What Would You Do; Seattle Crime Edition

What Would You Do? With John Quinones is a popular show on ABC that challenges the public by putting them on camera while staging outlandish, awkward, touching, or, at times, terrifying situations, to see how the general public would react in realty, rather than just in theory, albeit a staged reality. The show poses the question, what would you do if put into one of these situations? Would your reaction be charitable, kind, or brave? Would you do the right thing, or would you fail to rise to the occasion? Or, even worse, would you aid the efforts of the so-called wrong side or bad guy?

Surveillance Footage Captures Daring Crime

In Seattle, Washington, commuters where challenged to a real-life version of What Would You Do? According to Live Leak, local Seattle commuters placed an armed criminal

identified as 19 year-old Trevonnte Brown under citizen’s arrest when he pulled a gun on one of the passengers on the 25th of November. The bus’ surveillance footage shows the passenger who was attacked quickly responding to having a lethal weapon pointed at his face by pushing the armed suspect away before punching Brown in the face and tackling him to the floor. Fellow commuters joined this man’s brave act by assisting in removing the weapon, detaining the suspect, and calling the police, while others simply ran.

In this case, the man who had the most to lose – his life- was instantly willing to defend himself. In this situation, it does not seem that the man had time to think, but instead responded out of a fight-or-flight instinct. The other passengers, on the other hand, clearly had time to react and choose whether or not they would be heroic or fail to rise to the occasion. While at least three other people joined in by assisting the man in his battle to defend himself, most of the passengers ran in the opposite direction, including what seemed to be the biggest man on the bus. According to Live Leak, Brown was arrested shortly after being tackled on the bus.

Surveillance and Crime

If you were put in this situation, would you fight or would you run? Or, would you be the armed suspect? With advancements in technology, camera phones, surveillance cameras, and the internet, chances are that someone is watching, whether you are on a show, surveillance, or someone’s smartphone. If you have already committed a crime, the general public may be able to easily access evidence of that crime.

Just by entering your name into a search engine, people may be able to find evidence of your criminal past from mugshots to court records, which are public records. If you are not proactive about vacating your record and making sure that the vacated record of your offense does not show up on background checks, then the evidence of your offense will stay in public view. To see if you are eligible to vacate your record, take this free online test, https://recordgone.amieligible.com