Pepper Sprayed at the Movies (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gardiner]

Paul,

Pepper spray is SOOO 2003. Check out the new "personal microwaver" in the "Set phasers on stun" thread in After Hours.

 

[Sami Kallio]

It is the case. A threat is a threat and nothing more. The law interprets it as a threat, doesn't it? Even if you treat it as something else, it still is a threat.

She threw the soda at an officer who was battering her boyfriend. According to the witnesses the cop was the one assaulting them, not the other way around.

 

[Sami Kallio]

Nobody is defending her use of the phone.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

Here in Washington State, you can be charged with assualt for making a threat. (How I know this is a very long story.)

 

[Malcolm R]

I wonder if one of those would melt a cell phone?

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Technically, assault is a threat. Battery is the actual physical contact. (I learned this in law school, and it was a surprise to me too).

Thus, you can have assault ("I'll hit you")
Or you can have battery (Attacking someone by surprise, without any initial threat to attack them)
Or you can have the most common situation, which is assault and battery ("I'll hit you", followed by the attack).

 

[Sami Kallio]

Threat, a verbal assault. Charging someone, a physical assault. I just don't the reason for pepper spray with a verbal assault but the physical assault already has escalated to the point where its use is warranted.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Even better if you could flash it on the screen any time a person used their phone. Sure it would distract from the film, but the cell phone already is. This way the other patrons could get a laugh out of the whole thing.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Consider people that break into your house but do NOT physically assault you. Many states allow the use of deadly force in repelling such a break-in.

Where is the "physical" threat? There is none.

It is the idea that a physical attack is imminent that justifies the use of a preventative strike.

It is wrong for a cop or security person to wait until they are hit first before macing. It is also wrong for them to mace you if you are not presenting an imminent threat for physical assault.

The gray area is where a person's judgement comes into play. If you were arguing with someone and they made a move that appeared like they were going to punch you would you stand there and take it? Isn't flinching another way of ASSUMING PHYSICAL VIOLENCE is imminent?

If its so obvious that the person intends no harm, then why the defensive reaction?

Using mace instead of flinching is still a defensive reaction.

Maybe the kid didn't makes such a move, but the cop is claiming that he did. Based on everything else that's been said, it doesn't seem all that unlikely. I've said it over and over, it could be that the cop was the one who took it to that next level. But I'd say that the situation was already quite close to that point either way.

My anger stems from the reporting (and some debate here) that the pepper spray was in response to a girl using her cell phone. It wasn't.

The question that should be asked is how both sides got into such an aggrevated argument over the right to use a cell phone during a movie that it escalated to pepper spray.


Again, as I was quoted even, WHY ARE THEY ARGUING about using the cell phone in the first place? That is not a defensible stance IMO. You were being rude after being asked not to. Others stopped but you didn't. Why?

The answer to that tells a lot more about why pepper spray ended up coming out than anything else, even if the cop reacted poorly.

 

[Sami Kallio]

That would be a physical assault, not verbal anymore. If that happened (and we can only speculate as we were not there) then the cops actions were justified.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

The rent-a-cop should have left them alone. Having to sit through CATWOMAN is punishment enough.

 

[RyanAn]

I read online a while ago that a theatre in my state had a guy dressed as the devil in "Passion of the Christ" yell and try and convert people... Aparently an elderly lady spilled her drink on him and HE was arrested.

Ryan

 

[Rob Gardiner]

I wonder what would happen if a fan in full STARFLEET uniform showed up to Star Wars Episode 3 on opening day?

 

[Dave Farley]

 

[AaronMK]

All of the other accounts and details may be questionable but I have no trouble believing this:


Many times even when I shout into the cell phone I am speaking so quietly that the person on the other end can't hear me.

On that note, I will chalk up one reliabilty point for the girl.