A couple weeks ago [account from 2011] I was able to disrupt a serious mugging attempt. A quarter of a block away I saw a woman and a man wheeling around a contested purse. [Being hypervigilant and always scanning the horizon, I had already noticed them and at first felt something was wrong. But then they started walking side by side and I figured they knew each other.] Knowing that these types of crimes take place in seconds, I felt I had to communicate with the attacker immediately. I floored the car and started honking wildly. I was attempting to distract him from his predatory intent (as well as draw others’ attention). My message to him was one of onrushing imminent violence. As I [turned up onto the curb and] smashed on the brakes, he dropped his hold on the purse and took off against the direction of traffic. It turned out that he had already cut her in the neck (in fact that was how he silently commenced his mugging attack). If I or someone else had not intervened right at that point, no doubt she would have been slashed up more (any slash could hit an artery with serious results of course), not to mention losing her purse. She said that she thought it was the honking that stopped the attack, he would look at me, then at her, then at me, etc. and then took off. I’m happy I was able to think fast enough to be of aid.
(See, Should I worry about this, 2011.)
Hypervigilance is not all bad. I notice things that are “wrong” unconsciously. Regarding that car that had almost slammed me into a divider (see, Should I be concerned), I hadn’t taken my eye off of it since it entered the highway, something was just “wrong” about the way it was being driven.
Plus it once enabled me to stop a violent mugging in progress (Oct. 2011). I was driving west on Central Park North approaching Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard when I noticed two people in the dusk walking with one very close behind. Something seemed wrong. Then I saw them walking side by side and relaxed, thinking, ‘ah, boyfriend and girlfriend.’ However when they started merry-go-rounding around a contested bag, my response was, ‘oh, so that’s what’s going down,” and was able to respond immediately.
Now, the sequence above took place in my peripheral vision and the peripheral part of my mind. My main mind was concentrating on driving, paying attention to the other cars around me, planning my route, etc. However, once my peripheral mind realized what was happening, my main mind was ready to go, with no uptake of the slack and no confusion. The problem then was how to affect the outcome of the situation down the block which could be over in seconds. So I started gunning the engine, honking the horn, flashing the lights all to convey onrushing trouble for the perp. As I jammed on the brakes and turned to drive onto the curb, the mugger dropped his hold and ran back against the direction of traffic. The woman said that he had kept looking back and forth at me on the way and then at her and the bag, until fleeing. Fortunately my plan worked, for he had already slashed her in the neck with a knife and if another attempt had connected with an artery, things could have turned out very badly.
(See, I’m asking for assistance, 2015.)
The Path Whisperer 