Archives for January 2011

DC man murdered for intervening during a harassment incident

January 22, 2011 By HKearl

A few months ago, I posted a story about a man who intervened when another man street harassed his wife and then the harasser murdered him. Sadly, I have a new, similar story to share. A man who witnessed another man harassing a woman in Washington, DC, this week intervened, and the harasser murdered him. So devastating.

From the Washington Post:

Bill Mitchell was the kind of man who stepped up instead of shying away, the kind of person who would help someone even if he didn’t know them, his friends and family say.

So on Wednesday night, after he had seen the play “Cymbeline” at the Shakespeare Theatre with his mother, he hopped on the Metro to the New York Avenue Station, walked home along North Capitol Street and Florida Avenue NW and saw a woman who needed help. Mitchell, 33, got involved.

He exchanged words and possibly tussled with an unknown assailant who was hassling the woman and who then shot and killed Mitchell.

“There was some sort of altercation, and we have to figure out what that interaction was,” said D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who said he had spoken with police and witnesses. “He may have intervened in something, being a Good Samaritan.”

….

“We hope that his senseless death can help in some way to make the area he lived in a safer place,” the Mitchell family said in a statement.

Mitchell’s younger brother made a plea for information.

“There may come a time when police ask for the public’s help,” Brian Mitchell said. “Please contact the police if you know anything. It was my brother today. It could be your brother, son, sister, mother or daughter tomorrow.”

I applaud Mitchell for being a good bystander and I’m sad that the incident ended this way 🙁 Guns = terrible.

[Thanks to loyal reader MRH for the story tip]

Update: Martha Langelan, author of Back Off!: How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassment and Harassers, and a brilliant community activist who continues to give workshops in the Washington, DC, area about how to respond to and end sexual harassment just emailed me with her thoughts on this story:

The Bill Mitchell case is heart-breaking.

It’s so important to teach people the nonviolent confrontation techniques that work — to know what to do and how to do it, to stop harassment without having the harasser escalate into physical violence.

Male-to-male confrontations can escalate very quickly. We need men — all the good guys on the planet — to be our allies, but if we want men to intervene, we really need to teach them how to do it. What they say, and how they say it, can make the difference between life and death.

Please tell the men you speak with to intervene, but to PLEASE do so using nonviolent confrontation. The “Voice of God” technique could have saved Bill’s life here: stand at least 30-40 feet away and yell, “Stop hitting her,” or “stop hassling her,” and “leave her alone, we see you, we’re calling the cops,” then call 911 and stay on the scene, from a safe distance, until the police arrive.

When a man is confronting a man he does not know, it is dangerous for him to get right up in the harasser’s space. Please intervene from a distance.

If you have any reason to believe the harasser might have a knife or gun, both men and women should do the same thing — use the “Voice of God” to interrupt the harasser from a safe distance, and call 911 immediately.

You can also gather bystanders beside you, at a safe distance, and ask them to call 911, too — (a) you don’t want to let others to walk into the middle of a dangerous situation, (b) a group of witnesses can be a deterrent in itself, to de-escalate the situation, and (c) the more calls, the faster the police will get there.

It really breaks my heart to see people like Bill Mitchell get hurt or killed. We need to teach every man on the planet how to intervene more safely.

Repeat harasser near Starbucks in Georgetown

January 21, 2011 By Contributor

I’ve had it with this loser!

Once again, I got off the bus and was heading toward my office, when I see this guy dancing on the street, with his not-so-fly moves. I walk close to the curb to avoid having to walk directly past him, when I see it’s my “friend” who I’ve had repeated run-ins with in the past. It makes me grateful that I followed my gut feeling and avoided walking directly past him. However, he is pretty much in the faces of other women who walk past him, with his “Howya doin’?”s and this and that.

He says the same to me but I choose not to respond to him, and he then immediately says “Aw, HELL NO!” at me. He then starts with his corny dancing again.

Save for around the holiday time when he called me “baby” and wished me happy holidays, this guy has been randomly outside this Starbucks with his rude and obnoxious commentary towards me. This guy’s obviously got problems.

I pulled out my phone camera to catch him in the middle of one of his lame dance routines, but he sees me and ducks into the Starbucks. Coward.

As soon as I got to my office I called MPD. I told them I’ve reported him to them before and that I’m tired of dealing with him. If they do check up on him I want them to do something with him this time. Refer him to a shelter or something and get him off the street so he’ll stop harassing women like me who are simply trying to get to work. I don’t ever want to see him on the street again!

– Tired of Being Harassed

Location: In front of the Starbucks at M Street & Wisconsin Avenue, DC

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

“What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it just a bit of spanking?”

January 20, 2011 By Contributor

January 16, 2010 2: 30 a.m.

Walking down Cornmarket street in the heart of Oxford I stopped because I heard a guy shouting at a young woman, “Fuck you! You fucking bastard!” He cornered her in the entrance of Pret A Manger and when she tried to leave he hit her. In the face. Once, -twice and many times more.

I did not wait for him to stop before I turned to my friend who instinctively approached the guy but I held her back as we are two females alone. Instead, I stopped a couple who walked by and asked whether they had seen the police, at this time of night there are many of them around the town center. The helpful young man ran off and returned with two security people.

All three men walked at a leisurely pace towards the victim and perpetrator. They were clearly at loss for what to do. One of them approached the couple and asked, “Is everything alright?” The victim was now on the floor, in the corner of the entrance to the store. The man in front of her. The security person, only upon our insistence that things are not all right, called the police.

Meanwhile both my friend and I walked off to find police officers. I stopped a police car at the corner of Cornmarket and St. George Street and old the female officer that I saw a man beating up a woman. They drove the 50 meters to the incident. They did not even get out of the car, but the perpetrator came to the police car window and they talked. They drove off almost immediately.

My friend and I were still standing at the corner when we saw the guy running towards us, and we ran.

When I turned around to check whether he was still following us, we see him with the girl again. She was screaming and walking along St. George with him screaming back at her. My friend and I ran to the next police couple (always man and woman) at the corner of St. George and New Inn Hall Street. Again, I briefly told them what is up. Their response is something along these lines: Well, we know. Somebody’s already checked and things are ok.

Upon our insistence that things are not ok and he is abusing her about 80 meters up the street, the male police officer turns to us and says: So what’s wrong with that? Isn’t it just a bit of spanking?

We all walked back and saw her cornered into another entrance of yet another store. She did not attempt to fight back, she received her lot. This is clearly not the first time that she has been abused nor will it be the last time – and the police did their part to ensure this won’t be the last time…

What remains of the situation is an utter disbelief at the response of the law enforcement in this country. Is domestic violence here so pervasive that a public display of it is not of interest to four different police officers, two men and two women? Is both the security personnel and the police so badly trained that they don’t know how to interfere in this situation than to speak exclusively with the perpetrator and at best with the victim in his immediate and physical presence?

We literally had to convince all of those who were supposed to provide help and security that a crying woman in the corner is not ok. I feel helpless, angry and frustrated beyond belief that the physical and emotional abuse of this young woman tonight was not prevented despite our best efforts. Who would have thought that the police we turned to did not even perceive hitting of women on the street as an offense???

All this is happening not in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia or other such “misogynistic” countries but right here under our very nose in Oxford, England, in 2011. What remains for me to do other than share this event with you?

– Marcia

Location: Oxford, UK

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

Two eve-teasers arrested, and an eve-teaser murdered in India

January 19, 2011 By HKearl

I read two blog-worthy stories out of India today regarding eve-teasers (street harassers), the first entails police arresting two harassers, the second is about men murdering a chronic harasser (!).

1. From the Times of India:

“Two college students were arrested by the Gurgaon police on Monday for teasing two women passengers in an auto rickshaw…The victims were targeted by the accused while they were travelling in a pink auto, which is being run in the city exclusively for female passengers. Police said the incident took place in Sector 23 around 2 p.m. on January 13.”

Gurgaon is just outside of New Delhi and this arrest seems to be part of the increase in police vigilance to stop eve teasing in the Delhi area, an initiative that was announced at the beginning of this year. I suspect there will be many more stories like this one if the police continue to harshly punish harassers.

2. From Express Buzz:

“Eight persons were arrested for murdering a man who teased a woman at Kumaran Nagar on Sunday. Police said Prakash (35) alias MGR of Sridevi Nagar, Alapakkam, was at Vazhaithope Pagudhi, Kumaran Nagar near West Mambalam, playing cards with his friends Sakthi Saravanan and Babu when a 10-member gang led by Prabhakaran (30) stabbed Prakash and his friends. They were taken to hospital where Prakash died.

Prakash who lived at Vazhaithope Pagudhi 10 years ago used to play cards with his friends after getting drunk. They reportedly had a habit of teasing girls who passed by. Even though he shifted his house to another area, he kept on coming back to Vazhaithope to meet his friends and continued teasing girls.

This angered Prabhakaran, who lived in that area, and he often picked up quarrels with Prakash. On Sunday, Prakash, as usual, played cards with his friends and later teased a girl, a relative of Prabhakaran. She complained to Prabhakaran, who along with his brother Bhaskaran and eight friends murdered Prakash. Police arrested eight of them, including the brother and are on the look out for the other two.”

Woah. I’m all for bystander intervention, but not with force or violence unless it’s absolutely necessary. Certainly there are better ways to stop harassers than by murdering them (…right?).

Volumes of unwanted attention in Invercargill, New Zealand

January 19, 2011 By Contributor

Having read many of the stories in this blog it is coming back to me just how many times I was harassed while living in Invercargill, arse end of the world.

During my two years in Invercargill, I was ordered to smile on multiple occasions, once had, “SUBWAY, EAT FRESH” (?!) screamed into my ear, told I was a f**cking bitch when I didn’t respond to an obnoxious, “Hi!” (those last two were both kids under the age of 12 years, but still male). I was hassled on the street for having pink hair, or wearing unusual stockings and regularly honked at when walking home in school uniform. A bunch of obnoxious guys made clicking noises (like “giddy-up horsey” type ones at me in the supermarket (that one really pissed off my boyfriend).

I don’t remember my time in that city fondly, but not since reading this did I figure out why I had such a lasting impression of people down their as being closed minded, obnoxious and unfriendly. All your stories have made these experiences come rushing back to me. Never before or since have I experienced such a sheer volume of unwanted comments and attention as I did in that city.

– Anonymous

Location: Invercargill, NZ

Share your street harassment story today and help raise awareness about the problem. Find suggestions for what YOU can do about this human rights issue.

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