3 Celebrities Who Stopped a Crime Dead in It’s Tracks
You may think the host of Jeopardy, Alex Trebek, is just a wimpy geek. Think again, buddy! More examples inside, including Ryan Gosling!
Ah, heros come in all shapes, sizes, and bagged lunch preferences. Sometimes they even come as box office ticket draws.
You see a scuffle, hear a suppressed scream! Someone is being threatened by a group of men, and if no one takes any action, the victim could be beaten – or perhaps worse. There are a few people around, but no one seems to want to take any action, lest they somehow get involved in the tussle as well and put themselves at risk.
What do you do? Do you take the hero’s way and go running in to save the day, or do you leave well enough alone?
Many celebrities have faced the same question in a split second before taking action – and have come through heroically when it mattered.
Alex Trebek and the Burglar
Yes, we’re talking about that Alex Trebek – the mustached one who’s been keeping Jeopardy engaging and entertaining to watch throughout the years. On face value, the somewhat elderly Trebek might not seem like the kind of celebrity in a position to stop criminals. However, he proved that assumption wrong when he woke up in a San Francisco hotel room and discovered a burglar. Trebek took action by chasing down the thief and making sure that he was reported to the proper authorities – at great personal risk to himself. Kudos, Mr. Trebek, and to congratulate you, we won’t even be using a Jeopardy! pun here.
Nick Ring: Ultimate Fighter Stops a Fight
Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Nick Ring is not a stranger to violent altercations, considering that “violent altercations” is probably on his CV. But when Ring helped break up an altercation in the Canadian city of Calgary, he took action. In fact, he defended the victim – who was at a disadvantage – by chasing away the culprits himself. Preventing more violence from taking place, Ring was able to defend someone without further escalating the violence. Nick Ring earned the moniker “ultimate fighter” with that one.
Ryan Gosling and the Potential Hit and Run
This was not a crime, per se, but it’s such an unlikely story that we give it an honorable mention. Ryan Gosling, Hollywood heart-throb, saved British writer Laurie Penny in April of 2012. A taxi was bound to hit her when the Hollywood superstar came to the rescue. Penny claimed that since she was from England, she had neglected to look the correct way before crossing the street. She later tweeted the story and Gosling got his due. Hitting someone on accident isn’t a crime, of course, but letting a damsel in distress get hit by a taxi would have been. Moral of the story? Look the right, err…correct, way before crossing the street. Taxi car hoods sailing along at 45mph aren’t soft landing spots.
Meg Jones loves to write on security issues for The Local Book which helps you find local services in your town, such as computer repair, Dover locksmiths, restaurants, dry cleaners and more.
