What Would You Do?

Yesterday I witnessed an incident that shook me to my core.

As I was waiting at my daughter’s elementary school to pick her up from kindergarten, a man walked out of the school with a small boy wearing a backpack and a teenage boy.  He did not look happy.  As he walked through the gate I heard him talking to the little boy.  He wasn’t yelling but he was talking loud enough for me to hear.

“Why would you do something so stupid?”
“You are in so much trouble.”
“Now you are going to have to go to Target with me tomorrow.”
“You went and got yourself suspended!”

Suspended?  What could have a kindergarten child do that was so bad to get himself suspended?

Now, let me throw this into the mix… his “father” was covered with tattoos.  I have nothing against tattoos, believe me, but he was completely covered with them.  He was wearing long shorts and a sleeveless tank top (I believe some call them wife-beaters – I’ll let you guess why) and a baseball cap.  Oh, he also had a huge cross hanging from his neck.  (I wonder if he really knew what that cross meant.)  Did I mention the piercing on his face?  Yes, his FACE.

So… after the walk of shame, this poor boy was hanging his head low and crying.  While the father was dressed as a gang-banger, the boy was dressed completely appropriately as a little boy should be.  The teen who was with them didn’t say anything.  Then, the father got on his cell phone as the three of them were just standing there at school and he told the teen to “go get a rock so I can throw it at him.”

Throw it at who?  The boy?  OMG!

Was he serious?  Did the boy throw a rock and get suspended from school?  Is that why he wanted the rock?  To teach him a lesson? 

I was on the edge of my seat.  No way in hell was I going to let anyone throw a ROCK at this boy.  So as I’m looking on in horror, the father walks away on the cell phone.  The teen goes and finds a rock – thankfully it was a tiny little pebble… and proceeds to throw it at the boys head.  The rock literally was tiny and the boy had on a baseball hat. 

What do I do?  I was livid, I wanted to run over there and grab the boy and tell him he didn’t have to go with these mean people.  But really?  What had occurred?  The boy wasn’t hit.  The boy wasn’t really threatened.  I sat there waiting for something bad to happen so I could intervene.

Then, the father came back and told the boy, “You are going to have to go live with your mother.”

Well… that explained a lot.  Obviously the parents weren’t married.  Obviously there was trouble at home.  What on earth DID this boy DO?  This kid needed some help.  He isn’t going to get it.

So at what point do you intervene in a situation like this?  I knew that I couldn’t really say anything since nothing physical or threatening happened, but I sure was watching the scene in case it did.

Maybe I completely overreacted.  Maybe the father would just take the boy home and everything would be fine.  I’ve gotten angry at the kids before and then got over it just as fast.  Maybe it was nothing.  Maybe it was something.

What would you have done?  Anything?