Unnecessary violence is an everyday occurrence on the streets of the United States. Unfortunately, a lot of the violence goes unnoticed by people who could try to help the situation.
What would you do if you noticed that someone was being attacked? Would you intervene and try to help? Or would you ignore it and move on? Hopefully, you wouldn’t make the decision to stand by and film the situation like the people in this story.
The San Francisco police officer could sense that someone was behaving a bit strangely. The officer quickly approached the woman but she was met with a fight for her life. The attack continued and the officer knew she needed some help. The officer begged the onlookers for their help, but no one moved. Then, one passerby saw the chaos and immediately ran over. No one, not even the officer, could have expected what happened next.
A female police officer was patrolling the infamous streets of San Francisco’s south side around 7:00 pm one evening. When the officer had received the call from dispatch she was on Mission Street. Apparently, there was an altercation in progress, but the officer had no clue that it would almost take her life.
“One of our officers responded to the report of a woman jumping up and down on cars, denting them, vandalizing them,” said Police Sergeant Eli Turner in an interview with ABC-7 News. Not knowing that she would need backup, the officer quickly did what she needed to do and answered the call…alone.
It goes without saying that police officers risk their lives any time they’re on duty, but female police officers have it a bit harder. They may be just as strong, fast, and smart, but many criminals will go after the female officers just because they think they’re an easier target.
The female officer was surprised by what she saw when she arrived at the scene. She was well-trained and believed that she could handle the situation on her own. Using her de-escalation training, the officer approached the woman in an attempt to diffuse things. Unfortunately, as soon as the officer tried, the situation got a lot worse.
The officer approached the woman so she could try to calm her down. The woman at the scene was much stronger and larger than the officer, but for the time being, the officer was able to calm her down.
Now that the woman was calm, the officer began to place her under arrest. She had caused a lot of damage while breaking the law, so the officer had no choice but to arrest her. But like most criminals facing arrest, the woman wasn’t going to go without putting up a fight.
As soon as the officer tried to place handcuffs on the woman, she became violently furious. The officer knew that the woman needed to be controlled to prevent further chaos, but the situation grew more intense by the second. Soon enough, the woman reached for the officer’s gun.
The woman jumped towards the officer, pinning her against the wall. As the woman attempted to grab the officer’s gun, she slammed the officer’s head into the wall, which caused the officer to lose her balance. It appeared that the officer’s training was failing her, but she still tried to do everything she could to de-escalate the situation.
As the officer was being attacked, she continued to yell for help. “Help me! Help me!” she cried. It was obvious that she was outmatched and in a lot of trouble. Even though a crowd was gathering, no one was offering their help.
Were these people really going to stand by and watch this officer get attacked? Was there no one out there willing to help her when she needed it most? Luckily, there was one person who knew what needed to be done.
As the officer continued to struggle with the strong woman, a man that was crossing the nearby street noticed what was going on. He didn’t think twice as he began to move closer to the chaos to see what was going on. As he realized what was happening, he couldn’t believe that no one was helping, so he made a quick decision.
The man realized that the woman had the officer in a chokehold and she was slamming her head into the wall. There was no way he could stand by like the other onlookers, so he needed to help. But this man just so happened to have a certain set of skills that could diffuse things rather quickly.
“The person had the officer kind of in a chokehold,” said the man during an interview with ABC-7 News. He immediately jumped in and wrestled the woman onto the ground, breaking his headphones in the process. As they waited for more officers to arrive, the man held the woman on the ground. Oddly enough, as soon as the other officers arrived, the man quickly left without giving anyone his name.
The police officers wanted to find the man, but the man had disappeared. They weren’t able to find him in the area, so they decided to go out and look for him. A few days later, the police were finally able to find the mysterious man and the secret he was hiding.
The man, Ryan Raso, had a criminal past. He had been in trouble for years while living in Florida, but something clicked, and he knew that he needed to make some changes. He decided to move out to California to start over, but hard times had caught up with him there, as well.
“He has been homeless. He’s had a rough time in recent months. We wanted to reach out to him and let him know he has friends,” explained Sergeant Eli Turner. So why did he intervene and what were the skills he was hiding?
As the police talked to Ryan, they began to understand why he helped out the officer. Ryan couldn’t believe that no one was helping the officer in trouble. “A law enforcement officer is saying, ‘Help me, help me,’” said Ryan. Why didn’t anyone help out the screaming police officer? Luckily, Ryan showed up when he did!
Ryan didn’t have it easy growing up, so he had to learn how to defend himself when he needed to. Ryan was a very angry teenager, but he knew that he needed to learn to control himself, so he got himself into some martial arts classes — and he did very well in them.
As soon as Ryan saw the suspect holding down the officer, he knew what he needed to do. Since he had gained experience with martial arts, he knew how to approach the situation using a calm, logical mind. As he grabbed ahold of the woman, he performed a Jiu-Jitsu move that instantly brought the woman to the floor. If it wasn’t for his training, Ryan could have been hurt, as well.
The officers instantly became overwhelmed after hearing what Ryan had to say. How could someone who had so much trouble with authority in his life come to the aid of an officer in trouble? The entire police department wanted to do something to help Ryan.
“An officer was being beaten up, a human. So I just did what’s right, you know,” explained Ryan. The officers decided to get Ryan a brand new set of headphones and they also offered to help Ryan get set up in a shelter. Ryan helped one of their own, so they wanted to help him, too!
Sadly, it’s more common for people to stand by and film violence when they’re in a crowd, rather than actually do something to help. If you’re ever in this situation, make sure you try to do something to help because you could quite possibly save someone’s life. If it wasn’t for Ryan, this officer surely would have died.