How do you handle being shouted at aggressively by a stranger in the street?

Posted by CreepyButterfly3@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 58 comments

Myself and partner were walking our dog today.

From behind us, we heard someone shouting. We turned round and it was a man, roughly in his 20’s.

He was on his own and either under the influence of alcohol/ drugs or unwell.

He was shouting lots of absolute nonsense, at this point focusing on, in his own words, “people who don’t belong in this country”.

None of this was at first directed at us.

We slowed down and stopped to let him past as he was quite intimidating.

When he passed, he walked about 10 meters ahead and then sat on a wall whilst still shouting. We walked past and he got up to follow us.

His shouting then became directed at us and he continued to follow us. At this point I stopped, turned round and raised my voice loudly to almost shouting level and stated “Stop following us”

This seemed to shock him at first and he moved back but as we set off he once again followed us and became very threatening.

I again had to stop and shout at him “Go away” and “move back” a couple of times.

Eventually he walked away and made a pretend phone call (he had no phone) to someone asking them to come and sort us out.

Neither of us had a phone, passers by didn’t want to intervene (I don’t blame them) and looked terrified.

He eventually veered off and continued shouting at anything and anyone in his path, kicking bins and knocking objects in his way over.

How do other people handle situations like this?