How do we know what happened prior to the beginning of the video?
The video doesn’t really prove that. We have no idea what happened before the video - something must’ve or she wouldn’t have punched him. He may very well have hit her, or in some other way assaulted her like groping her, before the video began.
The video shows her punching him, then he punched her. That’s what the video shows. It doesn’t prove she punched him first because we don’t see what happened before she punched him.
And the fact that she is 100% responsible for her actions doesn’t change the fact that he is 100% responsible for his actions.
All I’m saying is if this guy was my buddy, he’s no longer my buddy after I see this video. And he indisputably beat her into a coma. He punched her and her head hit the pavement. Whether her skull was fractured before or after her head hit the ground is irrelevant.
To me it makes a really big difference - “beating her into a coma” (in my mind) is a very different level of sustained attack than hitting her once and having her knock her head on the ground.
Anyway - it looks to me like he has a short fuse, I would HOPE (but don’t think it should be a legal standard) that a person attacked that way would consider how much it “hurt” before retaliating.
I don’t think it should be a legal standard because it puts too much onus on the victim to be “reasonable” in the face of unreasonable actions -
But one “girly punch” (hopefully) wouldn’t provoke me to respond full force - regardless of who punched me.
I stand corrected. Admittedly I don’t know the context prior to the video. However, it does appear that his punch was an immediate response to her punch; what came before is unknown.
It also seems that our thread is divided into three camps for the most part:
(1) “Gender equality” supporters who think that the man should be allowed to strike back because men and women are equal;
(2) People who think that the man was wrong to strike back on account of superior strength (strong vs. weak)
(3) People who think that the man was wrong to strike back on account of his gender (man vs. woman)
Assuming the woman hit him first and without a really good reason, I lean towards giving the guy the benefit of the doubt just based on the sheer speed with which it happened. I mean it happened so extremely fast and under those circumstances I could see a lot of people doing the same thing. He could have felt a sudden shock of pain, say she connected directly with his teeth or gums or something, that sudden painful sensation could make anyone lash out like that instantly, not even because they are hell-bent on retaliation but just to make the pain stop, after all you don’t know if the other party is planning on stopping their attack on you.
Would you do this sort of guesswork if it were the other way around? Imagine a video where a man approaches a woman and assaults her out of the blue; would you be rushing into a thread like this one to assure us that something must’ve happened before the video started, because he wouldn’t have done that otherwise? Why, she may very well have done something wrong first, you could helpfully explain?
I’m willing to grant – for the sake of argument – that, yes, granted, something else that’s relevant may well have happened beforehand; I merely add that, for all we know, what “happened beforehand” may well have simply been that woman throwing two or three unjustified punches before the one captured on film.
I don’t know that this is necessarily true either. People do dumb things (like punch someone stronger than them) regularly. She just as easily could have simply been drunk and gotten irate and decided to take a swing. I’m not sure that speculating that the man deserved that first punch is any more fair or factual than speculating that her first punch was the first physical aggression of the fight. We simply don’t know.
My sons are all big strong men … one punch would put the average woman in the hospital … maybe it’s just here on the West Coast but there are very very few violent women around here … hardly an onus to avoid them …
Think FayFay wearing next to nothing walking down a dark alley in the bad part of town … she’s inviting victimhood … begging to be assaulted … yes, we put the onus on her and her homicidal hobby … someone needs to take her Glock away …
Considering that men assault women more often than the other way around, probably not.
An article I read last night described at least part of the “before”: the guy, Chris, picked a fight with the girl and her friends, shouting at them that they were whores and sluts etc. as they were walking by before she took a swing at him. Not a great reason to hit someone, but men take swings at things like that too.
Thanks for the back story. Do you consider that confirmation that she’s the one that initiated the physical side of the confrontation?
To try and put a little humor in an otherwise serious topic, I immediately thought of this scene from Deadpool when I read the thread.
But in all seriousness, I was raised with two brothers who were told in no uncertain terms they were NOT allowed to hit me no matter what I did. Sadly, I did take advantage of that a bit. But I’m kinda in the same camp of yeah, you can defend yourself but within reason. Isn’t there some legal thing about ‘comparable force’? Like if someone punches you, you can’t pull out a gun and kill them? It seems to me there is but I can’t say for certain.
There is a legal concept of “reasonable” force, but it’s very subjective. There are lots of legal and justified self-defense shootings where the shooter used significantly more force (shooting with a gun) than the shootee (such as in cases where they’re armed with a knife, or a bat, or a crowbar, or a stick, or a rock, etc). There are even cases where an unarmed assailant is legally killed by someone with a gun in self defense. The most famous example that comes to mind is George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.
Not to necessarily disagree but a knife, bat or crowbar etc can easily be lethal against someone armed with a gun, people don’t tend to drop at the first shot and they could quite possibly strike them with a crowbar or stab them with a knife. I recall an incident in the 1980’s where several FBI agents where killed in a shootout, one of the criminals was indeed incapacited by the first shot but the second was hit, I believe, about twelve or thirteen times and he was still able to advance and kill one of the FBI agents who was shooting at him from behind cover.
Unfortunately this sort of thing is a fairly regular occurrence, its only so eye-brow raising because it was a man punching a woman, its likely what caused the severe injuries wasn’t directly the punch itself but her head hitting the ground when she fell, if it had been on grass it wouldn’t have been nearly as serious.
A couple of years ago a similar incident happened here between two men in their early twenties, one was trained in martial-arts and the other an amateur boxer, both having won prizes in their fields. A single punch from the boxer resulted in the other man being knocked unconcious and hitting his head on the concrete where he fell, resulting in fatal brain injuries.
I wonder also do people get misleading ideas from all the Hollywood movies where the hero can fight and win against multiple other men taking a huge amount of damage in doing so or a petite woman fighting and beating a much large man or multiple male opponents. Unfortunately real life doesn’t work like and as in the example above a single blow even between two equally matched men can result in a fatality.
Regarding the incident this thread concerns having watched the video and if I was part of a jury without further context I would be unsure, she does seem to strike him first and his reaction does seem to be an instinctive one, but he does appear to use a large amount of force against her.
I guess a lot would come down to his own explanation of his intent, but his leaving the scene and seemingly hiding from the law doesn’t do him any favours.
I’m reluctant to condemn him, because by all accounts she did hit him first, but it certainly doesn’t look good.
Like what?
Judging by some of the audio from the crowd after he hit her he might well have fled the scene worried about what the woman’s friends and/or uninformed bystanders might do to him - in other words, he might have been afraid for his own safety and ran away rather than risk further violence.
Don’t know how long it’s been since the incident, but it’s possible he might be securing a lawyer prior to turning himself in. Or maybe he’s just trying to escape any possible consequences. We just don’t know. Which seems to be the refrain in this case.
Me too. And because of that I didn’t do anything when I was 10 and an older neighborhood girl, 8th or 9th grade, tormented me. When she grabbed me and dug her nails into my forearm drawing blood I just had to sit there and pretend like it didn’t hurt because what other option did I have? Boys don’t hit girls.
I, uh, don’t get the relevance of what anyone’s dad told them a long time ago.
If your dad told you that only a sissy would work for a woman – or vote for a woman, or let a woman marry a woman; or that only a fool would trust a Jew, or that only a moron would treat blacks as equals, or anything else of that sort – well, then, okay; I’d wonder whether you’d mistakenly considered your dad to be an authority on the subject, and how long it took you to realize he wasn’t; but I certainly wouldn’t care an ounce more about that opinion upon hearing it was your dad’s opinion.
If it helps, my dad was sometimes wrong about stuff too?
My Dad was a polyglot and an erudite man. You are neither.
I’ll take his advice over yours, thanks.
PS Where do you people keep meeting these abusive women? I’m 55 and have yet to have a woman try to punch me. You’re either exceptionally obnoxious or need to find nicer places to hang out in.
My point is, the advice should stand or fall on its own.
If it’s valid, it doesn’t matter whether you got it from your father – or from my father, or from a friend, or from a book you read; and it’d be just as valid if you reached that conclusion all by yourself. And if it’s incredibly bad advice, then it’s still incredibly bad advice regardless of whether you got it from your father – or from my father, or from a friend, or whatever.
I believe it’s incredibly bad advice. I don’t need to tell you that I heard the opposite advice from an erudite polyglot; the case for hitting back stands or falls on its own.
I don’t believe I’ve mentioned having met an abusive woman – or an abusive man, for that matter. I merely note that, if the day ever comes when I believe someone is criminally assaulting me, I’d (a) presumably respond the way the man in the clip did, and (b) press charges if and when my assailant woke up.
If you want to criticize that position, feel free; you may even convince me that I’m wrong. If you want to improve your odds by explaining that you’re totally relaying the opinion of an erudite polyglot – yeah, that won’t actually improve your odds.