The Glade 4.0

I was hanging out at the downtown Cinci bus stop yesterday waiting for my bus (its easier to get across town than trying to find a parking place where I'm going to) when I was approached by a man with a knife.

The man was flicking the knife open and closed but offered to 'sell' me his knife for 2$. (bus fare) claiming he 'just needed to get home' -- still flicking the lock blade open and closed. The guy was short, thin, and didn't move like someone expecting a fight

I imagine his desired response was that I would either see the knife as a threat and hurriedly pull out my wallet and either a) take what I had b) take what was given. Now, I'll credit 7 years of martial arts with me being fairly unimpressed with the little knife he had in hand, and his inexperienced handling of it and allowing me to keep cool. I CONSIDERED disarming him and dropping him, but wasn't sure how that would work given the fact that he didn't threaten me verbally and the first rule I was taught about fighting someone with a knife is "Assume you're going to be cut. Accept it, make sure they only get one, and they don't hit anything important."

I also didn't think he had any plans to actually stab me since there were lots of witnesses around.

I just informed him I had no cash and after a moment of hesitation he moved on.

I am feeling guilty for not taking him on, because I worry about the next person down the line who might be approached in a less public place and who might not keep as cool a head.

Interesting encounter. I like the first rule, too.

I don't think you need to take on any guilt, though. Ultimately, you're not the one waving a knife around. Maybe he'll run into a CC guy next time, who knows?

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

With the increasing popularity of MMA it's becoming much harder to identify people with the skills to kill you. He got lucky that you're a non-confrontational person, but eventually he's going to make a big mistake and get what's coming to him.

I think you probably could have made a case that he was a threat based on his actions. If someone approaches you with a knife and brandishes it, especially while asking you for money (even in the guise of "selling you something) he's pretty clearly up to exactly what you thought.

Still, its good that you resolved it otherwise. No need to get yourself additional headaches.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Glad you are okay. Sounds like he's enough of a punk that if you put him down he'd have made a big case about it. You're probably better off holding your own and maybe Just have mentioned it to the authorities.

It's not I think you wouldn't be within your rights to do so, just laying him out would probably be more trouble than would be worth.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

You're feeling guilty for not taking on some guy that wanted to sell you a knife? If I was on the jury, I would have voted to convict you for assault. And possibly robbery if you didn't turn the knife over to the police right away.

Really? Because there isn't a reasonable doubt that my hypothetical actions could have been motivated by self defense?

I think its fair to say that a reasonable person would assume that someone brandishing a knife while asking for money constitutes a mugging.

If you legitimately offer a knife to someone, you hand it hilt first (not point first) and if its a lock blade (such as this was) you do it with the blade closed.

I suppose it would be a grey enough area that I couldn't say beyond a reasonable doubt that he didn't appear threatening to you. You might get off.

But I would believe you to be in the wrong. And based on your description, I think it would be accurate.

Whether or not a person knows how to handle a knife properly does not give you the right to assault them.

Someone not knowing how to handle a knife properly is very much a valid reason for feeling threatened by them. Especially if they are looking and speaking to you while doing so.

Think about the actions alone, without the words. If you were deaf and you saw someone flicking a blade at you and moving their mouth, would you feel threatened?

correct me if I'm wrong but him flicking the knife open and closed is assault, me hitting him would be battery

You did the right thing, for the moment and with the information you had. Anything else you might have done without further provocation would have been questionable. Good call, and your lack of fear toward him gave him a chance to reevaluate his course of action, if indeed he was trying for a wallet grab. He may have just been a punk trying to sell his knife.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

He won't feel threatened because he isn't actually faced with the situation, and admitting that he would might mean not scoring internet points. There's no incentive to think about the question from any position other than armchair quarterback. This is a common problem with a lot of Hellfire discussions, except those aren't ones that personally involve anyone. Remember, you're talking to a guy that feels he's justified in fighting with people on the street over their attitude, and the police shouldn't interfere, but apparently feels that someone else shouldn't feel threatened when someone comes up to them with a knife and a dubious offer to "Sell it". He's also someone that thinks a 12 year old kid should be able to fight a pit bull, no problem, because he can "bob and weave" as long as stating that absurd position will let him not change his mind. It's not as if we'll actually go test that, so it's possible to insist on it no matter how ridiculous.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Not in Ohio. In Ohio there is no crime of "battery". "Assault" is to "cause or attempt to cause physical harm". Using the knife (a deadly weapon) would make it felonious assault.

Also, flicking the knife in that fashion in Ohio would be "Aggravated menacing", which means to cause another to believe you will do them serious physical harm. That's based on the reasonable perception of the victim at the time - i.e. would another reasonable person in the same situation also feel that same threat?

Arathain can insist all he wants that he wouldn't and he'd vote to convict, but most people would, based on the totality of the circumstances, such as his body language and such. Although those things are hard to convey via text, you actually did a pretty good job in your OP of conveying what made you feel threatened. It is not normal at all for someone to try to sell you a knife on the street, much less while brandishing it in such a fashion, and the evident desire to get you to pull out your wallet.

Anyone that would actually think that you are guilty of assault beyond a reasonable doubt just because they guy "isn't handling the knife properly" and claims to want to sell it rather than making an overt threat is relying on simply pretending those things like body language and the reasonable assumptions under the circumstances has no business on a jury.

It isn't a matter of when someone comes up to you brandishing a knife somehow you're not justified in feeling threatened because they guy theoretically could honestly want to sell you a knife and have poor knife handling skills. This guy is probably an experienced criminal - he knows exactly what he's doing, and he's trying to disguise his threat so that if you do anything to him he can claim "I only wanted to sell him a knife!!" That would be his argument in court. What he doesn't realize is that the law doesn't work that way. It is not a matter of technical compliance with the law to let you get in a position to assault someone.

Also, what Michael said is true. This guy was sizing you up. When you didn't show any fear, he probably hesitated, and most likely your body language told him that you thought you could take him out. Criminals are good at assessing that stuff. He decided to move on to easier pickings.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

STFU tool.

And for the record, WTF are you talking about with the pit bull? I'd love to see where I ever said that. You're making that BS up, right there.

Lenas, to answer your question: At the risk of being vague, words don't matter. Opening and closing the knife doesn't matter. It's everything together, and in many ways a subconscious feeling that you get when everything comes together. For example, I have been approached by someone with a handgun in hand, and not felt threatened, and at the same time been approached by an unarmed individual and felt incredibly threatened. It's a very difficult thing to explain, and as I've said in many threads in the past, it's dubious to second-guess someone when you weren't there.

It's why I said to TR that there's enough grey area there for him to get off. His description, to me, seemed very tame. Regardless, I think that more overt data is needed to justify a first strike, but again - it's a huge judgement call.

There's not really a grey area here, though. Pretty much all of us agree that the actions were threatening. You're never going to be able to put yourself in an exact situation and know exactly how the victim felt. You might as well try to make the argument that we can't convict anyone based on threat alone.

If you were on a jury and you stopped them from voting unanimously, this person would get out of a conviction and you would be just as guilty for his next assault as he himself would be.

We're talking about 2 different things. I don't think any jury in the world would convict knife-guy of making threats, based on the information provided. There's certainly reasonable doubt. As to whether TR should be convicted for a preemptive attack based on the perceived threat is what I'm discussing. I believe there's enough grey area to prevent a conviction for assault.



Um, no. Performing my civic duty to the best of my ability does not make me responsible for someone else's actions.

The assumption here is that RD defended himself and there's now a court case, one side saying that he was a threatened victim acting in self defense, the other saying that he was an assailant.

You would vote to convict RD of assault against the rest of us [jurors] voting to convict knife-guy of assault. Say RD gets put in jail while the other guy goes on to do the same thing once more, except this time his victim ends up dead. Who is at fault? Legally you would be free of any blame, but honestly, it'd be your fault.

Why, tough guy? You're the one that thinks its ok to get in fights with people because you think they need a lesson in civilized behavior, but somehow it's not OK for TR to defend himself against someone brandishing a knife?



Since I know you'll be a semantic pedant about it, here's the thread:

http://www.gladerebooted.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8502&hilit=bob+and+weave

Ok, technically what you said was that an 8th grader with a 2 inch knife has a better chance against an armed criminal than a 90 lb German Shepherd. Not a pit bull. My mistake; I did not after 2 and a half years remember the breed of dog correctly, and mistook that they were both fighting an armed and dangerous adult rather than each other. There's your little victory; you can now crow about how DE's memory isn't perfect.

Nevertheless, the fact is that you said something that amounts to substantially the same thing - that you thought a little kid with a knife is a more dangerous threat to an armed adult than an attack dog - because the kid can "bob and weave" or something.

I'm not even going to go into the merits of a 2 year old argument. you don't even remember this argument, and it's pretty obvious you made it for no reason other than (at the time) to defend a position you leaped on based on your intuitive understanding of something and your desire to pass judgement, and then when the problem was pointed out, you just went right into "Don't let DE have so much as an inch! damn the facts!" mode, confirmed farther down where you proceeded to ignore statistics and make a hilarious strawman argument about burning down trees.

The simple fact is that no one should ever listen to you about how to handle a confrontation, under any circumstances. Your advice is a hazard to anyone hearing it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

As already explained, a threat does not have to be verbal. Some juries might let knife guy off, but quite a few would convict him - and they'd be right to do so. The only reason he'd get off is failure by the prosecutor, and/or TR as a witness to get across the nature of his nonverbal behavior.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Trials don't work like this. It'd be 2 separate trials, one for the knife guy and one for the would-be victim if he pre-emptively struck, so the 2 juries wouldn't vote against each other.

If he voted for innocence against 11 others and refused to change his mind it'd be a hung jury, so in theory it could get retried with a new jury.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It would be 2 different trials. I would likely vote Not Guilty for both. Again, based on the very limited data provided. Now, if I voted Not Guilty for the knife-guy, and he then stabbed someone, it would not be my fault either legally or morally. If I convicted him against a reasonable doubt, I would be a turd-bag. Opening and closing a knife and asking if someone wants to buy it - in and of itself - is not a threat beyond a reasonable doubt. The grey area comes in to play in that TR doesn't need to adhere to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt to defend himself.

/bird



Since I know you'll be a semantic pedant about it, here's the thread:

http://www.gladerebooted.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8502&hilit=bob+and+weave

Ok, technically what you said was that an 8th grader with a 2 inch knife has a better chance against an armed criminal than a 90 lb German Shepherd. Not a pit bull. My mistake; I did not after 2 and a half years remember the breed of dog correctly, and mistook that they were both fighting an armed and dangerous adult rather than each other. There's your little victory; you can now crow about how DE's memory isn't perfect.[/quote]

Wow, DE, just wow. Above, what you said was:



When your stupid question in the linked had nothing to do with a child fighting a dog. What you said instead was, if charging an armed criminal, which would stand a better chance? The point of my response is that both would go down handily, but if the child bobbed and weaved (which for anyone with half a brain could have clearly identified as a joke) it might make the criminal miss once or twice beforehand. The point, of course, being that neither the child nor the dog would have any significant chance against a guy with a gun.



No. Just... no. LMAO



When you're done poisoning the well with incorrect references and incorrect understandings of mocking responses of 2-year old stupid questions, perhaps you can stop bringing in your personal butt-hurt feelings about me into the thread, and actually stick to discussions of the topic.

Especially since, as we can see above, your assumptions as to how I would response were completely wrong.



/bird

Without an overt threat of any kind - verbal or otherwise - and with him leaving afterward - I don't see how he could be convicted. As described, opening and closing the knife - I see reasonable doubt there. It wasn't waved in his face or pointed at him, or anything. IMO, it's not enough for a conviction.

I just went over this. Excuse the **** out of me for not perfectly remembering a thread from 2 and half years ago. I already acknowledged that I didn't remember it exactly right. It was only the unbelievable stupidity of the original claim that made it memorable at all. Oh yeah "but it was a joke!!". How very convenient. Maybe you shouldn't have made a joke in support of such an idiotic position - it's pretty hard to tell you're making a joke when you're being stupid in the first place.

A child is likely to panic in the face of an armed adult; a dog is a predatory animal, and much faster than a human. Dogs can be trained to take down an armed person, but even an untrained dog is a serious danger to an armed individual; actually shooting a dog in the short time you have if it attacks while under the pressure of being faced with actually getting bitten is not easy. Even trained shooters normally train against human targets. A dog is a different shape. The accuracy of any shooter degrade greatly under real pressures. If you REALLY think that a dog is easier to hit than a frightened 12 year old, or less dangerous than the child to an armed criminal your basic grip on reality is questionable.

The point was, though, that you were just too concerned with making sure your argument persisted in the face of fact that you seriously made the case that a 12 year old with a small knife is more dangerous than a large dog of a breed suitable for attacking people. As much as I would like to claim that this is because you're a complete **** idiot, I know that you're not a stupid man. It's pretty simply clearly a matter of you just leaping to judgment about someone's behavior (again) and not wanting to let that go at any cost. You, based on your own admissions of various events, seem to get into confrontations with people more than average, so maybe if you were less convinced that however you view a situation is the only right way to view it you wouldn't have these **** problems.

You also wouldn't make a fool out of yourself in threads like this.


No amount of scoffing, flipping the bird, and laughing is going to change the fact that you're making an idiot of yourself - again. This is three times now; the dog thing, this thread, and the "nothing wrong with a good, honest tussle!" thread. You're a riot. /bird, LMFAO, what are you a frat boy? Or are you just wishing you could take a swing at me?



Oh, I understood your response quite well. The only butt hurt going on here is you; Mr. "STFU TOOL LMFAO /BIRD WHAAAAAAAAA!!!!" You're giving TR terrible advice, which is why I'm responding to it. My reference was accurate; the thread existed and you were being an idiot there too because, just like here, you made a snap judgment and then defend it at all costs.

If you want to complain about "sticking to the topic" then you can quit with the /bird and STFU and so forth, but it's hilarious to watch you quiver with rage. The reason for referencing the thread was your history of coming up with your own ideas of how things work and then defe3nding them because they just seem right to you - oh, and you're in no position to complain about referencing old threads - you were the one that had a quote of Monty's from one of the old Glades in your sig just to provoke him.



Not really. They were pretty much exactly right - you have absolutely no idea how to handle confrontations, or what's realistic, and yet you insist on coming in and lecturing people when the only business you have on these matters is shutting the **** up. Not because I'm right and you're wrong but because everyone other than you is. Lenas is giving vastly better advice than you are, so is Michael in some respects. You're making up bullshit about what a jury would do - how much experience do you have with juries? Did you even bother to look up the law?

No, I'm sure you didn't. You just went to the intuitive "This is what's cool to do"; what seems like it should be right in your little world where people fight fair and threats always nicely present themselves in advance, and no one would ever try to trick someone into pulling their wallet out before trying to rob them.

Here's a clue - you don't make the rules of civilized behavior in public. The law does. You may agree with it, you may not, but whether it's right or wrong, no one is going to put it in your hands to determine. Your job if you ever do get on a jury is to decide if the law was broken, not to enforce your idea of what the law should be.



You can /bird all you want. You're the one going through life with this attitude. By all means, keep getting into confrontations and then rely on your idea of how things work when it eventually bites you in the ***. Maybe you'll be lucky and it never will, but if it does I suppose you can sit there and suck your thumb and comfort yourself thinking how unfair it all is that the rules aren't made by what Arathain thinks is cool.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Which according to the law is "brandishing". That is a threat. You're using what seems like a difference in your mind, and a technical distinction of "overt threat" the law doesn't require. It's equally easy to stab someone with a knife that's already in your hand regardless of how you're waving it around. Drawing a weapon in public indicates willingness to use it - drawing it when no one else is threatening you - and TR was not threatening the knife guy - indicates willingness to use it on someone who isn't threatening you.

All things you'd understand if you bothered to find out what the law actually is before commenting on how you'd vote on a jury. A jury trial means a trial according to the law, not whatever any jackass that lands on the jury thinks the law should be.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."