I've never told this story to anyone before but when I was 16 I worked at a restaurant downtown (in Canada) and I would take the bus home every evening. Because it was downtown there was a lot of crackheads and homeless in the area as well as all of the office workers and downtown shoppers.

One day I'm standing there waiting for the bus in a crowd of 20 people on a busy street at rush hour. All of a sudden a young homeless guy comes running out of an alley right beside us like a scared animal, followed by another very crazy and very angry looking homeless guy wearing a trench coat. The one in the trench coat grabbed the young guy and threw him to the ground right in front of the bus stop. He starts attacking him and he was obviously dominating the kid, kicking him in the face on the ground. Then he grabbed the kids arm and pulled it beyond his back.

At this point the young guy is looking at this crowd of people, including myself, screaming in pain and in fear "please help me! Please help me!" A few people reached for their phones while the rest of us just stood there like scared stupid sheep looking back and forth at each other like "isn't someone going to do something?"

The guy in the trench coat proceeded to twist the young guys arm in an impossible angle while the young guy howled the most anguished scream I've ever heard outside of a watch people die post. He was looking at us the whole time. The dude in the trench coat left him on the ground crying and it was only then that anyone approached the young guy and all they did was stand around him asking if he was ok until the cops showed up.

I've done a lot of shit I'm ashamed of in my life but nothing compares to the sheer cowardice of that moment. If even one of us had stepped in the guy would have had to stop. I've played that over and over again in my head and personally, even if knew I was going to beaten by the guy, I wish I would have stepped in. I'd rather live with an injury from helping someone than to live in the knowledge that I'm a coward and let someone suffer because "better them than me"