should try to do the right thing, not just be a passive bystander. However, you must make sure that you don't put yourself in danger, because then that's TWO people in trouble. Whether you use some self defense method like the lady with pepper spray in the OP's vid, buy the person time by becoming a distraction, or call the police from a distance, you're doing SOMETHING.

And while I agree that OVER-analysis is not good, some QUICK observations of the surroundings is vital. Speaking of the OP's vid, these "social experiments" can be very sketchy. I saw one where it was meant to see what you would do if someone was being bullied, but the act was so put on that it was an unrealistic judge of people's character, some probably assumed they were filming a movie. In today's world of social media and flash mobs, it's easy to chalk something up as an act or a prank, but better safe than sorry. You DON'T want to be the person who did nothing, then see on the news that night that the little boy was found dead a few hours later.

Are you able to provide a link to an article about this. It sounds to me like the story my either be made up (not suggesting by you) or may be leaving out some crucial details...

As will I.

Well this is how i see it, where ever we are, we are there for a reason, whether we react to the circumstances or not is usually much upto us

This.

I'd ask the kid if that's his dad and if the kids told me the man is not his dad, I'd call the police and let them sort it out while holding the man off physically.

I already feel like shit for not doing more to help out the homeless I encounter on a daily basis because of my "busy life". I'm not sure if I could live with myself if I wasn't the type of person who would at least help a kid vs a potential kidnapper. Call my expectations ridiculously high, but I think most people don't help their fellow human being at various point when they could really use the help because it's inconvenient.

I'd say the argument can be made on the degree of not helping.

I'll agree that letting a child get kidnapped is pretty far off the end of that scale. If it's physical harm you're afraid of, it's understandable, but hiding behind the law is a poor excuse at best.

The law will only get you so far.

There's a reason why laws are constantly changing as opposed to immutable. It's because laws are just a mean to an end and not an end.

Law is good, but good reasoning skills are golden.

If the law prevents you from saving a child from a kidnapper, then the law is wrong plain and simple and quite frankly, I'd hate to be the judge who sentences the rescuer because he will never hear the end of it from outraged citizens.

Depends on the circumstances, but I think it's justified in extreme cases.

Unless you're an expert or have good tools to subdue without harm, I'd personally advocate using deadly force once someone causes direct bodily harm to someone else and give indication that they don't mean to stop.

Once someone gets that violent, he's just a liability to everyone around him and needs to be put down. If you use less than deadly force, you just risk him turning his wrath on you.

At some point, the best defense is unfortunately a killer offense.

Well I would help. (you live in the US long enough you'll soon realize that we have a catalog of laws that no one has a hope of memorizing but will be prosecuted under, with enough lawerage). I've known some unruly kids, I've meet a few that made a big deal about getting disciplined out in public, but I've met very few that would lie that their parents abducted them. If a kid approached me and said some guy was trying to kidnap him and the adult wanted to counter the argument., I would ask again after a few minutes pass, if the kid shies away from the person and insists that isn't their parent chances are it isn't. If your wrong you've just pissed off an incompetent parent, if your right you've just saved a child's life.

Well I'm no expert but i do think the 'insides' of policemen actually get training and experience which could possibly make a 'tiny' bit of difference there somewhere, rather than 'no different'.

In my experience, from what i have seen over the years, when people intervene in a situation it almost always deteriorates very quickly. And this is because well intentioned people stepped in and caused massive escalation due to complete lack of tactfulness..... Because people tend to get emotional, and when they intercede in a situation and their feeling angry or exited etc etc then they cannot think clearly and things are going to get much worse very quickly and even worse, they don't know when to back off.

If you grab 10 random people off the street, you would be very lucky to find even one with the skills to verbally d-escalate a situation. Just look at the world, full of divorce, fights, court cases left and right, prisons overflowing, i mean how much more evidence do you need that most humans are deficient in the skills to solve problems intelligently?

Having said that, if you know your the type of person with a higher than average ability to keep a cool head, then by all means give it a go, and know when to back off.