Confronting drunken yobs

As you will all be aware of the murder of Craig Wass , 39,in loxley, Sheffield who was attacked with bricks after asking a group of rowdy youths outside his house to calm down because it had woken his children. One of the shit-heads through a brick at him which bounced off his head, then the shit-head hit him again with another brick which finally killed him. We all aware or have had some contact with drunken rowdy youths on your street corner, on a bus or wherever, but if you were in that situation as Mr.Wass found himself in how would you deal with it?

Hi Dave

I'm not familiar with this story - do you have any links?

It's a toughie though. It's one thing dealing with drunken groups when it's your line of work but when it's "out of hours" it can be quite a tricky one.

Outside your home makes things extra troublesome because, lets say you go out and take care of things - they now know where you live, so you always have the issue of reprisals and comebacks.

Calling the Police is obviously the logical option but all too often there is little action taken or they arrive too late, etc etc.
Even when they do help out, it only makes you look weaker in the eyes of the yobs - it's not the language they speak. Well - until you knock a few out and they they can't scream "Call the Police" loud enough!

Every situation is different but the first tactic would be to call for help, ie, the Police

Having a polite word may work - but often being polite is mistaken for weakness and they try to take advantage of that.

Many years ago I had trouble with teenagers from a neighbours house. Footprints across my car - where they had run over it in the night.
Damage to my property etc.

I was in a darker place in them days so my course of action was to go straight around and ask the father to come out for a "chat"
He wouldn't but he got my message

I then moved house! - best thing I ever did

Whatever course of action, your first job is to remain safe, so confronting a group of yobs on your own is perhaps not the wisest thing to do, even if they're causing damage - call the Police!

Didnt the guy go out in his boxers and bare feet or something ?

Should have shouted from the window for them to go elsewhere ; then called the police ; lastly , get dressed in full clothing with a big fuck off baseball bat !!

Trouble with this situation is missiles outreach baseball bats. Think first then act

Hey Al there's loads of links, but just 'google' Craig Wass .You make a lot of valid points especially confronting youths outside your home and the consequences this can bring. I remember as a 12 yr old my old man (god rest his soul) going out to the front of our house and confronting a group of about eight to twelve 'bootboys' sort of skinheads who were giving the neighbours daughter's boy friend hassle. I recall how much 'bottle' my old man had and thinking to myself 'I could never do that' because your challenging the lot of them and they all could have a go. Looking at it now they must have thought "who's this bloke, there's eight of us and he's come out telling us what to do" "he's either mad or a hard fucker". Still our windows could have gone in but they didn't.

Calling the Police may not be a good option as they 'll more than likely figure out who is "the nark".

Being reasonable obviously doesn't work , because when you think about are they being reasonable giving you all this grief, and you can't assume that they think along the same line of thought as what you do.

My own course of action, well what about paying someone do break there fuckin legs ? a clear message is sent out, then when the other shithead gives grief, get his legs broken.You can't always rely on the Police to make sure you have no problems. Up where I live we have groups of "chavs" who get together and have a piss-up and give grief , there was a bloke who got kicked to the ground by some chavs for phoning the police because he had no peace as they were drinking on the gable end of his house .

Depends. If the drunks are local to your area, you may know them, or at least know their faces enough to know what your up against. This makes it easier to decide what course of action to take. If you have never seen them before, you have no idea what they are capable of. Maybe you would be able to accurately assess the danger level, but if your not sure then I would leave it and ring the police.

Face it, chances are if you try and take on a group single handedly, you are going to get stomped. If it was me, and it was just a case of them being too loud, then I would ring the police and have them come and move them along. If they were damaging, or they looked like they were going to damage my property, well thats a different matter. Maybe calling the police will be enough, maybe it won't.

If I had to go out to them I would grab my baseball bat and have it just behind the door, while I stand on the doorstep and ask/tell (depends on the group and the circumstances) them to move away from my property. They then can either move on, or they can turn on me, in which case I have my bat ready for anyone who comes into range.


This is what I personally would see myself doing. Who knows, maybe in the heat of the moment I wouldn't.

Hey guys,
Some interesting points made there......as a father and husband myself I have to take into account reprisals,which at this point of my life is a good thing as in my youth I would have just gone out there tooled up and kicked fuck out of all and sundry.This type of tragedy is all to common nowadays.....I feel slightly agreived when I hear of bystanders and witnesses as we should stand shoulder to shoulder against such scum.As for the police? Seems to me we need more old school bobbies and less graduate types who hide from the world......pcso's are also a joke....how about when some of the lads and lasses come home from serving abroad........getting offered jobs in the police.....we need results not meeting targets........what do you guys think?
Mick x

Very true - but how much is also governed by the law that the PC's are supposed to uphold.

We see far too often loads of tax payers resources put into Police operations only to have people let off by the CPS not taking further action.

Watch the reality TV Police shows and make note of just how many people actually get charged or punished for their crimes in the final summary at the end of each show.

I'm sure the Police must feel frustrated at the efforts they put in and the lack of support from the legal system

Any coppers on here?

Problem with Micks suggestion is that the troops up the sharp end are fed up with doing Policing actions in the Military so Police can be a bit of a dirty word to homecoming troops. The troops I know who have joined the Police and been up the sharp end (mainly Cdos and Paras) get promoted very quickly in the police and end up pushing desks so their expertise is lost to the street copper.

I guess they must feel a little under-dressed without their firearms too!

It reminds me of that story some time ago where soldiers were being advised to not walk around their towns in uniform as it was attracting abuse from the local hoodies.

Personally, I thought they should have encouraged them to wear their "full" uniform and issued them some live ammo - the hoodies may have thought differently then!

I agree Al that the Police must feel frustrated because of the CPS not pursuing cases or the court sentencing being too lenient.Look at statistics for those locked up when found in possession of a knife, so much for making it a custodial offence. Of course each situation demands to be weighed up,if you use a baseball bat on some one you're the one that ends up in the shit, your the one that ends up loosing your job and your the one who'll end up going to prison.But that doesn't mean that you should do nothing, to give a example a few months ago there was a story in the papers,it didn't go too much into detail but a group of about six youths were beaten up down on a old railway track that the locals used to walk their dogs.One of the youths was hit in the face with a bottle and the others were beaten with sticks,suffering broken bones and needing hospital treatment the police said it was a motiveless attack and are looking for four men in there late 30's and early 40's who were seen in a 4 X 4. Doesn't sound motiveless to me, it's the same old story group of young twats giving grief , and that person or persons not prepared to accept it and do something about it.

I also agree with both Mick and Al especially the live ammo bit .I remember years ago whilst still in the forces myself and taking part in the decommissioning parade of HMS Coventry in my home city of Coventry, being really embarrassed and well pissed off because of a small minority of local chavs hauling abuse at us while the parade was in full swing, things like that really do test your patience and make you think.

As for dealing with drunks/chavs been down that road as well very difficult I don't think there's any set recipe to follow other than, although it's really frustrating and we would all love to use their skulls as a great stress reliever, in the long run these people have normally got nothing to lose and as we all know they should be pitied for their lack of respect for others.

Good point Steve.

Whilst racing outside to cave their heads in with a bat sounds like a great idea to deal with the issue head on - have they really done enough to warrant the very real risk of being killed as a result of your over-zealous bat bashing?

Whilst we do need to stand up to these individuals we also need some perspective and also have to apply our maturity and intelligence to the matter.
You'd certainly be on shakey ground if you went outside to them armed and did some serious damage, even if when you got out there you were under threat - the law would simply ask why you went out in the first place.

We must also consider what impact it can have on our family who we leave behind, whether that be because we spend a spell in the hospital or prison or worse.

It may seem like the cowardly choice and may not be the best option in every occasion but calling the authorities has to be the sensible route to take. The biggest battle you have then is with your ego that just wanted to go out and bash some heads!

Well said Al,

One of the best ways to look at it in my opinion is by a system explained by Jamie O Keefe which is,
1.Simple
2.Serious
3.Life Threatening

in regard to the level of threat you are facing,but the ego can sometimes get in the way of making the right decision.

Marc

Great advice guys......I'm sorry but I'm still at that battling the ego stage at the moment...as you all know I depise bullying of all types,but as always Al speaks sense.....you know me mate....kneejerk reactionary....that's me!
Mick x