Bullying is receiving widespread recognition as a problem that cuts all across age, ethnicity, and wealth. It’s most virulent form is physically imposing individuals who take things from those smaller and weaker.
This video opens with a larger man – he appears literally to be twice or more the size of the victim – accosting a boy estimated to be ten or eleven years old, in a white t-shirt, who is seated in a subway car. The young man could not be less threatening, and is covering his head, as the larger man shakes him around, apparently tying to steal a cell phone.
Then another large man intervenes.
“Give him his phone back,” he says. “Give him his phone back. Give him his phone back.”
Another samaritan, an older woman, appears by his side.
“Why are you taking the kid’s phone, man?” asks the hero.
The bully turns around and says, “do you even know him? Why are you worrying about it?”
The hero of the story is undeterred, and removes his glasses.
“Yah, I know him,” he says. “Why are you taking his phone?”
The bully then turns back to the victim and continues to paw at him, apparently looking for more things to steal. He lifts up the boy’s leg and yanks off his shoe.
The woman then tries to reason with the bully, who suddenly turns menacingly, and backs her up, while shouting “GET OUT OF MY FACE. BACK OFF.”
That proves to be too much for another onlooker to bear, and she lunges forward and hits the far, far larger man. Suddenly another person tries to subdue the bully. Then a woman enters the fray, along the pair that were initially trying to defend the victim. It looks like a zombie swarm scene from World War Z, except this is a hero story not a horror story.
The group of awesome New Yorkers makes a discovery – there’s strength in numbers. A lot of good people together are more powerful than one huge bully. Faced with three brave women, one brave man, and a boy fighting back, the flabby bully ends up shirtless and flees, yelling “you all are crazy.”
Crazy good.
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The incident took place in Brooklyn, NY on the A train, on Tuesday August 16, around 10:40 p.m. Zaida Pugh captured the footage, and is trying to see that justice is done. Sadly, the young man never got his phone back, and could not remember his mother’s number to call for help.
The more attention this video get, the more likely authorities are to investigate. And someone find out who the boy is so we can get him another phone.
