Getting harassed by kids
I live in Noord and had a really bizarre experience this week. My girlfriend and I (both adults) were out for a run when, completely out of nowhere, two kids, maybe around 10 years old, started harassing us.
It started with them riding on a fat bike right behind us, making weird noises, shouting at us, and generally trying to get a reaction. I told my girlfriend to just ignore them and keep running because I figured that's what they wanted.
They kept it up for more than 5 minutes. They only backed off briefly when someone else noticed what was happening. Then I looked over my shoulder to see if they were finally gone, and I heard one of them shout, "He looked backwards, go brake check them!" They immediately rode in front of us and started cutting us off.
Just to be clear, we hadn't said a single word to them at this point.
Since it didn't seem like they were going to stop, the only thing I said was, "Please be nice." That somehow triggered a whole rant about how we weren't responding because they were Moroccans, followed by something about Geert Wilders. After almost 10 minutes of this, they finally rode off.
I'm honestly wondering what you're even supposed to do in a situation like this. If you react, that's exactly what they're looking for. I'm obviously not going to get physical with kids, and yelling back doesn't seem like it would help either. If anything, I worry they'd just call more friends, and then we'd have to deal with that every time we go running in the neighborhood.
Did we handle this the right way by ignoring them? Or is there something else you would do if this happens again?