Last week, after a dinner at The Promenade mall, I heard a commotion across the parking lot, where I saw a young punk surrounded by a jeering crowd of thugs harassing a young man and his girlfriend. I don't know what started the fracas, but I saw sharp object being swung at the intended victim, accompanied by screeches of "You don't know who you're messing with, bitch!"

But I did. From my practice in dealing with violent clients, he was just one of a million little punks who think they're bad because they've got friends for backup, tattoos on their shaved heads and sharp objects in their pockets.

I have worked with more than 1,500 men in my practice as a domestic violence counselor, and fortunately, these were in the minority. Most of the guys I worked with were good guys who did something in a moment of stupidity, a drunken or drug-induced rage, or simply by staying too long in a bad situation.

I don't win any popularity contests by saying that domestic violence is often bidirectional, but the man is usually the one prosecuted because his blows are usually more lethal. What has been emphasized over and over by the legal system is that domestic violence is a crime, but it really seems biased against men.

For example, Mary Winkler was recently exonerated for the shotgun death of her preacher husband in Tennessee. She never denied shooting him, but the jury let her go after seven months due to diagnoses of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and stories of abuse by her husband.

She said she pointed a shotgun at him to force him to talk through their problems and somehow it went off. In his back. Had it been a guy, my guess is he'd be getting a life sentence.

Likewise, Lorena Bobbit, who severed her husband's penis, was exonerated of charges of malicious wounding on the basis of temporary insanity as the result of post-traumatic stress disorder, caused by domestic abuse, just like Winkler. Bobbit, indeed seems to be an abusive creep, having been arrested for three more counts of domestic violence, but again, if a man were to attack a woman's genitalia, he would do serious time.

The standard answer is that abused women stay with abusive men because they're afraid to leave, which is indeed sometimes true. However, the laws have changed markedly in the last few years, there are shelters (only for abused women) and most women are aware that there is help available. While much of domestic violence is bidirectional, there certainly are monsters out there who control their women by fear and intimidation.

Yet, to commit a murder or other violent crime, not in self-defense but in retribution, is a different deal, and I don't buy the psychological defense. A crime is a crime. And to use PTSD or domestic abuse as a way to avoid paying the penalty is a throwback to when domestic violence wasn't often prosecuted.

My clients used to complain that the justice system had been unfair to them. In many cases, they were right.

The young man at the beginning of this column escaped with nothing injured but his pride. Yet, I should have done what Winkler and Bobbit should have done -- called the police.

Greg Scharf of Temecula is a licensed domestic counselor and a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail: gscharf7@aol.com.