I get into a little bit of trouble but I got to be careful what I say…
The pervious evening to writing this, I ended up involved in an incident, it starts like this, thankfully, apart from tarnish to my reputation, I got away with unscathed.
On a train, I was on my way home, spoke to the OBS (Guard like), told them if they needed me, to let me know, fine, I was only on the train for 12 minutes also. Nearer to my destination, the OBS muttered something to me and I was like “are you ok?”, “yeah yeah”, they’re on the cab-to-cab phone talking about something quietly and then walks frantically to the next coach. Upon opening the doors, I can hear a load of shouting and I follow thinking “Ok, they do need my help”. After realising what was going on, got my work phone out and started recording, 2 men having a scuffle, one sustained a lot of injuries and there is a passenger in-between them, along with the OBS trying to calm them down and it’s a group that I walked past previously who were drinking.
The idea is to say “look, I’m recording it, calm it and I’ll stop.”, simple rule. The first thing I get is “get that camera out of my face”, my response was “no!”. Immediately, with my biased opinion, I have an idea who instigated it which I can’t prove, only the train’s CCTV can. We then get to what is now our destination and it looks like he wants to go to the same place as I am going on another train. Asks everyone on the platform if this train is going where he wants to and they all point it out to him. I’m talking to the staff at the station just to let them know what this person is like from my previous experience on them on the train and to beware.
I go to the opposite platform to where my train is, talk to a café and trying to keep my distance from this person and manage the problem as best I can. It’s a bit difficult when your train is on one platform and you are both on it. The person walked past me a couple of times to which I noticed he was on the phone, I put my iWatch on to record and heard him confess to assaulting the person which is just clear in the audio. Walks a bit further up the platform, I’m keeping an eye on him to which they start smoking. He opened with “So are you going to show me what’s on that video or delete it?”, I think my response was “no”. And got quite wound up quite quickly, starts shouting at me and getting agitated pretty quickly. At this point, I know they are under the influence of something, but I don’t know what. Staff look out and knew I was right as he tries to get to the gate line and exit which he fails to do. My response and thinking “999 or not to 999?” to the staff “If that is his attitude, they ain’t travelling” as this person is clearly a risk to other passengers.
The instigator then comes back, starts shouting, going to their position by the lift and ends up shouting all sorts of obscene comments to me, mostly directed at my hair. My response is very limited and in fact, after about 30 seconds, I said nothing at all and looked away while recording.
During this time, they start collecting an audience, to hear their foul mouth triad of abuse and someone steps in, I’m also starting to shake at this point, made them aware I got an autistic lanyard on (for ASD reasons) to highlight my disability and uses that as a weapon while a nurse tries to calm the situation down and I’m feeling more and more threatened. Just have to remember my conflict awareness training which is a long time since I did it. They eventually keep quiet and in fear of this person doing something stupid, possibly something I shouldn’t of done, is go into the cafe, get my laptop out (my Toughbook) and just have it ready. The idea is not to use it as a weapon, but to block the punches, staff are a bit concerned about me at this time and come over to my aid taking an interest in the computer.
It also got the instigator to back away as he comes up to my face and starts recording me, its clear that at this time, they’ve had way too much to drink, but about 3 others are trying to get him to stop and leave the café which they were bundled out of.
A small ironic twist of fate, the person wants to get off at a station that the next train doesn’t stop at – goes fast to a couple of stations up, the one he wanted (and I wanted) was right behind it, so they board it and miss their stop. In a way, I got my own back, but as they were too incapacitated to make any rational decision, I am not surprised. However, I escaped with no injuries, just a small tarnish to my reputation.
Learning point I have found and that conflict awareness doesn’t tell you, no matter what you do,if someone is intoxicated and you cant tell at first hand, they can act unpredictably and I mean really unpredictably. You can be polite one minute, next minute, they are trying to take you on and they get very verbal very quickly – even if you ignore them and then don’t respond to them. The sad fact is, sometimes, you don’t know what you are dealing with, especially at a distance. Oh and as of typing, I’ve not reported the incident as of yet. The thing is, I may have a lot of evidence, the CCTV only lasts for 7 days on the train and 28 days on the station. The police I don’t think would be interested in prosecuting, so I just grim and bear it, which due to the incident, I’ve now had to alter my travel plans, i.e. drive part of the way to keep away from the individual.