Police Instinct

In Spokane I had to walk under a bridge in a sketchy part of town one day. A ragged couple were standing near the bridge watching me approach. The woman asked me for change for the bus. I said ‘sorry’ and kept walking. Her boyfriend was standing behind her holding a sock with something heavy in it. We locked eyes and I saw angry desperation. Just then another man, a fellow pedestrian like me, came down the sidewalk from the opposite side and the woman asked him the same question. He answered same as I and we went our separate ways. As I was walking home I replayed the video and concluded I came very close to being bashed and robbed. At the time of the actual occurrence I only felt a slight unease; later I realized how dangerous the situation had been. The other sidewalk traveler and I saved each other from an attack, the couple not being prepared to confront two men.

Security personnel in Israel must constantly make split-second evaluations of citizens with no chance to second-guess their decisions. Policing people is HARD; I wouldn’t want the job.