Dr. Laura:

One afternoon, I was crossing the street to enter the parking garage near my office, when I heard a man screaming.  I could tell it was a scream of pain.  There was one other guy walking near me, and we both ran up the steps toward the scream.  He got to the spot first, and turned to me and said "We shouldn't be here" and started to leave.  I, instead, kept going, and that's when I saw four men surrounding a fifth guy who was on the ground.  They looked like construction workers and were wearing hard hats.

I yelled at the guy "are you okay?" and the four guys said something like "we're just playing around."  The guy on the ground said he was NOT okay, and I told the others that I was calling 911 and they better leave that guy alone.  I was scared out of my mind.  Once the bad guys heard me with 911, they ran to a car and drove off as I read the license plate to the 911 operator.  

I found out later from the prosecutor when I testified in court that the four guys were from a gang and didn't like the one they were beating up.  And the other guy who witnessed the event refused to testify.  I was 45 years old and 120 pounds at the time, but I know I did the right thing.

I never realized that when you testify, you're not allowed to hear other people's testimony, but a woman who advocated for the victim told me that during his testimony, he said that "the nice lady helped me."  While I was on the stand, the four perpetrators were staring me down and trying to intimidate me, but they got convicted anyway.  I've never been so scared in my life, but your preaching about how good people must stand up to protect the innocent from evil made me do the right thing.Thanks, Dr. Laura!  I've been a listener for over 20 years.

Renee