By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
It was an all-too-common roadside scenario, and it could have been a tragedy in the making.
A white police officer was struggling to handcuff an unhappy black motorist for a traffic offense. The driver’s wife was making a cellphone video and screaming that the officer was a racist.
The accused was resisting being handcuffed and appeared to be freeing himself from the officer’s restraint when a burly passerby ran up and helped restrain the unhappy motorist without inflicting injury.
Meanwhile, other police officers arrived on scene and placed the motorist into a squad car for a trip to the county jail. The wife’s accusations of racism and police violence continued long after the cruiser was out of sight. Threats were made of lawsuits and other responses.
The citizen who intervened to help the officer said he was focused on de-escalating the situation by convincing the accused to stop resisting and yelling and to allow himself to be arrested. The altercation did not end in deadly violence, but the factors were present.
In another situation that did end tragically for a would-be hero, a woman ripped off her clothes, ran screaming down the street and jumped into the Ohio River in an obvious suicide attempt.
An attorney on the second floor of a nearby office building saw what was happening and ran after the woman to try to rescue her from the cold, muddy, fast-moving river.
He was known to family and friends as a quick-reacting, physically strong person who had saved the life of another drowning victim several years earlier.
But there was no happy ending this time as both individuals quickly went underwater and were swept away in the swift current. The man’s body was recovered two months later, 100 miles downstream from the scene of his attempted heroism.
As of this day, the woman’s body has yet to be recovered and her identity remains unknown.
A definition of heroism is someone who chooses to put themselves at risk to save another. I believe that, for most of us, trying to help another person is an instinctive human response that may not give us time to make an informed decision.
In closing, please remember that you don’t have to risk your life to be a hero because heroic deeds come in all sizes.
(Contact Keith at keithkappes@gmail.com).
