# How to stop someone from jaywalking: punch them in the face. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 17, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557 "2010-06-17T15:33:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/261 "2010-06-21T03:21:24Z")
Ivan, in my past I have been wronged by the police, so I know where you are coming from. But both in my situation, and the situation you claim, we weren’t the ones that instigated it. But this video is pretty solid evidence that the girl that got slugged wasn’t a wilting lily in this situation, she brought it on. Watch the video again. She started it. Your argument here holds no water. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/262 "2010-06-21T11:16:16Z")
> [@NurseCarmen](#): > > Ivan, in my past I have been wronged by the police, so I know where you are coming from. But both in my situation, and the situation you claim, we weren’t the ones that instigated it. But this video is pretty solid evidence that the girl that got slugged wasn’t a wilting lily in this situation, she brought it on. Watch the video again. She started it. Your argument here holds no water. There are some bad officers out there and an officer can lose his temper and make bad choices but I sure don’t see that in this video. I have to wonder what you mean by instigate. If you’re arrested and in handcuffs why would you continue to be beligerant and verbally abusive to the police. I can only imagine the kind of crap officers have to put up with. We’d like them to be perfect and never respond to “go fuck youself” with a blow but that’s not a very realistic view of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/263 "2010-06-21T11:21:34Z")
> [@descamisado](#): > > You do realize that in a pedestrian-car accident there is usually someone else involved, probably a driver that was tootling along obeying the traffic laws then suddenly having to deal with having killed someone. Happens all the time. I haven’t seen the planet judder to a halt yet. If the authorities were really concerned, they’d have 30 mph limiters on all public-owned vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/264 "2010-06-21T12:12:31Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Happens all the time. I haven’t seen the planet judder to a halt yet. If the authorities were really concerned, they’d have 30 mph limiters on all public-owned vehicles. You’re basically the world champion of blaming the victim, aren’t you? Especially when you can blame a cop, too. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/265 "2010-06-21T12:19:59Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > You’re basically the world champion of blaming the victim, aren’t you? Especially when you can blame a cop, too. Nah He just likes to post bullshit just to see who he can get a rise out of. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/266 "2010-06-21T12:21:14Z")
Are you trying to “get a rise” out of me? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/267 "2010-06-21T13:21:31Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Are you trying to “get a rise” out of me? nope. Just calling it as I see it based on your posts. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/268 "2010-06-21T14:37:32Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Weird logic? It’s so simple. Once she assaulted him he was defending himself. He punched her one time. I would guess that even if both were civilians in an argument the officer would not be guilty of assualt after being pushed. It’s mot assault if you’re defending yourself, got it? > > 2ndly; The officer has to respond to the situation at hand and the people invloved. They escalated the situation and he had to respond to what they did. A jaywalking ticket got escalated into an arrest when the older decided she could just walk away and dismiss an officer trying to do his duty. It would be the same for any officer on any minor incident. If you get a ticket for speeding and decide to give the officer shit and drive away then it’s the driver escalating the situation not the officer. He can’t realistically shrug it off. If you get a ticket for littering , if you get a ticket for not scooping your dogs poop, and decide to give the officer shit and walk away then it’s you who have escalated the situation not the officer. > > If you decide to interfere with an officer trying to arrest someone by putting your hands on them then it’s you who have escalated the situation and the officer has to respond. > > You and Ivan like to critisize but neither has offered a direct answer to a simple question, After being assaulted by the 17 year old , while already trying to deal with another person resisting arrest, what do you think the officer should do? Let them walk away after the assault? Call for backup before proceeding? What if they decide to walk away while you’re waiting for backup? Would you have preferred a taser shot? What? If you’re going to continue to complain how wrong he was how about offering some reasonable viable alternative. Well if he was “assaulted” he should have shot her. His life was apparently in danger. Note: this is about degree of action. Her pushing him away, not attacking him, resulted in his over reaction. She was not attacking him. merely trying to push him away. He slugged a girl. He could have acted like a well trained professional. He surely did not. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/269 "2010-06-21T15:19:22Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Well if he was “assaulted” he should have shot her. His life was apparently in danger. > > Note: this is about degree of action. Her pushing him away, not attacking him, resulted in his over reaction. She was not attacking him. merely trying to push him away. He slugged a girl. He could have acted like a well trained professional. He surely did not. Okay, so what’s his correct course of action? Given, AGAIN, that “proper procedure” according to his superiors as cited above would have been to sweep her leg and put her face-first into the pavement before cuffing her, what SHOULD he have done to make the arrest he was legally making? ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/270 "2010-06-21T15:24:38Z")
Hands up if you think the way to handle a potentially hostile situation in which you are trying to arrest an excitable woman on your own, is to punch said woman’s companion in the face? It may have turned into a “successful” arrest for the officer, but that was more by luck, than design. After he punched that woman in the face, that situation could have turned far uglier had the wrong type of person been in the same area. And all because one “jobsworth” police officer felt his authority was challenged. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/271 "2010-06-21T15:27:40Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Okay, so what’s his correct course of action? Given, AGAIN, that “proper procedure” according to his superiors as cited above would have been to sweep her leg and put her face-first into the pavement before cuffing her, what SHOULD he have done to make the arrest he was legally making? She was jaywalking, ffs! It’s not like she’d have been at risk of fleeing the country, had he just let her walk away, and then picked her up when he had back-up. Wtf is an officer doing out on duty alone in this day and age, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/272 "2010-06-21T15:28:15Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Well if he was “assaulted” he should have shot her. His life was apparently in danger. > > Note: this is about degree of action. Her pushing him away, not attacking him, resulted in his over reaction. She was not attacking him. merely trying to push him away. He slugged a girl. He could have acted like a well trained professional. He surely did not. and yet after being asked repeatedly for a simple direct answer about what you think his realisitic alternatives were, as in, what do you think a well trained professional should do on that exact situation, you have failed to offer one viable alternative. None has been offered by anyone who thinks the officer was over the top and out of contrrol. You can’t realisitically expect an officer to respond with a push, someone interfering with an arrest, by simply pushing them back. Once she pushed him she had committed an arrestable offense and had demonstrated that she would likley physically resist the same way her cuz was resisting. Yes the officer is a trained professional but he has no way of knowing what these two women will do. He’s not obliged to wait for a punch or a knee to the groin, fingernails to the face or other escalated violence before he defends himself and subdues the people he is going to arrest. Pushing an officer in that situation is assaulting an officer in just about any police force in the country isn’t it? It may not be intent to do bodily harm but it is assualt. If he had thrown more punches of thrown these girls to the ground and planted a knee roughly in thier back {which would also be acceptable procedure} I might think he overreacted in anger but instead he continued to act professionally , held them and kept repeating “stop resisting” It is about degree of response. He threw one punch moments after the 2nd girl demonstrated she was willing to assualt him. It isn’t pretty but it’s a proper trained response. You’ve got a right to your opinion but since you’ve failed to offer any reasonable alternative I guess you don’t have anything to back up your opinion. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/273 "2010-06-21T15:30:57Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Okay, so what’s his correct course of action? Given, AGAIN, that “proper procedure” according to his superiors as cited above would have been to sweep her leg and put her face-first into the pavement before cuffing her, what SHOULD he have done to make the arrest he was legally making? good luck getting a direct answer. I’ve asked it several times of people saying the officer was wrong. So far nobody has offered any reasonable answer. Evidently they are sure the officer wrong and have no clue about what else he might have done. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/274 "2010-06-21T15:40:13Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > She was jaywalking, ffs! It’s not like she’d have been at risk of fleeing the country, had he just let her walk away, and then picked her up when he had back-up. Wtf is an officer doing out on duty alone in this day and age, anyway? She was **assualting an officer** over a jaywalking ticket FFS. You don’t let people walk away and then hope you can find them later. The fact that he was alone is completely irrelevent. Why is it you seem to excuse two stupid people who had police records and still thought it was okay to walk away from a ticket, resist arrest, and assault an officer , and make the foolish suggestion that an officer should preform his duty by letting them walk away and then asking for backup. not very realisitc. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/275 "2010-06-21T16:01:04Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Note that I am not saying that “effecting an escape” is always wrong, but that it is in this particular circumstance. You’re still a fucking retard. > [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Clearly the law–at least in a particular U.S. territory–recognizes that one can effect another person’s escape. Zing. (And silence from the retard, I note.) > [@Oakminster](#): > > All of you bitching about it kindly shaddup already. No. You may, however, feel free to skim by any post you’re not interested in. > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > A little enforcement and maybe I wouldn’t live in constant fear that tomorrow’s front page will feature a full-color splash of the tear-streaked faces of five orphans whose virtuous and loving day laborer father was cruelly struck down by the careless, clearly Caucasian, soon-to-be-bankrupted (or worse) **Vinyl Turnip**. You wouldn’t have this problem if you’d mow the whole family down. You’d probably be doing the gene pool a favor, anyway. > [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Oh, double post! Because what I have to say is twice as important! Compared to some of the people in this thread? Absolutely yes. > [@gonzomax](#): > > But there is no way to say a man hitting a girl in the face is how you quiet down a potential problem. So… Because I’m a woman, I can do whatever I want, including resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, and as long as the officer is male, he can’t do sweet fuck-all about it? Awesome! BRB crime spree. > [@BCHH](#): > > In the middle of the night, deserted streets, should you _really_ have to wait for a red light to turn green before you drive through? Maybe not, but try doing it in front of a cop and I’ll bet he disagrees with you. If someone mistimes a jaywalk, the main damage is going to be to themself. A vehicle composed of tons of metal can do a hell of a lot more damage than a chunk of meat weighing at most a few hundred pounds. > [@robby](#): > > The expression “affect an escape” is nonsensical, and I’ve never heard it in my life by anyone with a good grasp of English grammar. The only time you \*might \*hear it in the sense that \*\*Pleonast \*\*is desperately trying to convince us it was intended is from an L2 speaker of English. There’s no way in hell a native speaker would ever say “affect an escape” when they’re trying to talk about changing the way an escape is happening, or whatever bullshit he was spouting in a desperate attempt to not be horribly, terribly wrong. > [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > So, if the girl was acting like an asshole for getting involved, and the officer acts like an asshole by punching her, it should then be okay for someone to be a bigger asshole - from the officer’s perspective - by kicking the shit out of him. Seems a fairly logical progression to me. It would be, except you fucked up on Step #2. Punching someone who is interfering with an arrest by assaulting you isn’t acting like an asshole if you’re a police officer. It’s doing your job. I slice open my hand and go to the ER–is the doctor who stitches me up acting like an asshole because they’re jabbing me with a needle over and over? :rolleyes: > [@Pedro](#): > > Both usages are grammatically correct, they just have different meanings. Both usages are \*grammatically \*correct. However, the one that was intended is almost certainly _effect_, since \*affect \*would not be used in that context by a native speaker of English. > [@Biggirl](#): > > What we need is for some police man to come into this thread and punch all the grammar Nazis right in the pixels. What we need is for you to have the courage to insult me directly instead of prancing around it. But I doubt that’s going to happen. > [@Bricker](#): > > It’s poetry, pure poetry, you write. I’m thinking about making it into a nice cross-stitch sampler. > [@billfish678](#): > > I’ve never understood pedestrians who, in certain circumstances , have the right of way, and then ASSUME the car is AUTOMATICALLY going to give it to them. I don’t assume the car is going to give it to me. I assume the car is going to give it to me, or I’ll get a lovely all-expenses-paid hospital vacation that, if I’m really lucky, will leave me with a permanent annuity that will free me from ever having to work again. Hey, I can dream, right? Mmmmn, a year in traction… > [@gonzomax](#): > > Do you people hit women in the face when they don’t follow orders? I have never struck a woman and don’t see how you can be so casual about a poorly trained cop making an error. Why are women magically exempt from being hit? Is my womb some sort of great, sucking vaccuum, that if you destroy its structural integrity I’ll implode? Because if so, I should really start being more careful. > [@](#): > > Whatever degree of “assault” you think this terribly dangerous woman perpetrated on this poor defensive cop, you have to admit he went over the line. No I don’t. > [@Zeriel](#): > > I think I may have just fallen in love with you. I get that a lot. Well, that and blinding hatred. > [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > But, but… it bears no relation to me or my posting style, except in the eyes of complete fucking morons, so why is it so clever? It’s clever because it satirizes exactly how fucking moronic your “understanding” of how things work is. > [@AWB](#): > > Although respect for police is not as high as it should be in urban settings. I think the police often \*deserve \*very little _respect_. What they \*do \*deserve is **lawful compliance**. If you are stupid enough to grab or strike an officer–especially one who is attempting to legally arrest or detain someone–I think that the officer in question is absolutely within their rights to hit you in the face. > [@Stratocaster](#): > > But I find it sickening how easily people decide what they would have done in a tense, dangerous situation–after the fact, speculating from the comfort of their living rooms–second-guessing people who actually put themselves in harm’s way and are forced to exercise split-second judgment because of other people’s misbehavior. There’s a pretty small group of people here saying the cop was out of line. Most of us seem to be saying that the punch was entirely justified. > [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > It’s not like she’d have been at risk of fleeing the country, had he just let her walk away, and then picked her up when he had back-up. 1.) You think that police officers should just let people resist arrest whenever they want to? If I don’t agree with why I’m being arrested, I should be able to just walk away? :dubious: 2.) How, exactly, was the officer supposed to be able to pick the girl up again later? Tag her with a tracking dart? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Wtf is an officer doing out on duty alone in this day and age, anyway? Now \*there \*I’ll agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/276 "2010-06-21T16:02:10Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Happens all the time. I haven’t seen the planet judder to a halt yet. If the authorities were really concerned, they’d have 30 mph limiters on all public-owned vehicles. Right, because it makes perfect sense to allow pedestrians to indiscriminately inhibit the flow of traffic on actual roadways. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/277 "2010-06-21T16:55:25Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Hands up if you think the way to handle a potentially hostile situation in which you are trying to arrest an excitable woman on your own, is to punch said woman’s companion in the face? It depends. What is “said woman’s companion” doing while you’re trying to effect the arrest? ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/278 "2010-06-21T17:18:10Z")
The cop in the video met the level of force he encountered appropriately. The punch in the face means that girl didn’t get tased, struck with a baton or shot. He stopped her from doing something that would have endangered everyone around them with rationality and it seems with no prejudice. It’s about the jay walking until it isn’t. The girl who got punched had it coming, the girl who got arrested probably didn’t, until she started fighting. Ivan is four square against 90% of authority, given his self-reported past (IIRC). His bad treatment by any LE officials was likely (at least in part) deserved if he’s honest with himself, and he likely would have done that and worse, were he on the other side of the law. The real world does not exist in the vacuum in which that and most video attempts to portray it. Cops do bad things sometimes, no one in their right mind would say otherwise, this however, was not one of those times. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/279 "2010-06-21T17:51:33Z")
Okay. The cop is just doing his job, which on this particular day, involves targetting jaywalkers. He’s just spotted one offender and he is giving them a ticket, I suppose? Then, as he is dealing with said offender, a group of gang-banging types cross the road at the same time. Tell me the police officer is going to try and ticket them all, and you are lying. And any officer that did try to ticket them would be a power-mad moron. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557/280 "2010-06-21T17:57:05Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Okay. The cop is just doing his job, which on this particular day, involves targetting jaywalkers. He’s just spotted one offender and he is giving them a ticket, I suppose? Then, as he is dealing with said offender, a group of gang-banging types cross the road at the same time. > > Tell me the police officer is going to try and ticket them all, and you are lying. And any officer that did try to ticket them would be a power-mad moron. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the incident that prompted this thread. You are wrong, wrong, wrong, and no attempt to spin it or invent facts is going to change that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-someone-from-jaywalking-punch-them-in-the-face/543557.md?page=15)