Perhaps Little Things Should Mean A Lot

Alone, the Justice Department study released Sunday is clear. It found that emergency rooms across the country treated 1.3 million victims of violent attacks - 250 percent more people than the government previously thought.

Yet a USA Weekend story published the same day echoed several recent studies declaring many of our fears unwarranted, especially where violent crime is concerned.

“New FBI statistics show one in 156 Americans was a victim of a violent crime last year, a 7 percent drop from the year before,” the story said. (Ironically, the FBI is a Justice Department agency.)

The story pointed out that while 90 percent of us feel the world is less safe than when we were young, the good ol’ days lacked seat belts, sonograms, air bags and organ transplants. Add to that residential smoke alarms, preventative mammograms and domestic violence legislation.

So which is it? Is life out there more dangerous, or is it not?

Like other statistical stories, some of the discrepancies exist because the numbers were gathered from different sources, in this case, one set from law enforcement agencies, the other from hospital emergency rooms.

But the overall crime picture is further blurred by changing views of what counts as violence.

Ask a Sacramento woman who recently learned that an overburdened judicial system may not take violence as seriously as she’d like.

Cynthia Williams, a 37-year-old state worker, admits she accidentally cut off another motorist Aug. 11 when she thought she had plenty of room to change lanes to avoid a slow-moving truck on a busy commercial road. The 54-year-old retiree she cut off apparently disagreed.

Williams said she accelerated to get out of his way, but he tailed her for the next half mile, staying within a yard of her back bumper, honking much of the way. When she came to a stoplight, he laid on the horn some more.

“I know it was wrong, but my daughter flipped him off,” Williams said.

The driver got out of his van and strode up to the driver’s window to express his displeasure in person. Williams said he cursed and threatened her while she tried to calm him down.

“Finally, I told him ‘We’re done,’ and let my clutch out a bit to move the car forward,” she said. “He drew back his fist and hit me in the face.”

Her 17-year-old daughter jumped out of the car in protest. According to the police report, he rounded the car, asked if the girl wanted some of him and punched her, too. The suspect admits to the assault in his police statement. Onlookers swarmed to their aid.

Williams told deputies she wanted to prosecute, but the fact she had to sign a citizen’s arrest form made her pause. “The officer … explained that even though I had several witnesses, since he personally hadn’t seen the offense, he could not make the arrest, but that I could make a ‘private person’s arrest.”’

That’s long been the procedure for many misdemeanors “not committed in the officer’s presence” unless there are extenuating circumstances, such as the suspect has no identification or is from out of town, said Sacramento Sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Cooper.

Williams worried that signing the complaint would give her assailant access to her address.

The officer also told her the district attorney could choose not to prosecute if it was decided the Williamses provoked the attack.

“I was incredulous. What do you mean? My bad driving and my daughter’s bad manners gave this man the right to hit us in the face?”

She said the deputy kept telling her how lucky they were not to have been shot - people are shot for a lot less these days.

“Minimizing is the word that comes to mind,” Williams said. “I suppose when you see all he must in a day, my incident was no big deal. But it was to us.”

The larger question is, what happens when we as a society start to shrug off the so-called little things, if a fist in the face can be called that? Do violent crimes escalate in the absence of real consequences? Do we really want to live in a place where assaulting another person is no big deal?

“I don’t think any of those people who helped us do,” Williams said.

As in most non-felony crimes, the alleged assailant was cited, given a court date and released. He was not hauled off to jail. Too bad.

Neither will the incident make any list quantifying the way we should feel about crime.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Diana Griego Erwin McClatchy News Service