The Attack
On the afternoon of Friday, February 5th, I spent some time speaking to one of the jigsaw groups in the main corridor of the Senior Center, among a larger number of people who were passing back and forth. I then left to go to meet my wife who was practising her music in the Arts and Crafts room at the eastern end of the building.
I did not realize that someone was following me as I left the busy public area and went into the empty corridor. When we were out of earshot of the main corridor, this person began chasing me, shouting “Smartass Sonofabitch – you're popular now!”. Not wishing to have a violent confrontation with this person (which I believed was his intention), I took refuge in the room where my wife was waiting for me.
When I opened the door to the Arts and Crafts room, and my pursuer saw that there was another person there, he realized that his attack would be witnessed by a third party, and he withdrew.
I was shaken by the experience, and lost no time in reporting the occurrence to the volunteer at the main desk, who called the Senior Coordinator from out of the back office. He promised to look into the matter, and shortly afterwards the Center closed for the weekend.
On the morning of Monday February 8, when I mentioned the attack to David, another patron of the Center, he told me that he knew of other occasions when my attacker had had confrontations with fellow patrons in the past. So I wrote to the Coordinator in order to make him aware of this additional information which I believed would help him reach a more informed decision regarding the best way forward.
In my email, I included the following passage:
David tells me that he is aware of other contretemps which this person has had with other patrons, and though I have not asked him, I feel he would be willing to corroborate my concerns.
In spite of my slight disability in walking resulting from a traffic accident some years ago, I was agile enough to have been able to escape from what was clearly a deliberate ambush. Thank God he had chosen to go for me, and not for my wife or one of the older, slower seniors who might not have been so lucky. But, in view of the information which had been supplied to the Senior Coordinator about how there had been a pattern of conflict between my attacker and others in the past, I felt confident that steps would soon be taken to make our Center safe once more.
Governments at the state, county and city level are all currently having budgetary difficulties, which have led to cutbacks in the provision of care for persons with emotional or mental problems. One result of this is that community centers such as ours are sometimes having to play host to troubled people who should really be getting proper help somewhere else. These individuals should not be 'parked' in public facilities where there is no practical help for them, and which are not equipped to respond to the emergencies which their presence can sometimes cause.