Many of us have seen the videos, captured on people’s cell phones and then downloaded onto the Internet.
A group of people back up one mouthy, disrespectful, and potentially dangerous individual as they gang up on a clerk or a burger flipper or some other, on-the-job, minimum wage, employee.
These scenarios typically play out in a mass-market chain, like the fast food fiasco that was seen during this year’s spring break when a group of people, backing up a 31-year-old woman — hardly your typical spring breakin’ college student — verbally and then physically attacked a clerk in a fast food restaurant. As the crowd cheered and laughed, the woman attacked the staff and ransacked the business, doing thousands of dollars in damages.
This past week it played out again, and it took the next step.
Recently in Las Vegas, the crowd of unrulies swarmed into a convenience store and grabbed what they wanted. There were simply so many that the clerks couldn’t do anything, according to the Associated Press report.
The owner of City Stop reported, “the mob was in the store for three and a half minutes and ‘it became a feeding frenzy.’ He says the thieves took anything they could get their hands on: beer, beef jerky, candy bars and even the clerk’s cell phone. Some even left and returned for more. The clerk estimated about 35 people were involved.”
If you see the videos of these incidents — some can be found on the YouTube Internet site — you will notice, if you watch closely, patrons who are not involved in the attacks who are obviously scarred themselves.
They find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and it is clearly terrifying. What will it take for the mob to turn on them?
Not much.
That will be the next step.
First we hear stories about these groups bullying clerks and patrons. Maybe you’ve already heard about that happening to someone who made the mistake of trying to get a burger or stopping for gas in the “wrong part” of a big city.
Next we see the evidence of groups in those cities accosting workers when they are backed up by a big enough mob.
Then we read about groups just taking what they want when there are enough that no one on hand can stop them.
How on earth can it be much of a leap to suggest that the next step will be for the other patrons to be accosted? Battered? Raped?
Think about the fast food restaurant where you got your last burger.
Or picture the convenience store where you got gas.
Could 10 to 20 people overwhelm the staff?
Sure they could.
It only took a very few minutes for the Las Vegas store to be ransacked, so even if the police are called, what is the chance they will get there in time to do anything? Even in a town the size of Great Bend, let alone Wichita or Kansas City, how would they respond?
We have a problem, a cultural problem, in this country, and it is being winked at by those in power nationally.
That means our state and local leaders are going to have to address the safety of American taxpayers who are just trying to use public facilities.
If they refuse, we are facing some very real problems.
— Chuck Smith