The Glade 4.0

I dunno RD...the guy walked up to the cop pretty quickly and was well within the cops personal bubble...you can see the cop backing up as the guy gets too close. If the guy had stopped at a respectable distance and just stood there and flipped the cop off thats one thing, but invading the cop's personal space and dancing around like that...I could see a cop thinking it was a potential threat. Although, if it is real, I'm sure he was pissed off too.

Of course, it could definitely be fake too...what was a cop doing just standing there by the corner of a building like that?

_________________
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

You're not forbidden from speaking in contempt of court. You're simply penalized for doing so. Freedom to act, not freedom from consequences.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yeah, the initial step into the cops personal space was threatening, and the cop's reaction (backing up) indicated he took it that way. But once the appearance of threat has passed, the self-defense justification passes with it. If there's no longer the appearance of threat, "self-defense" becomes retaliation. In the video, after the initial step-in, the guy laughs and turns away, and that's when the cop pulls out his baton and whacks him. There's a pause in the action, during which a court would likely find that a "reasonable person" would have had time to realize there was no imminent threat. So, it seems more like the cop got momentarily spooked, then turned angry when he realized the guy was being a disrespectful little punk.

So, a guy flicks off the cops. Dick move. The cop cites him on some bullshit charge which the man is acquitted of. Does that mean the guy was right to flick off the cop in the first place since he demonstrated he was willing to abuse his authority?

_________________

What do you mean? Too many pronoun confuzionz.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

This.

That said, the guy had the *** beating coming.

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

You're trying to nitpick the threat into having ended, when it really hadn't ended at all. It's not a strech in any way. They guy was still extremely close to the cop; well within the distance that we know you can stab someone before they can draw a gun (generally 21 feet or closer). The cop was still in the process of reacting to the initial threat.

Furthermore, when someone walks up to you and does something like that, the threat hasn't ended jsut because their exact actions change from second to second. The guy turns away; the cop doesn't know why. Is he pulling out a knife? Winding up for a haymaker? The cop has no way of knowing. He's still extremely close, and he's acting like a person with psychological problems or who is high on something. Yes, the threat still exists, and then it escalates because the guy starts running to a car with another person and who knows what else in it.

Cops are not like EQ mobs pursuing a monk that have to go "threat! oh.. wait.. not a threat THREAT! oh, wait.. no.. not a threat again.. THREAT!" until someone actually does hit them or shoot them. Once you go down that road of making an initial threat or doing something threatening, you can't "turn off" the threat by laughing or acting like you "punked" him or whatever.

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

Whoa yes. Um... Ultimately the flicker was proved right in his assertion that the flicked was indeed a pompous-ass who was more than willing to abuse his (the flicked's) authority.

_________________

Gotcha now.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Could you elaborate on this? That seems awfully far, if the man with the gun is aware of the man with the knife. What type of prevalent conditions are assumed in this maximum distance? (Not to hijack the thread or anything.)

_________________

That's generally considered the lethal threat distance for self-defense. If someone is within that distance and poses an imminent threat to your life, you can use lethal force to stop them.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Its the guys dancing and weaving thing that would set off my alarm bell if I were the cop. If the guy was stationary, thats one thing, but he was weaving around like he could spring forward at any moment. Very unpredictable and too close.

_________________
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Just to add to the comments already, I've seen trained martial artists cross 21ft and throw 2 punches at someone in well under a second.

And Vindi's tests are showing someone who's already made the decision to draw and fire their weapon ahead of time. In a real life encounter, the officer has to process if they are in enough danger to draw and then do they use leathal force. Both of those decisions take time to make, adding to the 1.3-1.4 sec physical action time.

This is assuming that the knife-wielding assailant attacks a person with a holstered pistol who is unaware the assault itself is going to happen, but is aware of, and has his attention generally upon, the attacker, and is not also encumbered by the need to extract the gun from other clothing - in other words, a cop in uniform dealing with someone who may be a threat but is not actively demonstrating one until he pulls the knife.

The rule encompasses the amount of distance an average assailant can cross before an average officer can recognize that he is being attacked, draw, and fire 2 rounds. There are plenty of police training videos that demonstrate this with actors, but it does, as you can see, incorporate a lot of assumptions and is an average. I have seen some people claim that the rule should be 25 or 30 feet. In reality, the exact number of feet is really only valid as long as the assumptions are met; the point of the rule is to remind people that a person with an edged weapon is a threat at distances considerably greater than his reach from a standing position, especially against someone who is not already aware of the threat. Even the type of holster (Level II vs Level III) can affect the precise number of feet, as will the phsyical capabilities of the individuals involved.

This article discusses the rule in some detail My apologies for their shitty formatting at the bottom.

The real point of the rule is that an officer dealing with a subject with a knife should have his gun out, not that he should necessarily shoot the subject. However, if the subject charges, he will be able to close a much longer distance than most people would think before the gun can be drawn.

This guy was well inside that distance. People who have not trained and who have not been in serious fights do not realize how fast things develop in close quarters; tenths of a second are a long time. Granted, he did not have a knife, but the baton is also not for dealing with knives; a knife is deadly force and a baton is not.

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

For reference, the approximate distance in the US for men's college basketball 3-point line is 21 feet.

I can (or at least have, don't know about now) personally cover that in 2 steps from a standing start. Then again, I'm tall.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I was asking a friend about the difference between assault and battery but he couldn't really come up with a good way to explain it. I understand battery is the physical act of carrying out assault, or is there some other difference? What is the point of "attempted battery" then? It seems insubstantially close to "assault".

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

From what I am led to believe, as a general rule of thumb:

Assault is the swing, battery is the connection.

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

Assault is the threat of violence. Battery is physical violence. Attempted battery would be balling up your fist and jumping at someone, only to be restrained by someone there.

Isn't that the same thing as "threat of violence". Isn't threatening behavior its own charge in various incarnations depending on the situation?

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

At Common Law*, assault was intentionally creating the reasonable expectation of imminent physical harm, while battery was intentionally making unlawful contact. Assault didn't require an intent to make contact, only an intent to create the expectation of harm, so pulling your own punch as part of a prank was still assault. If, on the other hand, you were actually trying to hit them, but missed or were blocked, that was attempted battery.

Under current statutory laws, though, the definitions vary state by state. In NY, for example, the criminal law rather confusingly calls Common Law battery "assault" while Common Law assault is called "menacing".

*Note that there are some differences between criminal and civil/tort law, but the basic distinction is the same.

Yeah, you'd think that, but once you turn the legalese up to 11, the sky is the limit.

Why don't you just make 10 the top number....

_________________
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Cause thats numberist towards the other numbers...