This is a headline you don’t see enough and should see more.
Here’s a BBC video from Madrid that is pretty great.
Sure, everybody can wave all they want. But it takes a cop, an off-duty cop in this case, to jump on the tracks and actually do the right thing.
[p.s. Why do trains in Madrid drive on the left?]
The trains drive on the left because that helps keep the cameras working, unlike the Mineo or deMenezes or Grant cases where the trains drove on the right.
It was heroic and cool to watch. Not sure that it was the right thing to do (if it was an onduty policeman, I don't think anybody would say there was a duty to do what the offduty did, for example), but glad it worked out.
No. There was no duty to do that.
But that's why I point it out. It's typical of most police officers to go above and beyond the call of duty to do the right thing.
Also typical of police (but by no means university) is that when the pressure was on, he didn't freeze. There was no time to think, "what am I going to do?" He had to act and act quickly. And he ran toward danger, putting his own life at risk.
This reminds of of something I read (I believe in one of Connie Fletcher's books) and is evident in most videos of 9/11. How can you identify the cops and firemen in a crowd? They're the ones running toward what everyone else is running away from.
From the video, it looks like just about everybody on the platform, at least in the foreground, was a woman. That might say something about why no one else jumped onto the tracks.
As for the notion that cops and firemen are the ones running toward danger, they are also the ones yelling at everyone else to get out of the way, to make room; often threatening arrest if you don't.