Can We Please Normalise Snitching On Rapists?

If you’re looking for a pleasant spot to get pickpocketed, I can highly recommend a Wednesday morning on a jam-packed train to Charles-de-Gaulle Airport.

I’d just finished a month of travelling in France, I was down to my last €3 (~$3), and I was so exhausted that when I felt an old man pressing against my leg more urgently than was strictly necessary, I didn't even care.

But after around thirty seconds, I decided that either he needed to buy me a drink before he continued, or he was trying to rob me. And sure enough, when I reached into my pocket, my wallet was gone.

As soon as I grabbed his arm, my would-be robber began an elaborate display of innocence. He showed me both sides of his hands, flashed the contents of his bag, he even gave me a detailed inventory of the inside of his mouth, twisting his tongue from side to side to prove that nothing (not even teeth) was hidden inside.

But when his performance failed to convince me, he produced my wallet—from where I'd rather not guess—and tossed it on the ground: sans cash, but avec credit cards.

Fine.

In fact, the only thing that bothered me about the experience was the woman who’d been sitting right in front of me.

“I saw what he was doing,” she whispered, once the old man had made his escape. Her tone was aggrieved, as if silently watching me getting robbed made her a victim instead of an accomplice. And all I could think about was the fact that she didn't do anything.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting her to wrestle him to the ground or make a citizen's arrest, I didn't need her to pull the emergency brake or start whistling the tune to “You've Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two,” but given that she knew exactly what was happening, considering that she wasn't too shy to speak up, it would have been nice if she'd done so when it might have made a difference.

Unless you're looking for a party where an old man pressing up against your leg is the least of your concerns, I strongly recommend avoiding P Diddy's (aka Sean Combs) house. 

Last month, Combs was arrested on sex trafficking, prostitution and racketeering charges. Prosecutors are filing 120 lawsuits, some of them relating to children as young as nine years old. And if this story sounds familiar, it's because, once again, people have been whispering about his sexually violent behaviour for years. 

Over the past few years, Eminem has dropped clever little hints about Combs being an "R-A-P-E-R" in his lyrics, "Wait, he didn’t just spell the word ‘rapper’ and leave out a P, did he?”

Recently revealed footage of Combs stomping on ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura's head and neck has been floating around in private since 2016 (Cassie also sued him for repeated counts of rape and sexual abuse in 2023.  

And singer/songwriter, Jaguar Wright, has been implying that Combs abused a fourteen-year-old Justin Bieber since at least 2022. That’s right, the same Justin Bieber who broke down in tears in 2020 saying, “I don't want [a young Billie Eilish] to go through anything I went through.”

But as Tony Buzbee, one of the lead prosecutors in Combs’ case, pointed out, none of this amounts to much more than saying “I saw what he was doing,” long after it could have made a difference: