Redditors who have successfully broken up a fight, how did you do it? [serious]

I was at a tramstop when a young guy started yelling at a much older guy and really getting in his face. I hope its not too awful to say, but both looked to me as though they might have had drug issues and been homeless. It rapidly got horribly violent and they looked as though they might have been going to pull each other into the traffic. I (smallish 39yo female) am thoroughly ashamed to say I had absolutely no idea what to do other than call the police, which I did. I guessed that even though they wouldn't come in time, it would be good to be talking with emergency services since the men seemed likely to be hit by a car at any moment.

While I was pathetically making my phone call, a guy shot out of a shop across the street and told the younger one that someone was going to steal his bag (he had left a plastic bag on the ground at the tramstop). So he stopped attacking the older one for a moment and went to get his bag. While he was doing that the shop guy got the older one to walk with him in the other direction. The younger one came after them again, and the shop guy yelled back "don't put your bag down around here mate, it'll get stolen", and somehow it kept working, and he kept getting distracted by it. Then the shop guy (still walking away with the older one and just kind of yelling over his shoulder when the younger one seemed to be starting up again) told him that the tram was coming and he'd miss it if he didn't get back to the stop.

The tram wasn't coming and no one was going to steal anyone's bag. I have no idea why it worked. I'm guessing the shop guy must have trained in some way, or have been following some kind of principle, to have known so exactly what to do in that moment. Whatever it was, I'd love to study it myself and be more useful in that kind of way.

TL;DR Watched a fight get broken up by someone who successfully just distracted the main aggressor.

/r/AskReddit Thread