Yeah, protecting victims is good law. It’s the other one I’m not sure about. The good of publicizing suspects’ names probably outweighs the bad, but it definitely sucks for innocent people who get dragged through the mud.
Agree completely. Especially with rape I could understand wanting to empower any additional victims to come forward, but it’s quite the gamble if the arrested person is innocent.
In this case, I doubt they’ll be any lasting harm. In a few weeks most people will have forgotten Derek Blumquist’s name.
We live in a world where people’s reputations could be lost based on false suspicion, yet actual perpetrators, even convicted ones, may live lives relatively free of consequence for reprehensible actions. It all seems kind of arbitrary.
I agree this is not a great example. The guy was pretty clearly innocent from the get-go.
Sorry but that’s nonsense. I don’t know if you’ve played sport but a sturdy gent at a jogging pace hitting a slight woman is easily enough to send her flying.
I play football and in the hurly-burly of the game it is fairly common for a couple of players to knock into each other by accident and even at relatively low speeds if you are not prepared for it and brace for it then even the largest person can be sent flying by even a slight body-check.
Try it yourself. Get someone small to walk towards a jogging man and have them collide and record the results. The forces involved at even low speeds are substantial.
In the direction of the force, not perpendicular.
He put a little english on it?
If that’s how you want to spin it.
I have no idea what he meant, and generally agree with those giving it secondary, at most, weight. The video shows what is IMO clearly negligent and reckless disregard for someone else’s life in actions that could easily have cost the other person their life, which is a crime. Barring other evidence of intent to harm, it’s mind reading to claim that was the case.
Like attributing a racial motive to somebody who doesn’t see the same way you do. You’ve demonstrated the psychological experiment where people bring in race to situations without any actual facts pointing to it as a factor.
AFAIK the policy of the British police in a case like this would be not to release the name. And media accounts just relying on police statements said they didn’t even mention the name on announcing the guy have been eliminated as a suspect, see this WAPO article.
“The 41-year-old man, whom police did not name, was released after he gave an adequate alibi…”
So it would seem either somebody in police leaked the name, violating policy policy for which they might be fired or even charged themselves if found, or else the press found out some other way, perhaps from whoever tipped the police to look at this guy in the first place*. Either way the press could be criticized for publishing it but it’s pretty useless criticism assuming somebody is willing to leak it.
In the US the police would have given the press the name.
The bizarre thing though is how at least some British media online editions reported the guy being cleared still featuring big pictures of him, alongside stills from the video with the actual guy’s face pixellated out. I don’t know if that was to supposedly protect the guy from people then saying ‘no that really looks like him, why did they clear him?’ but kind of looks like protecting the ‘privacy’ of the actually guilty party when still plastering the picture of somebody now known to have had nothing to do with it. Strange, IMO.
Also on getting a lawyer, I think there’s artificial knee jerk if Brits are saying innocent people don’t want solicitors with them when questioned by the police. Lots of Americans submit to police questioning without a lawyer too but there’s no reason to think it’s any less a dumb idea in the UK than US. Police in neither place are exactly what you see in TV/movies about either. But in either case their interests are not yours if there’s any shred of a reason to think they are questioning you because they ‘like’ you for a crime they are investigating.
Besides which it’s not even clear AFAIK the guy wouldn’t talk at all to the police without a solicitor, just that he got one to make a public statement on his behalf. That’s not the reason for the shabby treatment, which is to sell newspapers and get clicks, especially with a possible ‘prototypical villain’ (City investment banker, and a Yank no less) caught for a high profile crime.
*they didn’t pick him randomly. Have they reached the point where they can feed everyone’s picture, including foreign residents, into face recognition software v video?
Well I guess not even if they thought they could do it that way: wrong guy. But more likely it seems somebody told the police they thought they recognized this guy from the video.
No, this is important: Aceplace57 is American, not British.
His suggestion of speaking up for oneself may be wise or otherwise, but he is not British.
Some Britons may eschew legal help; but Aceplace is American, not British.
Aw some, on. Football players are notorious for faking injuries. I’ve seen some Oscar-worthy performances, where the “victim” flies backward and writhes on the ground, clutching some body part, and in seeming agony…only to pop back up after they draw a yellow/red card. So it’s hard to know where drama ends and physics begins with you fellows.
I wasn’t quoting anyone specifically so don’t know how you’d be sure I was referring to Aceplace57, which I wasn’t but another poster. But the point stands IMO whether or not the different poster I was actually referring to is British or not but claims it’s really different in Britain. The two legal systems aren’t really that different (the US being derived from the British more than not, of course) and in both it’s not the job of the police to be advocates for innocent people who might appear to be plausible suspects. That’s what defense lawyers/solicitors are for, so best to use one if there’s any reasonable chance the police might be sizing you up as a suspect in questioning you. IANAL nor particularly pro-lawyer, not reflexively anti-police either.
I’d call a lawyer in the majority of situations with the police.
This case was a bit unique. The suspect was several thousand miles away when the crime occurred.
Why wouldn’t you clear that up by showing the cop your digital charges & receipts for the airline reservations? It will clearly show when you left and when you got back. The cop has what he needs to verify your story.
If the cop persists with additional questions, then you absolutely need to ask for a lawyer.
Nah look freeze the video, he pushes here with his right arm.
Does not even look back either.
Yea, he is a prick, who ever he may be.
[Sorry, I’m not good at multi-quote quoting so I only have Go_Arachnid’s response quoted here]
Go_Arachnid_Laser. In post #69 You implied that I and four other posters have claimed that the jogger in the video attempted to kill the woman.
I never claimed that at all and in the other posts you quoted I saw no claim of attempted murder by the other quoted posters either.
Why do you believe we all argued the jogger attempted to kill the woman?
Notice this poster hasn’t been back in the thread since it was pointed out (twice) that intent to push or shove does not equal intent to kill. We were all arguing that the shove was intentional, while this poster mistakenly thought that we were arguing that the intention was to cause the woman’s death. Instead of coming back in and saying “Oops, sorry, I misunderstood” the poster you are questioning just quietly … disappeared.
You are trying to make complicated something that is actually very simple. To repeat, Bellquist’s lawyers released his name to the press.
Is there another video of this that I’m not seeing? The only one I’ve seen so far is blurry and in the distance with no way of knowing the direction of the fall. What I can see is not conclusive at all. Neither in diversion of the runner, “push” with the arm or direction of fall.
Note, he is a dick for not stopping but absent of any clearer video evidence I’m going to withold accusations of malice aforethought here.
The video in the OP. Watch all the way through, the video repeats in slow motion.
His altering course and shoulder check is clear.