In an eerie counterpoint to my post in the WTF thread this morning, my co-workers and I stopped a rapist.
Okay, specifics. As our shift was ending (around midnight local time), we hear a woman screaming for help, so we run out onto the wharf. A real big guy, maybe 6'5" and 250lbs, is grabbing at this little girl whose shirt is ripped almost completely off, and at her friend. Some random woman walking her dog tries to push him away from the girl and he punches her; a few moments later the guys who were at the other end of our area force him to the ground, and the two girls (they were maybe 13-14 years old) take off running towards us. We're there for fifteen or twenty minutes, six of us holding the man down while he chants, "THE BLESSED WILL BE BLESSED" at the top of his lungs. Eventually the police roll up, an eventual total of nine Crown Vics, cuff him, taser him three or four times to no effect, knee him in the ribs and punch the side of his head, before eventually binding his arms and legs with belts and carrying him off like a parcel.
It was perhaps fortunate that the cops showed up when they did, because we had already progressed to semi-serious discussion about knocking the bastard over the head and pushing him into the river. For my part, I'm just incredibly grateful that it happened where it did (within earshot of thirty or so people), and when it did (before we had all gone home), and rather sad that we can't do anything about the mental trauma (considering that by the time our office staff were comforting them the girls had completely broken down and were crying for their mothers). Well, that and royally pissed off. That I didn't put a few more kicks into his side.
I get home and discover that a sexual predator who also happens to be a former high school teacher finally got busted when a bunch of girls came forward together. This in spite of the fact that it's been common knowledge at that school for years that he was a sleazeball that preyed on girls with low self-esteem. Naturally, parental complaints had been blocked because the councilor was his friend, and a lot of the girls were defending him.
So yeah, fucked up night, but at least it didn't end terribly.