If you asked me: "what's not to like in Ukraine?"

[Boethius]

That's very noble.  But naive.

Do you remember what happened to the students at Tianneman Square?

[Rubicon]

Yes, a very good and powerful mixed martial arts practitioner could perhaps do the "one punch knock out" if they were experienced enough beyond play fighting to keep their cool in a real situation and not lose their head. Assuming you could get near enough.

After a demo of taking down 6 guys twice his size, a very, very good JJ teacher from Hong Kong once told me/us that the best defense against a knife was to run away as fast as you could.

And I still say a quick knock out is a rare thing. Perhaps you've been watching too many Hollywood movies.

You are assuming you'd be closer than his friends. You are also assuming they wouldn't be proficient in some sort of MA too and unarmed. Given he is a Ukrainian politician, I think those assumptions would be wrong.

What would I have done? I'd like to think I would have tried to diffuse the situation with some humour and gotten the girl out of there. From past experience though what would have probably happened is that I would have lost my temper and jumped in without thinking; and that would most likely have been the stupidest thing I could have done as it would have just escalated into some real violence until someone got seriously hurt.

To me, it didn't look like the girl was in a life threatening situation. It wasn't pretty, and she'd be bruised and sore for sure, but alive. Escalating the situation with violence could lead to a much less wholesome outcome for all concerned.

And yes, I know how it must gall you to hear this. You like the idea of being a hero I guess. And in the West, more than likely in most cafe brawl situations you could be, but, there are situations where brute force just won't cut it.

You obviously don't know much about MMA.  The best practitioner ever did not rely on "power" and one punch knock outs.

Losing your temper in any fight is a huge mistake and I'm not surprised that you would do that.

It does not gall me to hear such and such from you, I expect it.

I see no reason whatsoever why this poor girl and her friends should not carry mace and stun weapons in the future.  She has every right to protect herself from such thugs and she should.

[Ade]

No man is above the law if the citizens are willing to risk their lives to enforce it.  If on the other hand this is the norm then you get what you deserve.

FWIW, two people phoned the police for that incident.

[Ade]

You obviously don't know much about MMA.  The best practitioner ever did not rely on "power" and one punch knock outs.

Losing your temper in any fight is a huge mistake and I'm not surprised that you would do that.

It does not gall me to hear such and such from you, I expect it.

I see no reason whatsoever why this poor girl and her friends should not carry mace and stun weapons in the future.  She has every right to protect herself from such thugs and she should.

Yes, Boethius certainly hit the nail on the head with "naive".

[Rubicon]

That's very noble.  But naive.

Do you remember what happened to the students at Tianneman Square?

Yes us Yanks are very naive and noble.  We're really just a bunch of hicks in T-shirts and shorts.  But we are also free from the yoke of the British crown or any other dictator, and we will always be that way.

[Rubicon]

Yes, Boethius certainly hit the nail on the head with "naive".

Ade, just because you're proud to be a coward does not give you the justification to call others naive.  The world thought that Alexander the Great was naive when he went to conquer the Persian empire with about 46,000 troops against hundreds of thousands of Persian troops (some historians of Antiquity put the number at close to a million).

Fortune favors the brave and it always has.  If you prefer to be a bystander and a poet or whatever that is your choice.  Make it and live by it but don't try to rain on my parade.

[Muzh]

No man is above the law if the citizens are willing to risk their lives to enforce it.  If on the other hand this is the norm then you get what you deserve.

Why you talk of things you not know?

[SFandEE]

Notice at 6:20 when the young women are torn away from their table the very human waitress sees it as the appropriate time to serve them their bill.  She must have been watching and waiting for the opportunity as she was very quick and ready with her delivery.

[Rubicon]

Notice at 6:20 when the young women are torn away from their table the very human waitress sees it as the appropriate time to serve them their bill.  She must have been watching and waiting for the opportunity as she was very quick and ready with her delivery.

 

[Boethius]

 

Yes us Yanks are very naive and noble.  We're really just a bunch of hicks in T-shirts and shorts.  But we are also free from the yoke of the British crown or any other dictator, and we will always be that way.
 

 
 Where is the "nobility" in these examples?
 

The video of 91-year-old Leonard Sims being beaten by a carjacker is hard to watch. But perhaps even harder to believe is that no one stopped to help him.
 
Surveillance cameras rolled as the World War II veteran was approached by a stranger in the parking lot of a convenience store outside of Detroit.
The man asked him for a light for his cigarette, and then suddenly began punching him. Sims could not move. He was pinned between his car door and another car. The attacker punched him 21 times and then stole his car.

"The way he beat my heart and face, I could have died," Sims said.

Remarkably, Sims survived the brutal beating, but the story gets more disturbing.

In the video you can see five bystanders watching the 91-year-old man being beaten and doing absolutely nothing to help him.

"It tells a story of a community that's either too fearful or deadened to have the outrage to get in the way of somebody being attacked," said forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner.

In February, a similar scene unfolded in a Chicago bar when an off-duty police officer viciously attacked a female bartender while others just looked on, offering no help.

The woman survived, but she sustained injuries to her head, arms and ribs.
"In all of these situations there are things people can do. If nothing more than yell at the top of their lungs, 'Stop!'" Welner said.
Sims and his wife agree and have a message for those who stood by, doing nothing in his darkest hour.

"I would tell them that they are low in class, low in spirit, low in life," Sims said.
His wife Nora added: "Speak up! Stand up! Get up and do something. Get involved, because it's not right. It's not right at all."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3175187
 

A 15-year-old girl who went to her homecoming dance was repeatedly gang raped and beaten at Richmond High School for at least two hours while more than a dozen witnesses saw the assault but failed to call police, authorities said today.


The attack occurred Saturday around 9:30 p.m. after the girl had left the dance and was waiting for a ride from her father. She saw a male student she knew, who took her to a dark alley behind one of the school buildings, Richmond police said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/bay-area-girl-gang-raped-at-school-while-witnesses-watch-but-do-nothing.html

 

SEATTLE — Three unarmed security guards stood by and watched last month as a 15-year-old girl was punched, knocked to the ground, kicked in the head and robbed in a downtown Seattle bus tunnel.


The guards’ actions during the brutal attack — captured on surveillance video — have prompted a review of the policy that unarmed, civilian guards call police and not try to stop fights or crimes.


Surveillance video first aired by Seattle’s KING-TV this week shows the attack at Westlake Station on Jan. 28. The victim appears several seconds before her attackers and sidles up to the three guards, who are standing together and talking.

http://newsone.com/nation/associated-press/video-15-year-old-girl-beaten-and-robbed-as-security-guards-watch/
 

The victim of a sustained attack in a Baltimore County McDonald's has spoken for the first time about the beating she received, and how nobody came to her aid.


Chrissy Lee Polis, a 22-year-old transgender woman, said she was afraid to go outside after the attack, and hinted that it might have been racially motivated - as both of her attackers were black.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379691/Transgender-girl-beaten-seizure-McDonalds-attack-victim-hate-crime.html#ixzz1RUpPEPes

It began with a brawl outside a house party. A woman hit a man, and the man refused to strike back, saying he wouldn't hit a girl. Instead, he vowed to attack the next male who walked by, even if that person was a random stranger.


That's when 18-year-old Bobby Tillman happened to approach a group of four partygoers. Authorities said they swiftly stomped, kicked and punched him to death while dozens of bystanders watched.


"He had nothing to do with anything," said Maj. Tommy Wheeler of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department. "They just decided he's the one. And they killed him."

 http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/11/09/1823611/ga-teen-dies-in-random-beating.html#ixzz1RUq0TSCx
 

On Sunday night, Allen Haywood was randomly and viciously attacked by two kids on the platform of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station. Dozens of people witnessed it. Several people filmed it. Nobody helped.

Haywood was trying to transfer to the Yellow Line around 7:15 p.m. when the assault happened. He was headed home to Fort Totten after working out at Results on Capitol Hill, a gym bag slung over his shoulder and a book in his hands. As he read with his back to the station wall, “all of a sudden someone whacked me on the back of the head really hard,” he recalls.


Haywood turned around. The boy looked to be about 11 or 12 years old. Baffled, Haywood asked, “What the fuck are you doing?” The boy stood there laughing. Then someone else cracked Haywood from the other side. He turned around again. This time it was the girl in the video above. She didn’t stop swinging for more than a full minute, chasing Haywood around the platform as other kids egged her on.


As seen in the video, Haywood repeatedly asked the girl why she was attacking him, pleading with her to end it. “Stop it! Stop it! Goddamn it! You stop this shit right now! I did nothing to you!”


Haywood looked to strangers for help, but all he saw were other kids with their cell phones out, recording the scene and laughing. Judging from his voice-over, the man shooting the YouTube video above doesn’t appear to be part of the group. The video showed up yesterday on Unsuck D.C. Metro, which posted an anonymous account of the attack Tuesday.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/children-attack-man-in-dc_n_805223.html

Police are hoping surveillance photos will help lead them to the suspect who assaulted an autistic passenger on an OmniTrans bus in San Bernardino.
 
The attack happened on April 10, shortly after 5 p.m. near 15th Street and Medical Center Drive and was captured on surveillance video.
 
In the minutes leading up to the attack, police say the suspect was confrontational with passengers on the bus, and then he attacked an innocent disabled bystander because the man was talking to himself.
 
The man hit and kicked the victim repeatedly before taking off on foot.
 
The suspect is described as a black man in his mid to late 30s, 5 feet 7 inches, 190 pounds.
 
 He was last seen wearing a black baseball hat with the letters "IE" on it.

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-di....story?track=rss

[Ade]

Ade, just because you're proud to be a coward does not give you the justification to call others naive. 

Interesting that you assume I'm a coward. You do understand the meaning of the word, right? Or perhaps not.

Anyway, please post plenty of photos of your encounters with these guys when you get over there again. I'm sure we are all curious to see the results of your fabulous MMA skills and your one strike knock outs.

And as Boethius so aptly points out, bystander apathy is infamous in U.S. towns and cities so please stop trying to portray the U.S. as being any different in this regard - your nationalistic rah-rah song is just silly.

[Muzh]

Anyway, please post plenty of photos of your encounters with these guys when you get over there again. I'm sure we are all curious to see the results of your fabulous MMA skills and your one strike knock outs.

I should point out that Donetsk is the epicenter of Ukrainian mafia. So Rubicon, if you do not want to return to the US in a coffin, I strongly suggest you do NOT try to teach that guy a lesson, regardless of how much MMA training you have. MMA, contrary to popular belief, cannot stop a bullet. That's just Hollywood.

[The Natural]

First of all, what you say you would do with your keyboard and what you actually would do if the situation presented itself in reality, might be two different things.
 
It is a real man's duty to protect the weak, and I hope that will happen in the majority of cases even today. But I wholeheartedly agree with those that said it is normally very different to do so in the west than in certain other places in the world. Speaking for myself, I would intervene physically in my own country if I saw such an attack. But at the same time, you must assess the situation. If a gang is involved, you would have to find other solutions, but not just walk away.
 
But reading about this situation here (don't have the stomach to watch violence to women as in the video), just automatically stepping in could just escalate the violence like Ade said, or land you, and perhaps your girlfriend with you, in hospital or worse, in coffins. As I understand it, these guys are mafia and untouchables in Ukraine. I can imagine there would be repercussions awaiting you and your closed ones if you were lucky enough to walk out of the cafe afterwards.
 
But one question about such a situation; let's imagine if a guy, for example a tough rugged individual American did intervene and got killed by the Ukrainian mafia which, as was said here, is beyond the law. What would happen then, I wonder. I mean, a western citizen killed in Ukraine. Would it be a big news story around the world and lead to diplomatic problems between Ukraine and USA?
 
Martine Vik Magnussen, a female Norwegian student at Regent Business School, was found raped and murdered in London in 2008 and a fellow student from Jemen, Farouk Abdulhak, is still wanted for the murder. His father is a wealthy businessman who took the son home to Jemen in his private jet hours after the murder. Jemen has no extradition agreement with England and the father is protecting him there. It has lead to a lot of media attention and diplomatic problems between the three countries. The father has suggested to pay a compensation to the family of the girl, but that is not accepted. Big pressure on him has been, and are still coming from authorities and not least of all, the family of the murdered girl and ordinary folks. Because of threats of boycot, Mercedes Benz cancelled the father's exclusive licence to import their cars to Jemen in 2010.
 
This happened of course in a western country, but I'm wondering if similar events would ensue if a westerner were killed in Ukraine?

[Nat]

The problem of our country is its people, who are very submissive to authorities and are used to living under tsar, especially in eastern regions.
But speaking of other people reaction - well, during all the fight the friend of the guy was trying to drag him from the girl, and her friends were also trying to stop the fight, why do you say nobody did anything?

[BC]

Altercation started at 0239 and the cop arrived at 0254 when the video ended- not bad.

I've seen such nasty scenes happen quite a few places in the western world.

I see this happened 4th July.. so just a few days ago but it seems all conclusions have already been made?

The girl did get a couple good licks in.  Just watch the way she handles the bottle long before striking.  Wasn't her first fight. 

Just a bunch of drunk kids.

If I were there I would not have intervened.  There were already enough people involved so why add to the mess.

Rubicon,

I can just imagine watching you get involved there...  would have been an entertaining distraction.  Haiiiii yaaaa!!

[Muzh]

 
This happened of course in a western country, but I'm wondering if similar events would ensue if a westerner were killed in Ukraine?

That's simple. The authorities will rule it a suicide. "Err.... clearly the man shot himself in the head, um, err.... twice."

[Gator]

Rubicon,
 
You are setting a new standard for know-it-all bloviating.  Translation:  you talk out of your ass.  Is laryngitis of the ass painful?

[Gator]

Just watch the way she handles the bottle long before striking.  Wasn't her first fight. 

Exactly what I was thinking.   Imagine what she was saying.  There are low class people in both genders.   Still, there is no excuse for what the young thug did.

[BC]

Exactly what I was thinking.   Imagine what she was saying.  There are low class people in both genders.   Still, there is no excuse for what the young thug did.

Sure, no excuse.. he grabbed her arm and got smacked with a bottle in return.  His reaction was quite instantaneous.. I doubt at that point he even knew the difference between man and woman and just lashed out at whatever he could grab until the head throbbing overpowered the effects of alcohol on his brain.  He goes away in a blurred state, she takes another shot of vodka and chaser.  He comes back for some drunken retribution after getting a TKO from a girl and things really go downhill from there.

If the girl and her girlfriend had any sense, they would have split after the first bout, but they stood ground.  At least her friend had the sense to get on the phone and call someone.. probably the cops who arrived 10 mins or so later. 

Interesting is around 9.44 mark.. another girl seemed to actually be chumming up to the guy and didn't really care squat about the girl at her feet. Then the bar owner intervened and pulled the girl off him, turned around and made up by kissing her hand - that had a wedding ring on it. 

The girl got knocked around quite a bit afterwards, but I think his ego/image was bruised/tarnished worse on youtube..  That won't go away in a few days.

Oh well, adverse effect of hormones mixed with alcohol and whatever else.. Will be somewhat interesting to see how it all turns out in the end.

[dthunder]

Hi guys.
I rarely post here, just read, but this video is disgusting.  There is nothing that makes my blood boil more than violence against women, kids, or animals.  I can tell you, there is no way I'm standing back while a man beats on a woman and drags her around by her hair.  NO WAY I watch that occur without doing anything to stop it, and to hell with what happens as a result.
thunder
 
 
 
 

[BC]

Hi guys.
I rarely post here, just read, but this video is disgusting.  There is nothing that makes my blood boil more than violence against women, kids, or animals.  I can tell you, there is no way I'm standing back while a man beats on a woman and drags her around by her hair.  NO WAY I watch that occur without doing anything to stop it, and to hell with what happens as a result.
thunder

Thunder,

good to hear from you.

How's your Russian?  Good enough to have stood up between all these drunk kids and try to try and bring some reason or would it just bw beating up kids and expecting them to understand that it was time to stop?

Agree emotions would run high at that moment, but in reality what would even you have been able to achieve?

If you notice, the guy grabbed the girls hair, someone grabbed him to pull him out and ended up dragging both of them.

Two wrongs don't make a right and I fail to see how you could have added a right with it not being a right hook.

But maybe I missed something?

[GQBlues]

I feel for some of these young Ukrainian women. I really do...Their choices in life is between these thugs and those socially inept, fat and old WMs. It must really sux to be them, no?
 
Rubicon, son of Rambo, dude, it's Tae Kwon Do, man.

[Rubicon]

I should point out that Donetsk is the epicenter of Ukrainian mafia. So Rubicon, if you do not want to return to the US in a coffin, I strongly suggest you do NOT try to teach that guy a lesson, regardless of how much MMA training you have. MMA, contrary to popular belief, cannot stop a bullet. That's just Hollywood.

That, and ending up in a Ukrainian jail would be my worst fears.

[Boethius]

They're not that bad, as long as you haven't touched a child or a woman.

[Ranetka]

"There’s a very famous case back in New York where a woman named Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered on the streets of Queens while her neighbors watched from their windows. No one intervened, no one defended her, and, most tellingly, not a single call was placed to 9-1-1 as she lay dying… "
 
I read a very interesting book, I do not remember the title. Apparently it is sadly a common human behaviour when strangers leave people with stroke on the street, pass the fights etc. (Book was either English or American). The author gave the advise ifsomething like this is happening to you the best action is an eye contact and appeal to  particular passer-by rather then shouts "police, fire or whatever"...
 
And my point is, it's not Ukraine, it's a human nature sadly.