RantWoman is probably going to double-post or crosslink.
RantWoman is horrified by the following story about the private security guards in the transit tunnel and the mugging of a 15-year-old girl. RantWoman knows acres of electrons have probably been expended about the matter in other fora, but RantWoman still feels shemust post this.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/415263_tunnel11.html
Warning: the video is GRAPHIC and the text is more than adequate for the issue.
RantWoman wishes first to note that the Metro Bus tunnel is located entirely in Seattle. Living wage in Seattle is somewhere over $14 / hour. The security guards in this story are paid around $11 / hour. RantWoman thinks expecting security guards to uphold public safety for 20% below a living wage is an act of violence itself.
RantWoman is appalled that our local officials would shell out a lot of money for a contract that basically buys no security.
RantWoman definitely thinks better training, a living wage, and health benefits would be obvious. RantWoman does NOT necessarily think she wants only to rely on Metro or the county. RantWoman notes in the video lots of people just standing around besides the security guards. RantWoman has LOTS of experience going to political protests and she has experience a few times where alert, proactive peacekeepers and protest participants well-grounded in nonviolence just massed in focussed ways or circled problems and very distinctly diverted really dangerous moments.
RantWoman KNOWS that physical intervention is not obvious. RantWoman also once read an article about an urban street where a guy on his porch saw a young man beating the young woman he was with. The guy on the porch just yelled that the mugging was being watched and pretty soon other people came out of their doors and also yelled that the mugging was being watched and the guy doing the beating just ran away. RantWoman thinks there must be other examples of such things and she wishes someone with an internet search bit and a thing for nonviolent approaches to terrible situations would go looking and see what turns up.
On the way to trying to find the article about the power of witness to stop a mugging, RantWoman found this great interview with George Lakey
http://media.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/?p=217
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Post Script: RantWoman has the peculiar fortune of sometimes riding buses with people having cellphone conversations about any umber of events. RantWoman continually marvels about what people will talk about on their cellphones on the bus. Enough said.
ReplyDeleteRantWoman has learned since this post that all the youth involved in the events described above knew each other. There are other incidents and accidents, hints and allegations. RantWoman thinks numbers of people in positions of responsibility could have done things differently. RantWoman also still means to try to read up on ways for bystanders to make a difference without getting hurt and about other finer points of trying to be a responsible attentive adult on the bus.
RantWoman nevertheless wishes to make clear that this kind of episode that carries over from other stuff should in no way be taken as a mass outbreak of violence in the bus tunnel.
RantWoman also notes that the company currently providing security in the bus tunnel is slated to be replaced in October. RantWoman is pointedly not commenting on whether there could be any connection between a unionization campaign and this replacement step.