Could it have happened as outlined in the article? Possibly, but it seems unlikely.
A scenario I imagine is a lot more likely is as follows;
A bunch of people gather, get themselves worked up into a lather about how messed up the world is and how we just need to practice more 'acts of random kindness' and 'love each other more' and 'group hug' more often.
Course those random acts of kindness are always so messy in real life. That homeless guy you give the meal to, pesters you for weeks afterward for a meal every day. That undocumented worker you hire to help with the lawn work pisses on your roses and drinks beer on the job. Sometimes the bumper stickers just aren't enough and small acts aren't enough.
But what if you made up one of those 'oddly enough' type stories that get so much play in the media? What if the 'oddly enough' scenario you spin is a perfect encapsulation of the kind of random act of kindness that everyone should be engaging in ten times a day?
Once the party comes to that decision, then the details require some hammering out. First, it should involve guns and poverty, cause guns are evil, and poverty, like, really, really sucks. Second, make sure the story has enough odd details that nobody would suspect you of making the whole thing up. A robber who when offered a fine wine decides to partake in said wine, and then comes to appreciate the wine seems so unlikely as to be beyond making up. Third, group hug, everyone loves a story that ends in a group hug, if more people practiced group hugs, there would be no war, no genocide, no Republicans, and no Global Warming.
There is some risk, filing a false police report is filing a false police report, and the 911 call you make will most likely be publicly available, so when you make the call, better make the performance convincing. Also everyone would need to get their description of the suspect fairly consistent, but also nebulous enough so that some poor schmo who actually was in the neighborhood, doesn't get wrongly accused.
The detail about the crystal glass being found unbroken in the alley, without any recoverable prints is what suggests to me that this is all crap. But really, if you can give the guy with a gun a 'group hug' you can disarm the criminal.
Also I find it unimaginable that after a gun is pointed at your 14 year old daughter that you don't rip the perp apart with your bare hands, rip off his balls, and stuff them in his mouth. Call me old fashioned, but I think my response (and just about everyone I know) would be more along those lines than, 'here take this bottle of Chateau Malescot St-Exupery"
Also if you're wondering what the man who would 'group hug' the perp who brandished a firearm at his 14 year old's head looks like, Ricky Carioti of WaPo was kindly enough to shoot him (lovely manbag he has, there).
Questions I have, the event happened June 16th, why all the publicity 4 weeks later? Why no description of the perp given in the story? Presumably you have an unstable individual desperate enough to threaten young girls within a party of folks with a gun, that person should be sought after, they may do something worse than drink wine next time, where's the description? Why the hell are you conducting multiple interviews (WaPo, Guardian, Today Show?!), and why the hell are you letting your daughter do interviews as well under her own (unusual, and very hippie-ish) name? Do you know how easy it was for me to find her on Myspace (at least it's private)?
Watching the Today Show interview linked above, and I get a serious dose of hippie bullshit.
Sorry, call me a cynic (I don't think Campbell Brown believed them either, she laughs at them throughout the whole interview).
