Aside from stepping in, which is an obvious choice if you are capable, what would be the best course of action? You see someone being punched, for example.
> Aside from stepping in, which is an obvious choice if you are capable
Nah the obvious choice is to do nothing, which is what the rest of the people on the train will be doing. The cops if/when they do show up will likely blame you for the fight anyway.
A strategy that has done wonders in similar situations is to get near enough to be seen but not to be reached. Then, stare at the attacker with your arms crossed. Just by being there the attacker doesn’t feel as comfortable to strike cos you might do so at any time from a difficult angle even though you don’t have that intention
I think the emergency button (the one inside the train) is a valid option, if not one of the best. The ads for the emergency button are like, “if you feel sick, push the button and let the train operator know and someone will assist you at the next stop” type thing. So if you push it and let the train operator know things are getting violent in your train they can probably arrange for the cops to be there at the next stop.
This comment section is about to be full of a few dozen people making the same lame-ass joke about doing nothing.
Edit: And here they come!
In all seriousness press it. Since it will interrupt travel for so many others it’s more likely that the attacker will actually be investigated and charged.
But don’t get directly involved lest you become part of the problem
>Aside from stepping in, which is an obvious choice if you are capable,
Nope, not obvious at all, like obviously not the thing to do.. You don’t know what’s happening, you may be ending on the assaulting side.
>should I push the emergency button?
Maybe. If you think that’s a true emergency that requires the trains to be stopped and that it’s easier than just calling an agent.
Just be aware that the agents don’t like people pressing the buttons for non-emergencies. There was a video a couple weeks ago of [an agent going ballistic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi-bH9G58EA) because someone dropped his wallet on the tracks, the agents were not picking quick enough it in spite of his requests so he pressed the button,,, which stopped the Yamanote.
Years ago I verbally confronted an angry old man who violently shoved a youngish girl on a train. In the end, I think the girl wasn’t happy that I’d brought extra focus to her, so I regret having intervened.
Is this just hypothetical?
If isn’t physical but instead an escalating confrontation, you can try to distract by asking the more aggressive person a random question. Like what time is it or what stop is next. It might confuse that person and let the other person get away easier or at least de escalate the feelings.
Another option is go to a different car and push button there. Keep yourself safe.
>Aside from stepping in, which is an obvious choice if you are capable
If you think it’s safe putting yourself between the assailant and the victim is the only thing you should ever consider doing as far as “stepping in”. Keep your hands at your sides and calmly ask the assailant to stop. Do not raise your hands/etc, you are acting as a physical barrier to separate them not physically touching either. Don’t shove the person back if they shove you, and especially do not strike the person. You are deescalating, anything you do to escalate the situation is criminal.
Being violent/aggressive is a good way to wind up in jail yourself. The law is different here and excessive force is whatever the police happen to define it as at that moment and they especially define it in situations where you decided to take the law into your own hands. There is a very good reason more people don’t step in in these situations in addition to the not my monkeys not my rodeo principle.
Does pressing the button signal the train to stop? If it does, I think it’ll only delay the interference from the staff. They’re usually on platforms not on the train.
If you feel like its dangerous, just let the train driver know. Pretty sure emergency button is just to call the driver.
Let them know you are videoing, ask them to stop otherwise you will stop the train and have them arrested.
If you are able bodied enough then get between them. I have seen it where another person held on to the attacker so they couldn’t get away. They pulled them off the train and held them until security arrived.
Someone called the button for me because i fainted in the train. It just called the driver/agent but the train continue to the next station and some agent was on the platform to take care of me (wheelchair and all…😅)
So maybe it just called them up and its okay to use.
>which is an obvious choice if you are capable
You got a mouth? You are more than capable – **speak up** and call them out. Bystander effect is broken when someone speaks up and takes action.
On the train: see other comments.
In a metro line in the city: No, don’t pull the emergency alarm as it will lock down the station. They were designed after the sarin attacks and are made to prevent the dispersal of any weaponiZed agents. You will most likely be trapped inside.
What’s the point of this question? If you think that you need to press the emergency button, press the emergency button?
Attacked verbally, no. Physically, yes.
Had it happen once on the Seibu Shinjuku line. Some salaryman was acting mental. Swinging his umbrella like a sword yelling about a local politician(according to my gf at the time). It was pure madness. One guy tries to calm him down but it was useless. Emergency button was pressed( I assume, lights were flashing when we arrived at next station). Guy got forced of the train next stop by cops. It was a good evening.
I don’t know about those buttons. I was on a train once and someone at the other end of the car started yelling to the other end that someone was feeling sick, so someone at my end of the car pushed a button or pulled a button and the f**king train stopped and sat between stops for a about 40 minutes, while the train driver and the people in our car carried on a conversation which neither seemed to be able to understand what the other was saying.
if the person had been knifed, they’d have been much better off getting off at the next stop which was a minute away.
So I don’t really know what kind of options are available. Maybe there’s a button just to get a conductor to come running down to your car to disable the attacker or break up the drunk salarymen. Beats me.
Honestly when I read “attacked on a train”, I thought about the Joker on Halloween😅 But being punched, no way! Seems unnecessary, especially during the weekdays and during rush hour!
Weekends and holidays by all means, feel free to do so.
Have done this before on the Oedo line. My strategy tends to be to go to the next carriage and report it from there, so the perpetrator/s are not aware you’re reporting.
In my case the driver slowed down a LOT, and at the next station there were police on the platform and at both gates. That’s what you get for smacking up your girlfriend on the train repreatedly… nobody else intervened. I was in shock.
Push the button and get the authority’s involved. In the bad old days, if you were to step in the suspicion would initially be that you instigated the fight as a foreigner. Not pretty or right, and I’ve been there. Any decision you make should be couched whether you are confident in your ability to stop the fight, can stay calm throughout, and can explain clearly what has happened in Japanese to the authorities when they come. Even better record everything on your phone regardless of whether you intervene or not.
Stepping in is not a choice, you will take 100% of the heat at the next station and it will get sticky. Press the button, and sit down please.
Just go over and start speaking English to the aggressor, confuse the hell out of him.
‘Hey…Hiroaki…Is that you? How the devil are you? Long time no see buddy. What are you up to these days? Are you still living with your grandparents and dating Megumi? etc etc’
press the button once you stopped in a station, dont push that in the middle of nothing unless one really has to stop
Yes of course
The trains do an emergency stop if you push the emergency bottom where I live.
If trains also stop after pushing the button where you live, I highly suggest pushing it at the station where actual help can reach the train.
Yes.
My ex wife was chikaned (groped) on the train.
She threw a fit and fought back.
The train stopped and the staff came and kicked HER off the train for “making a fuss.”
Nothing happened to the man.
Wait! So you witnessed an actual assault by a Japanese person in public? That’s like finding a unicorn in the wild.
33 comments
> Aside from stepping in, which is an obvious choice if you are capable
Nah the obvious choice is to do nothing, which is what the rest of the people on the train will be doing. The cops if/when they do show up will likely blame you for the fight anyway.
A strategy that has done wonders in similar situations is to get near enough to be seen but not to be reached. Then, stare at the attacker with your arms crossed.
Just by being there the attacker doesn’t feel as comfortable to strike cos you might do so at any time from a difficult angle even though you don’t have that intention
I think the emergency button (the one inside the train) is a valid option, if not one of the best.
The ads for the emergency button are like, “if you feel sick, push the button and let the train operator know and someone will assist you at the next stop” type thing.
So if you push it and let the train operator know things are getting violent in your train they can probably arrange for the cops to be there at the next stop.
This comment section is about to be full of a few dozen people making the same lame-ass joke about doing nothing.
Edit: And here they come!
In all seriousness press it. Since it will interrupt travel for so many others it’s more likely that the attacker will actually be investigated and charged.
But don’t get directly involved lest you become part of the problem
>Aside from stepping in, which is an obvious choice if you are capable,
Nope, not obvious at all, like obviously not the thing to do.. You don’t know what’s happening, you may be ending on the assaulting side.
>should I push the emergency button?
Maybe. If you think that’s a true emergency that requires the trains to be stopped and that it’s easier than just calling an agent.
Just be aware that the agents don’t like people pressing the buttons for non-emergencies. There was a video a couple weeks ago of [an agent going ballistic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi-bH9G58EA) because someone dropped his wallet on the tracks, the agents were not picking quick enough it in spite of his requests so he pressed the button,,, which stopped the Yamanote.
Years ago I verbally confronted an angry old man who violently shoved a youngish girl on a train.
In the end, I think the girl wasn’t happy that I’d brought extra focus to her, so I regret having intervened.
Is this just hypothetical?
If isn’t physical but instead an escalating confrontation, you can try to distract by asking the more aggressive person a random question. Like what time is it or what stop is next. It might confuse that person and let the other person get away easier or at least de escalate the feelings.
Another option is go to a different car and push button there. Keep yourself safe.
>Aside from stepping in, which is an obvious choice if you are capable
If you think it’s safe putting yourself between the assailant and the victim is the only thing you should ever consider doing as far as “stepping in”. Keep your hands at your sides and calmly ask the assailant to stop. Do not raise your hands/etc, you are acting as a physical barrier to separate them not physically touching either. Don’t shove the person back if they shove you, and especially do not strike the person. You are deescalating, anything you do to escalate the situation is criminal.
Being violent/aggressive is a good way to wind up in jail yourself. The law is different here and excessive force is whatever the police happen to define it as at that moment and they especially define it in situations where you decided to take the law into your own hands. There is a very good reason more people don’t step in in these situations in addition to the not my monkeys not my rodeo principle.
Does pressing the button signal the train to stop? If it does, I think it’ll only delay the interference from the staff. They’re usually on platforms not on the train.
If you feel like its dangerous, just let the train driver know. Pretty sure emergency button is just to call the driver.
Let them know you are videoing, ask them to stop otherwise you will stop the train and have them arrested.
If you are able bodied enough then get between them. I have seen it where another person held on to the attacker so they couldn’t get away. They pulled them off the train and held them until security arrived.
Someone called the button for me because i fainted in the train. It just called the driver/agent but the train continue to the next station and some agent was on the platform to take care of me (wheelchair and all…😅)
So maybe it just called them up and its okay to use.
>which is an obvious choice if you are capable
You got a mouth? You are more than capable – **speak up** and call them out. Bystander effect is broken when someone speaks up and takes action.
On the train: see other comments.
In a metro line in the city: No, don’t pull the emergency alarm as it will lock down the station. They were designed after the sarin attacks and are made to prevent the dispersal of any weaponiZed agents. You will most likely be trapped inside.
What’s the point of this question? If you think that you need to press the emergency button, press the emergency button?
Attacked verbally, no.
Physically, yes.
Had it happen once on the Seibu Shinjuku line. Some salaryman was acting mental. Swinging his umbrella like a sword yelling about a local politician(according to my gf at the time). It was pure madness. One guy tries to calm him down but it was useless. Emergency button was pressed( I assume, lights were flashing when we arrived at next station). Guy got forced of the train next stop by cops. It was a good evening.
I don’t know about those buttons. I was on a train once and someone at the other end of the car started yelling to the other end that someone was feeling sick, so someone at my end of the car pushed a button or pulled a button and the f**king train stopped and sat between stops for a about 40 minutes, while the train driver and the people in our car carried on a conversation which neither seemed to be able to understand what the other was saying.
if the person had been knifed, they’d have been much better off getting off at the next stop which was a minute away.
So I don’t really know what kind of options are available. Maybe there’s a button just to get a conductor to come running down to your car to disable the attacker or break up the drunk salarymen. Beats me.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1834/
Honestly when I read “attacked on a train”, I thought about the Joker on Halloween😅
But being punched, no way! Seems unnecessary, especially during the weekdays and during rush hour!
Weekends and holidays by all means, feel free to do so.
Have done this before on the Oedo line. My strategy tends to be to go to the next carriage and report it from there, so the perpetrator/s are not aware you’re reporting.
In my case the driver slowed down a LOT, and at the next station there were police on the platform and at both gates. That’s what you get for smacking up your girlfriend on the train repreatedly… nobody else intervened. I was in shock.
Push the button and get the authority’s involved.
In the bad old days, if you were to step in the suspicion would initially be that you instigated the fight as a foreigner. Not pretty or right, and I’ve been there.
Any decision you make should be couched whether you are confident in your ability to stop the fight, can stay calm throughout, and can explain clearly what has happened in Japanese to the authorities when they come.
Even better record everything on your phone regardless of whether you intervene or not.
Stepping in is not a choice, you will take 100% of the heat at the next station and it will get sticky. Press the button, and sit down please.
Just go over and start speaking English to the aggressor, confuse the hell out of him.
‘Hey…Hiroaki…Is that you? How the devil are you? Long time no see buddy. What are you up to these days? Are you still living with your grandparents and dating Megumi? etc etc’
press the button once you stopped in a station, dont push that in the middle of nothing unless one really has to stop
Yes of course
The trains do an emergency stop if you push the emergency bottom where I live.
If trains also stop after pushing the button where you live, I highly suggest pushing it at the station where actual help can reach the train.
Yes.
My ex wife was chikaned (groped) on the train.
She threw a fit and fought back.
The train stopped and the staff came and kicked HER off the train for “making a fuss.”
Nothing happened to the man.
Wait! So you witnessed an actual assault by a Japanese person in public? That’s like finding a unicorn in the wild.
I will report back. 😎👍