If What I Did That Day At The San Diego Train Station Was A Dumb Thing To Do, Then What Was The Right Thing To Do?

​Available on Amazon:    
     "Equal And Opposite Reactions"      http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
     "Hail Mary"                                           https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
     "Tropical Depression"                        https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

​If What I Did That Day At The San Diego Train Station Was A Dumb Thing To Do, Then What Was The Right Thing To Do?

...Continued from yesterday:
      The incident at the San Diego train station that I shared in the previous post left me with a troubled conscience while I turned over and over in my mind whether I was right or wrong in trying to stop what appeared to be an attempted robbery of a young Black woman dozing on a bench. My actions amounted to an accusation of theft against a young Black man who angrily claimed that he was not intending to rob the woman, but was in fact trying to help her. (See previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/occurrence-at-the-san-diego-train-station-or-i-super-hero-super-ignoramus-or-just-super-dumb).
         I have no way of knowing whether the young man - who was in an obvious state of derangement, whether from mental illness or drugs - was intending to steal the iPad of the sleeping woman - who, it would become clear, was herself in a drug-induced state - or tuck the iPad safely out of sight into the woman's bag for her. In any case, after I confronted the young man  and he cursed me out, he did put the iPad into the unconscious woman's bag.
          Now, in sharing the details of this incident with others, I expected that I would be judged by them as either doing the right thing in trying to stop a vulnerable woman from being robbed, or doing the wrong thing by participating in the perennial injustice against Black men in this country when I,  a white woman of privilege, acted on an assumption of wrong-doing by a possibly innocent young  man.
          But as it turned out, the initial reaction of one hundred percent of the people I've shared this story with has been to judge my actions not as right or wrong, but as just plain dumb.
           The discussion hasn't centered around whether or not the young man - who had a teardrop tattoo below the corner of his eye - might have stolen the woman's iPad, but whether or not he might have done me some serious physical damage when I confronted him. "You're lucky he didn't hurt you." "I'm glad you're safe."  "You need to be careful." I've heard these reproofs and a few more. I've taken them as kind ways of saying, "Boy, were you dumb!"
           And everyone is right. I am lucky. I could have been hurt by this man, who might not have been the deranged Good Samaritan that he presented himself to be. But that's the thing: I have no way of knowing if he was, in fact, a Good Samaritan or an opportunistic thief. One person I told the story to, after they said the "I'm glad you're safe" part did point out that, while I felt bad for accusing the kid of theft, if I'd have watched and done nothing and he did in fact steal the iPad and neither I nor anyone else did anything,  then I probably would have felt even worse.
          This is true.
           Which brings me to my central question: If jumping into action to try and stop this young man from stealing an unconscious woman's iPad was a dumb thing to do (and I'm not disputing that it was a dumb thing to do) then what, on that train platform full of either unaware or unwilling-to-get-involved people, would have been the right thing to do? 
             Any ideas?