Translation of erwischen

A bystander who watched the entire scene all the time decided to help me. He was an older man, around seventy, but nonetheless he went to the oldest of these kids and slapped him. The boy was sixteen.
And others are not, some of us are speaking (too) freely about it, without paying attention to what they really say. Some of us know how to restrain because we know that these feelings are malicious.
The ferry took me to the island. Sitting next to me there was a local guy with two packs of beer, and he seemed pretty drunk for this hour of the day. He offered me some beer and I was polite.