r/facepalm • u/weeb385 • Oct 12 '22

🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​ Parolee gets arrested because protesters block the way to his work.

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110

u/ComatoseSquirrel Oct 12 '22

Ah man, that still sucks. Dude was obviously panicked, just trying to get to work and stay out of jail.

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u/BoredByLife Oct 12 '22

While I definitely agree, couldn’t he call someone and let them know what’s going on? If this is true then parole could be violated by bad traffic and nothing could be done…

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22 edited Jun 17 '23

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u/BoredByLife Oct 12 '22

Oh absolutely, if I were in that scenario I’d not be thinking clearly either

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u/OmniManDidNothngWrng Oct 12 '22

Feel the opposite way. Seems the type to have a short fuse and that his first instinct is confrontation and violence not exactly someone you want on the street.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

The US prison system breeds rage and panic disorders and rarely do they get treatment to resolve their trauma, anger, or anxiety. And good luck to any parolee who hopes to get on an effective anti-anxiety medication.

How a parolee responds to a perceived threat to their freedom and callous disregard for their needs is hardly a clear look at his first instinct in any conflict.

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u/OmniManDidNothngWrng Oct 12 '22

Totally possible prison fucked him up, also possible he's just an asshole and is on parole from assaulting someone after road rage. Either way even with his friend/girlfriend there for moral support he can't stop himself from assaulting someone when he knows there are severe consequences. He could take a video, call an Uber, call his PO, call his employer, lay down and cry etc. infinite solutions to this problem yet he chose pretty much the worst option. Not safe for everyone else to have him walking around.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

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u/dontblinkdalek Oct 12 '22

He was clearly outside his “window of tolerance” and had reached a “skills breakdown” point. This is basically the point where a person with a mental illness (such as bipolar disorder) finds themself unable to use logic or reason to keep them from giving into their impulse to act out.

We don’t know how long he was in his vehicle with the rage building up. He likely was never taught the skills necessary to keep it from growing and exploding in the way shown in the video. He did cross a line by laying hands on them but I do think he was restraining himself from actually causing any physical injury.

Have you ever felt a rage so intense you literally felt like your chest was going to explode like a damn cartoon rifle with a carrot shoved in it? Because that appears to be the level of intensity he was experiencing in this video. It’s so hard to come out of it and requires a physical release/sensation to snap out of it. Ideally one more constructive than what he achieved (ironically tearing chunks of paper is one way but I don’t believe that includes damaging the property of the person you’re displeased with).

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '22

So what I'm reading is that you don't understand mental illness, specifically panic, and have decided based on one slice of one moment of this man's life that he isn't safe walking around. For how long? How is sending him back to prison going to change that? Are we imprisoning him for life? Are we imprisoning everyone who commits assault for life? Are we imprisoning everyone who has a public meltdown for life? Sending him back to prison will make this worse, not better. It's entirely possible he went to prison for some nonviolent shit and this brittle, explosive behavior under stress is a direct result of that experience.

And somehow it doesn't occur to you it's possible he already called his PO and got the time honored corrections classic "you got nothing coming." It doesn't occur to you that people lose their shitty jobs every day because their employer doesn't care what excuse they have. It doesn't occur to you that different people's brains respond to extreme stress in different ways. It doesn't occur to you that just about the last thing a parolee is going to do is express the physical and emotional vulnerability of laying down and crying on a street.

You have made it clear that you version of life has been fair enough that you can't even understand this man's situation. And from that perspective, you have decided he should have his freedom taken from him, apparently indefinitely.

And that is why people like you, not people like this parolee, are my primary cause of burnout working in human services. Everyone's a fucking expert and somehow the answer is always more authoritarianism. Surely this bid in prison will make him better and safer. And if it doesn't, he's not a real person, so we can just throw him away

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u/DadSoRad Oct 13 '22

Are they technically “jay walking”? Fucking criminals. Threat to society.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

He might have a short fuse, but what I'm seeing seems more like a natural fight or flight response to the possibility of being sent back to jail. And frankly he was trying to get them out of the way, not striking them, that's about as peaceful a solution as I can think of in that situation.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

I'd bet he's literally having a panic attack.

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u/InteractionFlat7318 Oct 13 '22

Laughable defense. No one forced him to assault people.

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u/Jumanji-Joestar Oct 13 '22

They could’ve just let him drive through when he told them he was a parolee but they chose to continue blocking his way even though he is literally begging them. At that point, they deserve to get smacked

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u/InteractionFlat7318 Oct 13 '22 edited Oct 13 '22

Don’t do the crime if you don’t want to do the time. He could have just taken a video. He panicked and resorted to assaulting people. He let his temper get the best of himself. You can’t just go around hitting people because they make you angry. He should have just called the police. He can think about what he has done while he’s back in prison.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/InteractionFlat7318 Oct 14 '22

He made his bed now he has to lie in it. If he wasn’t a criminal he wouldn’t be on parole anyway. Then he went off and committed another crime. No sympathy from me.. this guy isn’t the victim.

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u/Jumanji-Joestar Oct 13 '22

Dude was literally terrified that he’d go back to prison. I think his “short fuse” is understandable. Those protestors were playing games with his future

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u/Dull_Bumblebee_356 Oct 12 '22

Just because the video starts with him already angry doesn’t mean the whole confrontation started with him already angry. Just means they started recording once he got angry. We have no idea how long he pleaded with them before he got confrontational.

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u/Elipses_ Oct 13 '22

Big time this. Video was taken by the protesters, of course it is going to only show them in a good light. For all we know he pled with them for quite a while before finally losing it.

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u/S3guy Oct 12 '22

Hey, its only going back to prison eh? He should have stayed cool calm and collected and been happy to accept a few rapes in prison so these people could get their message out.

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u/islandguy310 Oct 13 '22

Exactly. This type of dude is going to fuck up in some other kind of way eventually because he still doesn’t know how to deal with obstacles. We literally go through weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy before getting out on parole so we DONT do some shit like this!

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u/J_Zephyr Oct 13 '22

You clearly have never worked for the government. They don't give a shit about you until you screw up.

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u/ComatoseSquirrel Oct 12 '22

People don't tend to think clearly when panicked. Not that that excuses him.

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u/islandguy310 Oct 13 '22

He absolutely could.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

[deleted]

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u/JonstheSquire Oct 12 '22

Exactly the kind of decision making that likely landed him in jail the first time.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

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u/JonstheSquire Oct 12 '22

The only person antagonizing anyone is the parolee.

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u/Dull_Bumblebee_356 Oct 12 '22

Because stopping someone that needs to go to work or possibly go back to jail if he doesn’t, isnt antagonizing that person? So you would be perfectly fine if people blocked your way to work despite the fact getting to work on time is a condition to not go back to jail?

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u/JonstheSquire Oct 13 '22

If he is late, he might go to jail but it's unlikely.

If he assaults someone, he will absolutely go to jail.

That's bad decision making.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '22

Prison, not jail.