Being calm and always treating people as humans give you a super power of being able to defuse situations and achieve tactical supremacy. Anger meets anger. True in actually scary east coast cities and true in the noble if slightly flawed gem of San Francisco.
But the article here is how this was some conflict between friends, so the city doesn’t really matter. All the fearful people should be reassured by this outcome. Manage your domestic life well for good safety outcomes.
If you've already got a drugged up person with their arms around you, I don't think "kind words" will help you unless you got lucky and met a kind stranger of ecstacy. By pure luck this worked. Most times, when you have a druggy grabbing you from the back, it won't go so nicely IMO.
But the article here is how this was some conflict between friends, so the city doesn’t really matter. All the fearful people should be reassured by this outcome. Manage your domestic life well for good safety outcomes.