Something that'd disincentivize or prevent him from doing it again. Ideally detain him and rehabilitate him. Barring that, track him and have people ready to physically intervene when he attacks someone.

It's unpleasant to be physically assaulted, and I'd like to avoid it in the future.

Response time isn't zero, though. Likely the attacker would be long gone before these people show up.

I agree it's unpleasant being physically assaulted on the street (happened to me 8 years ago and I still think about it often), as is the utter lack of interest from the police in helping in such situations, but I don't think a private security force is going to do much better.

And to your other point, there is already a thing for tracking someone down after the fact if the police aren't helpful: private investigators.

That might work in Somalia but for a private entity to detain a person on the say-so of another private person would obviously violate the civil rights of the 2nd party.

It also violates the civil rights of a private entity if someone beats and attacks him on the street, doesn't it?

Sorry, you think there's a market for a company that 'detains and rehabilitates' people?

File a police report. Move somewhere the local government backs their police and they do their job.

What you want is the ability to pay to get expedited help, to which I say is that the fair option to those who can't afford to pay for protection?

The idea that police help in situations like this betrays a lack of experience living in San Francisco.

Ideally everyone would be protected from random attacks on the street, not just those able to pay.

> Ideally everyone would be protected from random attacks on the street, not just those able to pay.

Exactly. You are advocating for a paid service, some sort of commercial company to do the enforcement. How do you think they'd generate revenue otherwise? Currently San Francisco is setup that way, you pay private security because the cops are useless. That's not like that everywhere. You should fix your police, not bandaid fix the problem for the people who can afford it while leaving the people who can't to suffer.

The article mentions a security escort service that seems like it'd have the chilling effect necessary to quell random people attacking you on the street, rather than relying on a "response".

What if the problem is groups of random people? How much does it cost for an escort with an APC and a dozen guards?

The sad thing about this is that people can’t figure out that $20 / month won’t buy you a 15 minute phone call. You’re paying $20 per month to be a surveillance endpoint so Citizen can sell the real services to the rich.

America is filled with suckers.

How often does your scenario happen?

If often, then there's a market for it.

If not often, then you're intentionally using a red herring to distract from the real discussion.

That was a huge problem in NYC subways around the 80s and the policing strategies for dealing with it were the origins of CompStat. It’s not a red herring because as soon as you make 1 on 1 mugging impractical the criminals will adapt and start using different strategies.

The value in a publicly funded police force is that they don’t have to worry about the economic viability of their countermeasures.