young toughs

comments from the peanut gallery are always welcome, i love the peanut gallery, they are my people!

an occurrence of yesterday.

girl scout cookies are being delivered en masse, and as i was half bent sorting our orders in my trunk, i heard

we'll go by this nice lady. we'll go by this nice lady.

trying to ignore it, like some pesky fly (i'm from LA, what do you expect?), i finally realized it would not go away and i turned and said,

what's up guys?

the three, not unlike my own nephews, had long hair, innocent faces, and trusting eyes. the kind of thing you can see in an instant. they each carried a skate board, one wore an askew hat (like hello kitty), and the others just stood there silently.

one responded,

those guys are harassing us

i turned and saw two vehicles slowly pulling out of a U drive in front of an elementary school. they turned away from us (and i noticed, the boys did not) the toughs pulled right back in the U drive. i knew as soon as those three "skaters" as the toughs called them, left me, they'd be in trouble.

sure enough. three skaters cross the road away from me, and two cars full of six toughs follow them.

here is where the skaters got in trouble. they crossed off the main road and were cutting through the drive of a business into the adjacent subdivision (i still hear RUSH whenever i use that word). the toughs followed.

i hopped into my car and swung around into the drive behind the toughs, jotting down their license plates as i drove. they began to pull away and i said to one carload full of them,

stop harassing those boys or i will turn you into the police

the toughs replied,

they threw a rock at our car

the toughs drove away and i swung back through to get my girl and darted into the subdivision (RUSH again!). i found the skaters and gave them my name, phone number, the license plates of the two cars and told them to call me if they got harassed again.

i was driving impaired yesterday and it took me a while to get off the road i was on. when i finally did, my girl said,

mom, there they go

sure enough, i checked the plates and the toughs were going after the skaters in the subdivision (off the main road where no one could see them).

i followed the toughs until they split up then pulled alongside one group and said,

i'm telling the police, you were harassing those boys again!

we were about five miles away from the subdivision at that point and the toughs said,

we're going home.

i said,

if you're going home, then you had no business in that subdivision

and drove away.

we delivered our many cookies and stopped by the police department on our way home.

the officer said he would run the plates that night and call the boys out of class and put the fear of God in them. the toughs could be charged with injury to a minor if the kids were under thirteen (which they didn't look to be any older than that) because they could be tried as adults if any of them are seventeen. i hope it works.

those toughs were looking to harm someone yesterday and i just happened to get involved. it felt like my good samaritan moment. all i could think about was the innocence on those skaters' faces and the evil intent on the toughs' faces. i couldn't let those skaters get beat up.

could you?

i've been told it was not a good thing to do, i "should" have just turned the license plates in. that would have been the "safe" thing to do. but i can't live in a world where the God of Heaven can't protect me and mine. i can't live in a world where i have to turn away from one clearly in need to save my own skin. what if my skin was supposed to be marred for those boys? it is a tough call, and i would rather it did not involve my child, but if my child were in danger, i would HOPE TO GOD someone would put themselves in jeopardy to help her.