TIL that NBA Player Lou Williams was almost carjacked in 2011, until the thief recognized him and stopped because he was a Lou Williams fan. Lou Williams took him to McDonald's as thanks.
It's funny that you joke about this, but I legit was thinking about this recently. Most of us have heard the stories of parole boards approvals come at the start and right after lunch, and become very unlikely as the parole board members get hungry. It makes me wonder how many high tension situations could be diffused by the person just eating something. Like, I wonder how many crimes are committed when the person is hungry, vs not? Super random thoughts for the day.
In the interview Lou tells it ain't like that.
He says the car jacker recognized him from doing community work and has a mini-breakdown where he says he doesn't have anything and is basically homeless and doesn't even have anything to eat. Lou tells him to meet him at McDonalds and he would buy him anything he wants to eat (just fearing for his own safety and buying time for his body guard to come back)
It's not like Lou was trying to change the world 1 bigmac at a time, he was just trying to distract the dude long enough until the bodyguard could come back.
I grew up super poor. I sometimes get the feeling that when you can relate to a criminal you don’t take the crime too personally. Lots of us have been so close to the edge you wonder if you’ll have to start committing crimes to get by. It isn’t a “mentality” that makes a person more likely to commit crime. I don’t know anything about Williams’ background, but I wonder if Williams felt that way. I doubt he was trying to change the carjackers ways. He probably was literally just buying him a burger
