If the soldiers ran him over with an M1A1 tank it would be wrong too, but they didn’t, so what does that have to do with anything? From all the information I’ve seen (and if you have contradictory evidence, please post it), this doesn’t even fall under the heading of a “vicious beating”. The guy got a black eye and a few bruises and walked out of the hospital without being admitted under his own power and of his own free will. If your point is that a “vicious beating” is not an appropriate response to stealing a wallet (and I would define that as multiple broken bones, internal injuries, major contusions…basically needing to be admitted to a hospital for treatment), then I don’t think many people would disagree with you. Your problem (if that’s the point you’re trying to make) is in linking it to this specific case where none of that occurred. The abstract nature of your point is lost behind the concrete circumstances we’re discussing.
Dude, you’re not paying attention to the conversation. I’m talking to people who DID DISAGREE THAT IT WOULD BE WRONG IF HE WERE SEVERELY BEATEN.
Actually, it’s not. Which is why the five people who beat up on one guy were arrested. The obvious message sent by the reasonable people of Savannah was that it is not to be expected that getting beaten for stealing a wallet.
What exactly do you think vigilante means? Were the soldiers police? Were they judges? No? Then by definition they were engaged in vigilantism.
And the moment the five soldiers went beyond simply “getting” him, meaning detaining him for duly authorized law enforcement, they crossed the line. Whether you or anyone else thinks it’s cool for five people to beat up on one guy for stealing a wallet, it is an indisputable fact that the soldiers broke the law, and your insistence on excusing it is bizarre. Bennett did wrong by stealing the wallet. The five who beat him did wrong too. I seem to recall an old saying about two wrongs and what they don’t make.
“Barely conscious and lying in a pool of blood” doesn’t qualify as vicious? Spending the night in the hospital (he was beaten Sunday and left the hospital Monday) as a result of being beaten nearly unconscious by five men isn’t vicious? Because it sounds pretty damn vicious to me.
If you think that was what our little back and forth was about you’re even denser than I thought. And/or more dishonest. I direct you to my post that will explain it to you. Hint: it’s the one with these shapes in the upper right corner: 138.
I know exactly what vigilate means, and it has no bearing on this case at all. There is no evidence that the soldiers were attempting to do anything other than catch and confine a thief who was resisting. The man’s injuries are exactly consistant with what I would expect someone to receive in the process of being chased, caught and confined. Edison is arguing an unrelated point for some reason, and I have no idea why you are insisting on casting the events in a light which is clearly contradicted by the facts as we know them.
It’s entirely consistent with simply being caught and confined to be beaten to the point of unconsciousness and left in a pool of blood? And if the goal of this exercise was to catch and confine Bennett, why did the soldiers leave the scene instead of waiting for the police to come and collect Bennett? Leaving the scene is pretty strong evidence that the goal was not capture and confinement. Did any of the five even call the police? Why not, if the goal was simply capturing Bennett and confining him?
Face it Dave, you’re defending five people who, upon discovering a missing wallet, beat someone senseless and fled the scene. These aren’t heroes or good honest folk righting a wrong. These are brutal thugs who exacted vigilante revenge.
Otto, I disagree with you, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with what happened. These people are close enough to heros for me, if more people were willing to defend what was theirs than this would be a much better and safer country. If you want a pansy ass world where victims apologize to criminals for inconveniencing them by not wanting to give up their stuff, that’s fine. I think you’re nuts though. And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the DA wouldn’t have prosecuted these 5 even if the thief hadn’t declined to press charges, and I hope and pray that there isn’t a jury in America that would have convicted them had he done so.
Once again you toss out the same old straw man/false dicotomy of “pansy ass world where victims apologize to criminals”. Who in the fuck has suggested that the thief should not be punished? who in the fuck has suggested that the 5 should apologize to the thief for inconveniencing him by not wanting to give up their stuff?
What we are saying is that it’s not ok to beat some one unconscious even if they’d just stolen something. ya call the cops.
I have no problem believing that you idolize these thugs. I’m just happy you’re not in charge of the world.
and IME, the DA’s in my jurisdiction certainly would have pressed charges.
If you honestly see no difference between “defending what was theirs” and beating someone to the point of unconsciousness and then fleeing the scene, then you’re seriously fucked up. What fine upstanding people you choose to lionize as heroes. Do you honestly believe that five trained United States soldiers were unable to recover a stolen wallet from a lone person without beating him to the point of unconsciousness? If they’re such heroes, shouldn’t they have been proud to stay at the scene? Why did they run away if they were so sure of the righteousness of their actions?
By the way, four of them weren’t defending what was theirs. They beat on someone who’d done nothing to them. You keep neglecting to reply to that aspect of this. Even assuming arguendo that the one whose wallet was actually stolen (and, was the wallet actually stolen? Everything I’ve seen says they accused him of it; none of the articles say anything about whether the wallet was actually stolen or if Bennett was the one who stole it) had some right to beat up Bennett, even assuming arguendo that the owner of the wallet is a hero for doing it, there’s still no legal, ethical or moral justification for any of the other four to raise a hand. So at best we have one hero and four thugs. At worst, and most likely in reality, we have five thugs.
You’re a fucking illiterate idiot. Did I say one word about “victims apologizing to criminals”? No. You’re so invested in your bullshit “these boys are heroes” scenario, which is clearly contradicted both by their cowardly five-on-one assault and their craven fleeing of the scene, that it’s scary.
There’s nothing in any published report indicating that the five thugs would not have been prosecuted. Stop projecting your sociopathy onto the DA.
Given the choice of living in a country where groups of violent thugs are permitted to go free because a jury shares your sociopathic attitude and one in which people are held accountable for their actions, I’ll take the latter. I’d rather live in a world where violent crime in response to non-violent crime is considered criminal, not heroic.
“The facts as we know them” have nothing to do with “confining” the guy who was beaten. You are making that up in order to defend a bunch of drunken brawlers. Once they had stomped Bennet, they (drunkenly) wandered off.
I have no sympathy for Bennet and I disagree with the claims of “hate crime” (based on the evidence presented so far), but claiming that a bunch of rowdy, drunken GIs are heroes for beating up some guy (not capturing him and holding him for the police) is silly.
[Joey Holliday, a bartender at McDonough’s, was at McDonough’s March 4 and said the five soldiers who were arrested were very drunk and disruptive, and they were asked to leave the bar that night.
The Savannah police report states all the soldiers were “very intoxicated and had a extreme odor of alcoholic beverages coming from them.”](http://www.houstonvoice.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=5465) (McDonough’s is the bar where the six men were drinking, not the gay bar near which the beating occurred.)
So, the answer to my question appears to be “nowhere.” Because it really takes a feat of heroic proportions to interpret any of those qoutes as “portraying the thief in the best possible light,” or giving him “every possible benefit of the doubt.” Seriously: I’m mildly sympathetic to your side of the argument, here, but if you’re looking at those posts and seeing some sort of defense for Bennet, then I’m afraid you and reality are suffering a serious disconect.
Well that article isn’t telling the whole story either, now is it? This is exaclty how things get misreported. The reporter here in Savannah who wrote the original story slanted it the way he wanted the public to perceive it, with heavy implications it was a pure hate crime. This reporter has left out just enough details to now make a national audience think the same thing and evoke more sympathy for the victim.
And Otto, I am sure Bennet was “bleeding profusely” when he was found. Cuts around the head and eye bleed like a stuck pig, and alcohol also thins the blood a great deal. People who consume alot of alcohol have slower clotting times that normal. And as for being “barely conscious”… well I would chalk that up to being drunker than Cooter Brown much more than I would an ass wuppin’.
I made no claim that the story to which I linked presented the “whole story.” I am willing to accept from other sources that one of the GIs thought his wallet was stolen. I am willing to accept from a lack of clear evidence that the matter was not one of gay-bashing.
However, there is no indication in any story thus linked that the five held Bennet for police and there is evidence that they were rowdy drunks.
Your “not the whole story” claim is irrelevant. I take no position on how to view them or treat them except to note that they were not behaving “heroically” but drunkenly.
Reasonable guy here.
Expect that it might happen: yes
Think that it’s acceptable: no
Think that it’s legal: no
Being the victim of a property crime does NOT give you license to commit battery,
[
](Personal Injury Claims for Assault and Battery | ExpertLaw)bold, underlined & {DarkRed} = CMC
Show me the law that states “if a dude robs you, you get to beat the shit out of him”.
CMC fnord
I never claimed that anyone, after Bennet was revealed to be a thief, was defending him. I claimed that posters, Ensign Edison in particular, were attempting to make the situation—while acknowledging the theft—most sympathetic to the thief while portraying the five soldiers in as menacing and brutal way as possible. Mind you, “best poosible light”, given the circumstances does not equate to “good light”. As I said, he was tryinig to make the situation seem even more lopsided than it was. And the quote of his that I supplied numerous times plainly does that.
seriously, what the fuck?
I was one of the ones you quoted. What I saw in this thread was a bunch of folks, (yourself included) who seemed to be completely ignoring the bad acts of the 5 soldiers. They were (according to Dave), “heroic” among other crap. they shouldn’t be prosecuted, the theif had it coming etc.
So it seemed to me that the bad acts of the theif were well established. However, the bad acts of the soldiers were being completely ignored, therefore, I commented on them. to somehow misconstrue that into somehow being supportive of the thief !?!?!?
If you read the thread from the beginning, the soldiers were brutal, hateful, near-murderous ogres while Bennet was this innocent poor little frail guy all by his little lonesome. As facts were revealed, Bennet was seen to be a thief, but that did little to alter some posters’ attitudes toward the soldiers, and some continued to put Bennet in the most sympathetic light possible and the soldiers in the worst. I called Ensign Edison on it (his post 118) and Miller asked for clarification. Your post, in the contex of the thread, not necessarily as part of a similar pattern by you individually, supported my comments. Sorry to bring you into a side debate you didn’t intend to join.
No, you didn’t say anything about the “situation.” You specifically said posters in this thread were trying to show the thief in the best possible light, and if there’s a distinction between that a defending the man, it exsists only in your head. You also said that people were giving Bennet “every benefit of the doubt,” and again, no one in this thread has done that, not since the evidence of his theft was introduced to the debate. No one has given him any benefit of the doubt. There has been absolutely no contention that he did not steal the marine’s wallet, or that he was not a criminal, nor any attempt to minimize the severity of his actions. The closest anyone has come to that is in pointing out that, generally speaking, petty theft is far less of a serious crime than assault, a point on which I’m fairly certain no one would disagree.
Your original statement is simply untrue, and the quotes you provided to support it do not bear any relation to the claims you have made. Calling Bennet a “fag” is not giving him the benefit of the doubt, nor is it portraying his actions in the best possible light. Accusing the soldiers of being hophobes is not giving Bennet the benefit of the doubt, nor does it portray his actions in the best possible light. In fact, it says nothing at all about Bennet. It may or may not be an accurate characterization of the soldiers themselves, but that’s largely dependent on where you draw the line at what constitutes a homophobe. For some people, using “fag” as a general purpose insult is enough to warrant the label, but that’s an entirely different debate.
and the post that I was responding to was referring to “after it was discovered the beating victim was a thief”. so all that went before is not relevant. So even if in the first pages these folks were portraying the beating victim as pure as driven snow, certainly in these last pages, the theft was acknowledged.
the problem is that those who still maintain that the soldiers did nothing wrong and are ‘heroic’.
SEriously - you don’t see that as a bigger fucking problem?