Casey Heynes Story Recently this story has gone viral. Two young men from Australia Casey Heynes
and Ritchard Gale, had a conflict that was resolved in an aggressive confrontation. The facts are still unclear leading up to the incident but the action that Casey took without a doubt was potentially a very dangerous reaction to what he alleges was in response to blatant and constant bullying by his peer.
After Ritchard took a couple of pokes at Casey, who outweighs him by at least fifty pounds, Casey decided to react to this provocation by picking Ritchard up and body slamming him onto the pavement and walking away. Ritchard is seen getting up obviously shaken by the contact with the sidewalk and the curbing. He limps off camera and we as viewers come to our own conclusions as to the extent of his injuries.
I feel a great deal of empathy for Casey. I understand how consistently and unrelentingly being picked on could generate sufficient anger to body slam someone. He struck back at his oppressor at risk of permanently hurting or even fatally wounding his attacker. Public sentiment over Facebook drew the attention of over 172,000 hits within a couple of day of the incident and seemed to support and portray Casey as a hero.
This writer though empathetic doesn't consider Casey's violent outburst as anything but an uncontrolled reaction that could have had a deadly impact. I am disappointed at the encouragement Casey received from the public. What are we teaching our children? That it is okay to strike back? That we can take justice into our own hands as vigilantes and retaliate against the aggressor? It is against the law and at a stretch could possibly be considered self-defense. The law encourages us to walk away before taking action. It is when we have no other choice that we can take aggressive steps to protect ourselves balanced with a degree of restraint. We wonder why we have issues with violence in our society when we are willing to support such deplorable actions.
I have compassion for those who think his action was heroic. As a society we constantly feel like we take pokes from our oppressors who could take form as bosses, spouses, having to do things we don't want to do and even paying taxes. We think we are underdogs and when we see someone stand up to the oppressor we applaud their actions as we live vicariously through their deeds. Catch my newsletter Cup of Joe for articles and scheduled events.
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