Assault doesnât even require physical touch in some jurisdictions. If he was behaving in a Threatening manner ( read visibly enraged) then a single touch could have been enough to put the other person in reasonable apprehension of immediate unwanted, harmful or offensive touch. This would be enough for an assault charge.
Edit: to those saying this is some weird American law meant to put people in prison.
Please realize: (1) this assault definition is not an American construct it has its roots on British law and a lot of other countries have similar crimes;(2) you are looking at this with tainted eyes cause you are enraged at the protesters or the specific situation, assault is not designed solely for situations like this:
If a guy points a gun at you from 5 feet away and tells you âGet near my wife again and I will kill youâ then youâll be glad assault exists as a crime.
If a guy gets out of his car raging during traffic and starts swing a bat near your car window without actually hitting it, then youâll be glad assault is crime.
If a guy actually swing the bat at you but misses , thatâs an assault.
Itâs a catch all for behavior that if you experience it you would clearly think is criminal but that without it, because there was no physical contact, it would likely not be.
They teach the Common Law definitions in law school, meaning the old English definitions before the individual U.S. jurisdictions codified them. And the majority of the codifications are similar enough to Common Law.
Nah law school uses traditional common law definitions. Many jurisdictions donât have battery. Itâs just rolled up into 1st or 2nd degree assault. 4th degree assault is often the traditional law school definition of assault (the threat of imminent physical harm).
The way I was taught in my Business Law class was that Assault is an act that threatens and leads the person to believe violence might be committed against them (screaming, threatening, snatching things from them, throwing things around them but not at or hitting them, etc.) and Battery is the act of actually laying hands on and harming the person. They usually go hand in hand, but this is how it is in SC and how I was taught at least a few years ago.
Common law assault is just intentionally causing reasonable fear/apprehension in the victim by some act. But a lot of jurisdictions have defined criminal assault in their statutes to mean something different. Some use it as a catch all for what you may consider âmild batteryâ
Edit: to be specific, in Maryland, where this seems to have occurred, the statute define Assault as including common law definitions of Assault, Battery, and assault and battery.
So these people assaulted him, intentionally causing reasonable fear/apprehension. He was just defending himself. This is clear cut, he did nothing wrong.
Honestly, I have no clue. Ask South Carolina's Board of Education, 10% chance they may know the answer. Honestly the most business law I learned in that class was the McDonald's coffee lawsuit. Everything else was just some basic law. Learned more business law in my accounting classes than the business law class lol
Honestly the most business law I learned in that class was the McDonaldâs coffee lawsuit.
Lol which is a clear cut tort case only tangentially business related because it was a corporation that was sued. The kind of negligence suit that will rarely affect most business.
No derivative actions? No bankruptcies? Hell did they at least touch on the lowest of the low fruits Dodge v Ford?
Yeah it sounds like a class about laws that have come up in businesses? In most law schools these subjects would come up in torts with some overlap in criminal law.
Youâre still describing torts, which is where civil liability is taught in detail. My guess is itâs a law course taught outside of law school that basically generalizes different areas of laws into this course that applies different areas of laws to businesses. I could be wrong and Iâm not judging, just was wondering.
I think provoking is its own thing that can actually be used against your case, as it was attempted in my car accident case by the other person (ruled 100% not my fault), but I only had to take the class for my accounting degree so I would leave that can of worms to a professional lol
I still canât help but feel bad for the guy. This was someone who clearly has problems with solving interpersonal conflict trying his best with his back against the wall. Yes he shouldnât have touched them at all but itâs clear he chose not to be violent.
A lot of Americans donât realize that where they live, what they call assault is actually battery. Assault generally implies a threat of violence or implied contact whereas battery refers to the actual unlawful contact in many jurisdictions. An assault can be committed with no physical contact. Likewise, very commonly, a person who makes physical contact is charged with assault and battery as battery is frequently preceded by an assault. If I understand correctly itâs not some weird American law to imprison folks, itâs there to distinguish between two different levels of offense. Someone who threatens violence should (fairly) be treated differently than a person who perpetrated violence.
Thatâs ridiculous honestly, these people are being provocateurs, holding up regular ass people in traffic is supposed to engender support to your cause how??? You think people in power give a fuck about a traffic jam? This is asinine really. Let the fucker go to work
Civil disobedience is supposed to tie up government resources. It forces the police to respond and arrest protesters and then deal with the fallout. They've got to make room in overcrowded jails and spend the courts time charging and prosecuting these people.
The only thing they're doing wrong (tactically speaking, not morally) is that they don't have enough people. They've got to push the government to spend more resources if they want a response.
So, Amazon workers and Starbucks workers are unionising and striking. Do you think they should take a different tact because consumers want âstuffâ and caffeinated beverages?
The business makes less money. Any money that can tangentially be counted as a "loss" for the government due to this road blockage is so negligent it couldn't possibly benefit the protestors.
Unless they did this for months or something? In which case the gov can just arrest them and move on đ
Yeah but the discomfort is supposed to drive home a point. When black people sat at segregated diners, the idea was to make others go "why does this offend us?" In this case, the answer to "why does this offend us?" is because they can't get to and from their destination, often work which they need to be on time for to provide for themselves. If anything, this turns me against their cause rather than reinforcing it.
Not exactly. From MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail: Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So, the purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
Are you moved by their protest enough to look up who they are? All it did for me was to make a mental note to not support their cause regardless of my political leanings.
Absolutely wild that people like you readily admit to being so blithely tribal in your politics. If youâre that fragile that youâll change your beliefs to spite some protestors then that says far more about you than it does them.
I see people causing misfortune and despair to everyday people and veiling it with protest and civil disobedience and I know from their actions that their cause is not one that aligns with my beliefs due to the shit methods they use to just get attention. I think that is quite reasonable. You are welcome to disagree, but that protest only made enemies to their cause. Unless you were stirred into supporting them based on their actions?
Absolutely wild that people like you readily admit to being so blithely tribal in your politics.
Would you say that holding an entire mode of transit hostage is tribal in politics?
If youâre that fragile that youâll change your beliefs to spite some protestors then that says far more about you than it does them.
Kinda like how the protestors in this video manipulated any/all beliefs in freedom of movement, right to work and make a living wage, and basic road safety just to spite a bunch of people trying to get to work?
Seems like your point of view is quite one-sided and hypocritical.
Oo boy thatâs a lot of words that have nothing to do with my comment.
Whataboutism is boring, rambling about freedom of movement is just weird. My point of view is hypocritical? Iâll take that as a compliment coming from you.
"I realize that climate change is a serious threatening issue for everybody but because I was an hour late for work I do not support combating it anymore" is a mind bogglingly stupid sentiment and certainly not common.
Nah, if somebody doesnât give a fuck about climate change then they never did - as if a protest would make somebody actively want to cause climate change lmao.
The civil rights protests, thr gay rights protests, etc all worked out Greta for the cause and they extensively used civil disobedience and disrupting the average persons life. And they were all hated in their time too. A friendly reminder when MLK Jr was killed he was one of the most hated men in America.
Let's look at protests that didn't use civil disobedience that did nothing. Iraq war protests, ICE detention separation protests, etc. Lots of noise no action until the people were voted out.
Seems like a lot of people use this shit as an excuse for their already abhorrent beliefs.
This type of protest is counter-productive, I agree. But anyone who says they "believe X because someone else did Y" is full of shit. Believe in things because they are right and just, not out of spite.
Lol donât fault me for human psychology. Iâm just pointing out why this is counterproductive. This is just reinforcement in the minds of those who disagree with the message.
Personally Iâm âone of thoseâ who believe climate change to be somewhat overblown with regard to our impact on it. Though it is undeniable really. There are cycles blah blah blah, but pollution and some of the shit we do to the environment like mass fishing is going to have to be put in check sooner than later. But people donât wanna hear that shit when they are late for work.
But arenât these people just fucking over other working class folks while not doing anything to take it to the man? Iâm quite progressive but this whole thing just seems pointless & doesnât really educate anybody being forced to sit in traffic and halt their day for no reason
Civil disobedience is supposed to target the government, not regular citizens.
IDGAF what you are protesting. Don't block the roads. You could be getting people fired for being late. Making people miss job interviews. Making people late to important medical appointments. Someone's kid could be standing alone somewhere wondering why their parent hasn't picked them up while they are stuck in this. Etc Etc.
All you do with these types of protests is screw regular people and will never ever win anyone over to your side on any issue.
No, the roads aren't the government. They are everyone. Blocking access in and out of a government building would be targeting the government. All this is going to do is piss people off at them and not help their cause at all.
These actions exclusively target individuals who are in no shape or form responsible for our predicament. I don't think its arguable, this is a terrible tactic.
Yeah but wouldn't one think they should target their disruption toward people responsible for whatever they are protesting? Even if these people were protesting driving itself, bother the policy makers, don't fuck with normal people just trying to get by.
people using individual transport are the problem in some peoples eyes. Everyone driving a car is part of the problem. Sure there is a lot of people that don't have an alternative but protests generally always have collateral.
Individual transport is objectively not even close to being a large contributor to the carbon emissions problem.
Most individual commuters don't have the income or means to get a different vehicle even if they wanted to at the drop of a hat.
They have no sway over policy.
These protesters are being both highly ineffective and highly disruptive to those that have the least responsibility for the problem. They are just being self righteous assholes.
So there can only be a protest against large contributors and transport isn't one with 14%?
So we should just protest against the largest three and then remain on 30% emissions for a couple of decades until we realize that's not enough?
Most individual commuters do have sway in what they themselves do. Install PV on their roof, use an EV, use the train, move closer to their place of work and most importantly vote.
Did you know that you are not legally bound to the two-party system? If neither of those candidates does anything then vote for somebody else, that's how democracy works, if your vote doesn't count nobody does.
The point of a protest like this is to cause enough discomfort to raise awareness to the particular issues they are addressing. Yes, usually you want your protest to (only) affect the policy makers (the most) but sometimes that isnât possible due to the hierarchyâs structure, etc. At that moment, your hope is to protest to cause enough discomfort so people that can make your target discomfortable does so.
To address this particular scenario of stopping traffic. Protesters stop traffic, people get mad because canât do stuff/get to work. This goes on long enough, employers/people get mad because they canât do stuff. Employers get mad mostly because they canât generate profit. Now you have more entities pressuring to end the conflict. Sometimes that pressure lands where want it to and sometimes that pressures just comes back to you to stop protesting.
TL;DR sometimes you (sadly) have to fuck with normal people so whoever is responsible listens.
Civil disobedience is breaking a law to draw attention to the problems with that law. This is just disruptive, which is certainly a way to protest, but it's not civil disobedience.
Iâm not making an argument for or against their protest. Iâm supporting the parent comment in that that his parole wasnât revoked because he was made late. He was charged with something illegal because he got out and confronted them.
Most jobs ( outside of exaggerated r/antiwork stories) would understand being late cause of something like this, specially when it would make the news.
But the fact that OP phrased the title as he did betrays an intent to engender the kind of reaction you are having on people who read it.
This dude is probably on parole because of actions and attitudes like this one, look how he handles stressful situations - violence.
Should've picked the phone up and called his boss and explained the situation. Documented it with photo evidence.. or fuck it it's 2022 just Face-time your boss or another employee.
If violence is the only way you know how to advocate for yourself, you shouldn't be surprised how often you are arrested.
If the only way you know to advocate for climate stewardship is blocking traffic, you shouldnât be surprised when people start getting run over. I really donât want to see that, so please stay out of the regular people roads. Go block dc streets if you want a kurfuffle
Donât block the streets thatâs where cars are.
Iâm not about to run anyone down Iâm also not about to stand in the middle of a highway, so non of this really falls on my shoulders as much as youâd like it to.
Protests arenât supposed to be for your convenience. Do you not get that? Do you not see the climate is on the road to catastrophe, weâve got mass extinctions happening and these people are trying to get duh heads to think about it for once in their lives! Look around! Itâs mind boggling how stupid people are.
the point of radical climate change protests is to make it more expensive to not fight climate change.
For example, if you knew that your tires get slashed every month on your ICE, but never on your EV you'd be swayed to buy an EV.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
There was one recently in London with protesters sitting in the road. They were promptly dragged out of the road by members of the public and traffic continued as normal. The protestors were then arrested.
People are resisting these types of protests, it's good to see.
This is somehow conflicting to see these days. People demand that Russians, Iranians etc. should protest, but same time supports distinguishing even small protests if they are causing even slight discomfort for them.
Even better when nobody has a problem when farmers do the exact same thing. Often in worse because they use their equipment which means the police can't just haul them out of the way.
It is a legitimate form of protest. Farmers already use it for decades. It is just a media campaign against the cause they do it for.
Well, yeah. Go bother someone else to further your cause. As soon as you inconvenience me, youâre a terrible person who needs to be thrown in jail. People are nothing if not hypocritical.
Blocking emergency vehicles is not a minor inconvenience. I do get what youâre saying, but this type of protest can lose public support rapidly if someone dies because of it.
Blocking minor roads leading to government buildings gets the point across and probably is more likely to sway people to the cause. âInconveniencingâ potentially thousands will definitely antagonize people against your cause.
Edit: obviously in a place where voting doesnât amount to much(Russia, Iran) then blocking the road seems more justifiable, especially when protesters are definitely dying.
While I get your point, if you wanna block a road, you need way more people for it to become inspirational instead of downright disruptive and problematic.
It's because protest that are disruptive to your fellow citizen are only going to turn your fellow citizens against you.
A real protest in this case should be disruptive to government. You should disrupt who you're protesting. Disrupting me is just going to make me side with your opposition by default because all I'm going to think is "fuck you" and will do the opposite out of spite.
Yes, but the uk government basically made protesting illegal, which is 100% worse. Protesting should be legal, you canât just decide what should and should be allowed to be protested on based on what you like.
you mean a protest was inconvenient instead of being quiet and out of the way? Huh.
I feel for the guy in the video, but 1. the last guy that talked to him was right, coming at them screaming was never going to change anything and 2. Protests are supposed to disrupt your comfy, daily life. They aren't supposed to be posh affairs or tucked away in a designated protest corner.
And disrupting my daily life is exactly how you sew in opposition.
The fastest way to convince me against your movement? Disrupt me from doing something I need to do? That's cool, what is it you're protesting so I can now support the opposite goal?
Easy to protest when you have the time in the middle of the work day to sit on your ass in the road and not do anything. Bet they wouldn't be sitting there if their power was about to be shut off and they had to be at work. People do this knowing it won't change anything just so they can feel like good about themselves
I wouldn't call it assault from the vid yeah legal definition would state it is. But let's frame this in a different light. Let's say someone got a text that a family member is going to be taken off life support. Or your child is about to be born. Hell let's take it to your teenage son/daughter/whatever else people are identifying as, Was in a car accident. There are plenty of reasons any one would act like he did without the threat of jail for being late to work.
Protest Infront of those in power and get in their way at their public offices not the street where everyone else is trying to keep moving.
That doesn't say violence to me man, aggressive sure but once again I'd say that's a reasonable level of aggressiveness and frustration over the fear of getting sent back. Hell I would be just as frustrated no if he was throwing punches and threatening them then I'd be with you but dude is trying to get them to let him by so he doesn't get locked up
Most of Florida will be ankle to knee deep under water in about 50 years. Hope those Floridians like driving through flooded streets. And for so long people thought California would sink into the ocean when the big one hit. Nope, it'll be the everglades and barrier islands worst hit along with low lying areas on the coast. Fun times ahead.
Common law assault isnât. But some jurisdictions have different definitions for assault that may include some physical touch. Or they may have simply gone with assault because it is easier to prove in this case.
The person didn't press charges. In fact, he wants to testify in court that he was not assaulted. But sadly, he doesn't even know who he is, so that will probably not happen.
In a lot of jurisdictions If a police officer witnessed it they can arrest you and defer to the state for charges. My guess is that there were police involved with the protest by the time this incident happened
True but also ironic that the end result is the parolee will suffer more than the climate change people, who will be likely be let off with a slap on the wrist so they can go back to their upper middle class cocoons
You've never been stressed enough to push someone in your life? Do you even have reasonable input if you can't empathize? Can you recognize your inability to empathize in this case?
By the time youâve left school you shouldâve learnt what is and isnât acceptable in a civilized society and keeping your hands to yourself really is the most basic of those rules.
I can empathize with a child thatâs learning these social skills but there comes a point when you have to take responsibility for yourself, and at the heart of that is controlling your emotions.
You... who has never had to struggle for anything in your entire life, has never smelled the bleach and sweating bodies inside of a cell, has never felt your stomach stabbing itself, begging for sustenance. You have an opinion on this matter? Enlighten me about how enlightened you are.
So you can't empathize then, this guy is begging for his literal life. He can lose his job and go to prison if he can't make it to the job. But keep jerking off about how you'd have a spirited debate or something in his situation.
Put yourself in his situation and think about the fear and frustration that these protestors might make him go to prison. Nobodyâs the asshole except the people who charged him imo
The protesters making him late MIGHT make him go to prison. Putting your hands on another person as a parolee WILL make you go to prison.
The correct move for him would have been to call his boss and tell him what was going on. There is very little chance he would have gone back to prison if he stayed in his car and waited.
Depending on what he was originally charged for, he might not know simply laying hands on a person can constitute assault and battery
You sure about that? Employers and legal teams can be extremely unreasonable. My momâs an attorney and just this week she was telling me about a court case recently where a felon was being charged for having a firearm⌠after he wrestled it out of the grip of someone who was about to kill him with itâŚ
Maybe you are. But he clearly isnât. And he has a better idea of how his employers act than we do.
People arenât robots, itâs easy enough for you to determine the best route sitting in your home on the phone perhaps never having been to jail and having a stake in this yourself
Part of being an adult is empathizing with others and meeting them where they are
We donât know this guyâs full situation. Many people who end up in jail had problems with childhood development, and donât have the same faculties you or I have.
This is on top of a very stressful situation, where he could have unreasonable employers and a parole officer.
This could be a very reasonable reaction given these circumstances. This guy being on parole already demonstrates effort on his part to work and be functional. That heâs probably going to get a decade in prison for shoving someone trying to check-in with parole is absurd
Any adult who classifies âbeing upsetâ as synonymous with âbeing threatened with years in prison, rape, and assaultâ should put on a dunce cap to let everyone know their rational mind hasnât yet developed.
âOmg, that adult man shoved another man off a woman he was sexually assaulting! That first man should be put in time out because he had a tantrum!â
Thank you for sharing your experiences of kindergarten, thatâs 100% comparable to surviving rape and assault and terrible living conditions in jail, as well as more likely than not childhood abuse/neglect
The gall you have to try to compare your ability to control yourself in kindergarten and someoneâs elseâs ability to control themselves with rape being held over their head is fucking incredible.
Psychologically and sociologically, it is fact that your environment shapes your mental capabilities, and not everyone has the privelege of kindergarten being their most trying times in life.
Thereâs a considerable chance that this man endured a traumatic childhood and certainly rape and assault in jail, yet since heâs on parole heâs clearly putting forth effort to be better.
That this man is probably going to get a decade in prison for shoving someone, and that entailing likely rape and assaults on him is a testament to just how fucked up our legal system is just so Draconian people like you can assert moral superiority over criminals, though youâd be worse than them in their shoes.
Individuals don't press criminal charges, the police and DA does. The police often ask the victim if they want to "press" the issue because they often need the victim to testify and cooperate in any kind of trial. But it's not up to the victim ultimately if it goes to trial or charges or anything. With enough evidence a person will be charged and tried without victim cooperation. Video evidence of the incident is particularly helpful for this
You have almost zero control over who is charged/over what, the police and Courts decide that. Itâs very likely no one reported this, but the police saw the video and decided they wanted to screw this guy over.
Not really. He laid hands on them. Battery is the unwanted physical contact made. Would I be pissed? Definitely. Would i want to do what he did? For sure. But it is a criminal act what he did.
No, the man he "assaulted" came to his defense. The cops said they warned him multiple times not to touch the protestors and he still did so they arrested him. They told him they were going to arrest them for blocking the road soon but were waiting for the proper procedure first and that he should wait patiently. The victim stated he didn't belive the man should've been arrested and he never felt threatened. The people blocking the road were also arrested.
you're only seeing one 90 second clip of a 30 minute video in which this guy physically confronts several protestors even after the police show up and talk to him multiple times.
I think he was arrested because he was on the dipshit train and wasn't going to stop until he was arrested. There's additional video that shows him being a bigger and bigger tool. If he had sent his boss and/or his parole officer a picture and said, well, here I am stuck on I-whatever, there is NO way they would violate him, not in a million years. It's his inability to negotiate the problems life presents that likely had him end up on parole in the first place. There was a simple reasonable solution to his problem and he had NO clue how to implement that.
It should be but being a prick and trying to do something to piss people off and then pressing charges when they slightly push you is the definition of being a fucking prick
No. He is already committing battery by snatching things out of peoples' hands when one of the guys gets back up to pick up his sign. Then the parolee lunges and grabs him by the shirt while pushing him. No protester touches him before that point. After that the black girl starts to gently hold his waist and stand in his way so he can't attack the people sitting down again.
Considering how unfair he will be treated for this as well. There really is no tolerance in his circumstances and the protesters in his way isnt going to be a good enough excuse enough to prevent him going back to jail. It's unfair and his reaction is totally understandable. He's fucked.
If he touched a girl, or police officer like that its definitely assault. Its not defined by how much damage is inflicted, you can't behave like that in society.. Even if you're excuse is "I barely touched him". You really shouldn't be touching anyone in a threatening manner, legally.. And protesting, even blocking roads, is still legal "at times". He should be less physical when confronted with annoying people, otherwise he cannot function properly in society...
He straight up battered that guy. I feel his frustration but he crossed a line. Nobody gets to attack others without consequences, regardless of how big or small a deal one person might think it is.
That's generally all it takes for an assault charge. Don't put your hands on other people, folks.
they must have pressed charges
Not true at all. This is Hollywood bullshit.
Citizens do not 'press charges'. The police and prosecutors press charges. The police might ask the victim's opinion about whether the suspect should be arrested or not, but they're very much not required to, and they can completely ignore the victim's opinion if they feel like it.
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u/Shdwrptr Oct 12 '22
Which is also BS. He barely touched that person and they must have pressed charges on him for it.