Im feeling very philosophical about something that happened this evening, so though I would share, it all started at –

8:15 pm, Cineworld, Dundee. Danny and I were walking towards my BMW whilst chatting about the new Robin Hood film we had just watched (ace btw!). We got in the car and drove towards Danny’s house in Stobswell, on the way Danny told me he needed to visit the bank machine, so we appropriately stopped the car at the bottom of Mains Loan (a long uphill road).

8:32 PM, as Danny took off his seatbelt we noticed 2 guys running down the hill towards us, Danny thought one was maybe being chased by the other and as they vaulted a fence leading into wasteland we decided to investigate.

8:35 PM, as we pulled the car up to the fence we saw what appeared to be an Asian man beating up a Caucasian (white) girl, so we turned the car around and got out with the intention of intervening, as we got to the fence we saw that a boy of around 15 (he had long hair lol) was being assaulted by a man in his 40’s, so we called out to him to stop, which he ignored.

8:36 PM, I hopped over the fence and started towards the man, he, aware of my approach, placed the boy in a severe armhold and pushed him across the grounds towards me, as this was happening another boy of around 12 had appeared on the street side of the fence carrying a brick, I told Danny to watch him whilst I grabbed the man by the arm and tried to settle things down, he was at this point on his phone and when I asked he told me he was speaking to the Police.

8:37 PM, the younger boy with the brick was kicking off and Danny was having to restrain him, as things on my side seemed to have calmed down I hopped back over the fence and started trying to speak to the younger boy, at which point he promptly spat in my face! Anyway I ignored that and a moment later saw the man force the other boy roughly to the ground.

8:38 PM, I hopped BACK over the fence again and this time grabbed the guy a bit more assertively to prevent him hurting the boy, who was on the ground with this man kneeling on his neck, the man had just been on the phone again and when I said ‘where are the Police’ he said ‘just there, they are almost here’ then he said ‘just give me 10 seconds and this kid will be quiet’ which I disagreed with (to put it gently).

8:39 PM, I got the man off of the boy, who promptly grabbed a massive brick, as I took that off him and started settling him down a car pulled up and a man and a boy jamp out and threw themselves into the mix, at this point 2 youth workers and a large gang of young kids appear, things get a bit crazy and then the people who arrived in the car and the man that was violent all jump in the car, reverse into a parked car and take off.

Anyway without going on for ages, the short is – the man wasn’t on the phone to the police at all, but members of his family which I realised as soon as the black car arrived and then told Danny to phone the Police instead, as the car took off I told the gathered folk to get the registration number (they all failed) I hopped back over the fence and was able to write down part of it.

The police arrived minutes later and after giving them the info I had and talking with the youth workers I was able to piece together what had happened.

There have been a number of gang fights across Dundee involving these boys and earlier in the day some of them had assaulted the man’s son. The man, his son, and the man’s brother had gone looking for the kids, found them in a youth centre car park and narrowly missed running them over, they had a confrontation with the kids and one of them for whatever reason has run off and the man has chased on foot (at which point we saw them)

The Police came to my house a bit later for a statement, and we are all aware that the situation is escalating.

So Im posting this for 4 reasons-

1 – details of what happened are really blurry due to speed of it all and the adrenalin involved, and witing it here will help me remember.

2 – I instantly assumed that the boy had done something wrong, and wonder if other people reading this thought the same? I was right in this instance but was still prejudiced I think.

3 – im not sure if I did the right thing in getting involved in his particular thing, on the one hand if we hadn’t then the boy may have been assaulted on the wasteland by the 3 of them, but on the other maybe that would have ended it?

4 – I’d be interested in any ideas that people have which can prevent this situation getting worse, I know where to find the gang as I see them all the time so could find them to work on these issues.

Danny and I came up with 2 ideas, 1 would be to open a place where the kids can come and work on a stock racing car which they could then take in turns to race at knockhill so long as they stay out of trouble, the other idea is to open a boxing club where kids could get out there aggression and maybe even settle arguments in a safe way.

O also a note of interest – I saw the boy a few minutes after all this in a shop and he didn’t acknowledge me, ungrateful little ....

Well done you heroes. Maybe he'll notice you next time when you're not there and he gets it worse. Or maybe not huh?
What about getting someone to talk to them who has been there done that and gotten out? That's probably quite a vip response huh?
I'm not sure the car could help even though its a great ides, just because these guys already go to a youth group football and it's still happening.

I like this story and think you should put it on the violenceispreventable board. I think it shows just how difficult it is to stop violence once it starts and is entrenched. i suspect with these boys, they will not engage with VIP as they are already well set in their ways. they are not in a situation or head space to be able to think about non violence. i think we need to make in not worth their while to be violent and that includes the adults.
At least someone did intervene though that at least shows that some people will not tolerate such behaviour. Well done i say!

I think it's a tricky one. There's a lot of people wouldn't have stopped and it's likely that if there had only been one of you it might not have turned out so great. I think in hindsight, you know what happened now so you have an opinion on it as will everyone that reads this. And so from that point of view you can look at it objectively. But at the time, what you saw was a young boy being beaten up, quite brutally by the sounds of it. Maybe the boy being beaten up was a guilty party but if you thought like that and if everyone thought like that then nobody would intervene ever. I suppose maybe it just comes down to people judging each situation individually. It's like what we say in the schools about there being different ways people can intervene; whether it's acknowledging the person, phoning the police, or being a physical barrier etc. And i think your right that it's possible the violence could escalate until this person does get a good hiding but by you intervening the police are now involved and it would be nice to think they would be able to put a stop to it. Anyway, i'm more confused about it all now than i was when i started reading your post lol.

some interesting feedback,

couple of things, first i dont think VIP can work once people have settled into this type of behaviour, but i think allowing this violence to come out in a safe enviroment could work, if kids took to it and used the ring to settle disputes, on the other hand maybe youd have the same bunch of thugs but with boxing experience lol.

second, whilst looking at the incident in a narrow dimension then yes, putting stop to it was the best thing to do, the problem however is that due to our intervention the man, who was trying to protect his family, may now be charged, the young people know this and may well abuse that additional power that they have, if it had been left the kids would have had a kicking and that MIGHT have been the end of it, where as now they are likely feeling quite bold.

It was a difficult situation that Keiran and I were put in. I have to be honest, every fibre in my body was telling me to not get involved and walk away when I found out it was a boy being attacked and a gang of kids were circling the scene. When I got closer I kind of put the story together, an upset father who had lost his temper. I don’t believe that the father had done the right thing, but I can imagine so many parents would have done the same.
As Keiran said, kids know they can get away with so many things these days; a bit of me thinks maybe he deserves a good kick in; but I just couldn’t walk away, it was obviously wrong and could have got so much worse.
I think Keiran’s idea about giving these kids something to do in the evening such as fixing up cars and being able to drive them off-road seems like a good idea. I believe the challenge would be how to persuade these kids to do this activity, and how long would it last until they get bored and start hanging around the streets again causing trouble.
When I lived in Hull several boxing gyms had a similar idea, and some kids came along for a short while to train, but soon went back hanging around the street corners. I wish I could say it worked as a charm but it didn’t - maybe the boxing clubs didn’t approach the lads in the right way, who knows? I don’t believe that it would make the kids more violent because they have learnt a thing or two in the ring, as these kids were fighting in the streets to begin with.
If such an activity was to take place in Dundee I wouldn’t use it to resolve problems they have with one another outside the ring, I don’t think it would work. If they have a problem with anyone they would deal with it there and then. I do believe the boxing activity would be suitable to build self discipline and control. But maybe it’s just too late to change these kids and nothing but themselves can help them change their behaviour.