Here’s the link to what happened. With a video when you scroll down. What we know is that a cyclist, who had evidently exchanged words with the driver, uses his bike to block the path of the car at a busy intersection in Greenwich Village during something called “Fashion Night Out”. (He shows up in the video at about 2:45.) The crowd of young people finally decide to dance on stomp on the guy’s car and taunt him. Eventually they even break some of the windows (at least the back one). This goes on for quite a while.
My question is, what can a driver do? This guy decided to stay in the car and just wait it out, which was probably wise as far as his health goes. But I’m interested in the one guy on the bike who prevented the guy’s escape. I’ll start off by saying that if they guy hit the gas and ran the douchebag over and I was on the jury trying him, that driver is getting off, and then I’d buy him a beer.
To me, it’s not different then if the someone held a gun to the guy and forced him to stay there while his property is destroyed. And the crowd get more frenetic, putting him in danger as their asshattery escalates. Now in the beginning of the video, you can see the cyclist. I’m definitely of the mind that the cops should track this little scumbag down and the DA should charge him with everything he can think of. For instance, isn’t their a law that makes it a crime to someone to hold someone against their will? Could, should that apply to the situation like the one in the link? What else could this little douche be charged with?
Secondarily, I think that the cops should try to find every kid that jumped on that car and charge him, too. But the heart of my anger is reserved to that douchebag cyclist. Even though I’m a cyclist, I watch it over and imagine the driver, after a minute or two when things start to get ugly, just slowly rolling over him and going about his evening.
You know, you raise a good point. If some douche is blocking my car, I can’t just run him over but what if I’m being blocked and I fear for my safety? Does it make a difference if the guy blocking me is not the immediate threat? Is he abetting in any way since seeing I am in danger he prevents my escape?
Oh and holding someone against their will even if you do not move them is kidnapping in California (IIRC).
At the 3:34 mark, the cyclist yells at the driver, “[unintelligible) It’s not Alabama, Motherfucker!” providing a hint as to what may have started it.
Riots are like internal-combustion engines. A single spark starts them and they continue running mindlessly all on their own.
The cyclist will be toast, if he isn’t by now. One or more of the mob will flip him like a bubbling pancake when threatened with charges that could ruin life forever after, especially if dealing with police and a prosecutor is a familiar experience.
Yeah, mobs are might scary things. People in mobs will do things they would never do on their own. And when things start to escalate, all bets are off.
I watched the whole video and I see your point about the bicyclist being a jerk. Somehow though, my guess is that if he were interviewed he would ask what in the world that car and the others were doing trying to drive through mobs of people in an area which was adjacent to the one closed for the fashion expo, regardless of who had the right of way. What I really question is why you are so angry at the cyclist as compared to the people who stomped all over the guy’s car.
Seems to me that running down the biker would be considered “deadly force” under New York law. So I think the main question is whether the driver could have reasonably believed that the biker (and those acting in concert with him) were using or about to use deadly force. It doesn’t seem that the crowd quite reached that point although it may have gotten close. So it seems that the driver is kinda screwed – he has to accept being humiliated and having the car damaged by the crowd and cannot resort to self help.
Hopefully the biker will be publicly and aggressively prosecuted. Even if whoever was driving the car violated his right of way, he had no business escalating the situation to that point. A few choice curse-words would have been sufficient.
I would have plowed on through, slowly enough that the cyclist could have gotten out of the way or gotten squashed, entirely up to him. But I would have been on my way. I would not have waited around to see if the mob would have pulled me from the car. That was scary.
You can’t be serious. He caused the whole thing to happen. And his insistence of not moving allowed the situation to continually escalate. First you have some kids dancing around his car while holding on to it. Then you get dancing on the car. Then you get stomping on the car, then a broken window. All made possible by that little punk. As I mentioned, anyone who danced on or stomped on his car and caused damage should be prosecuted. But that little prick kept that guy captive, not allowing him to escape.
One might even be able to defend the cyclist confronting the guy, or impeding him for a few seconds as they exchanged words. But the kid witnessed the escalation of events and still stood there. If there’s anyone who is deserving a a monumental ass-beating it’s that punk. He deserves to be in prison for a time.
And let the asshole kid try to argue that the guy shouldn’t have been driving there. He’s wrong. The road was not closed. and I think it’s pretty safe to say that anyone driving a car would prefer to be on uncrowded streets. But he found himself there, he wanted to leave, but couldn’t. Why? That little prick. I’d love to show that tape to a jury with that punk on trial.
Another question that comes to mind after reading the info brazil84 supplied: is aggressively fleeing a seen where you feel in jeopardy an offensive move or a defensive one. I’d say the latter. You want to remove yourself from an unsafe situation and if someone is intentionally trying to prevent you from fleeing, his action is the offensive one, you’re just trying to protect yourself. I guess another question is, to what degree could a riotous mob be viewed to be a threat to one’s life? Mobs are scary things, and I don’t think anyone should be expected to see if it will frenzy up to the point where deadly violence occurs.
Whether it’s offensive or defensive, it’s still arguably deadly force if he flees using his car.
Agreed, but the question is when are you legally (or morally) justified in using deadly force to protect yourself? New York’s legislature has made the judgment that (generally) you need to reasonably believe that the other fellow is using or is about to use deadly force against you.
I think this is probably the correct judgment, at least if you are in a public space.
The situation in the video is a close call – you are correct that mobs can get violent very quickly. On balance, I would say that it had not escalated to the point where the driver would have been legally or morally justified in hitting the gas and running down the biker.
I understand the chest thumping rhetoric and hyperbole, but do you really think the cyclist should be in prison for an extended period of time? That he should be locked in with murderers, rapists, and child molesters because someone’s Audi was damaged? And you know next to nothing about this bicyclist (who could be a complete douchebag) or what precipitated the event, yet you’re willing to lock him up and potentially ruin his life?
I think that kind of visceral reaction is a major reason the idiots in the mob began beating on the car in the first place. The inflamed rhetoric and macho posturing (monumental ass beating? Really?) is the problem, not the solution.
It’s not clear from the video, but it looks like the cyclist became complicit in the violence even if that was not his original intention. And one of the reasons not commit crimes of any kind is that you get locked up with murderers, mother rapists, and father rapists. Even for as minor an offense as littering.
Tough call, and it’s easy to think it over in the safety of my house. I would probably have bolted as soon as people started jumping on the car. And, again, I would have slowly plowed on through, so that idiots like the cyclist could get out the way (or not, up to him). I would not be punching the gas and leaving in a wave of mangled people. I think. Again, easy to decide the proper course after the fact and when I’m not the guy sitting in the car.
Prison isn’t fungible. There are the sorts of prisons you see on TV where everyone has tattoos and dreams about anally raping Tim Robbins, and then there’s minimum security prison, where everyone around you is only there for embezzlement or not paying their car parking fines, and mostly worried about that criminal charge they’re going to have to explain to future employers.
Uh, no. I didn’t say “extended”. YOU said extended. But yes, through him into prison.
If one could know ahead of time that the only thing that would happen is that a car would be damaged, this wouldn’t be as big a deal. But everything escalated. The guy was increasingly terrorized. They went from dancing around the vehicle, to dancing on it, to stomping on it and breaking windows. That douchebag made it all possible by preventing that guy from leaving the scene. So, yes, lock him up with whomever else is in there. That’s not my concern. My concern is to not have assholes like that do that to another guy. Where the next time, an innocent person’s head is what gets stomped.
Oh, cry me a river. Here’s the thing: don’t want to be grouped in with assholes and be treated like them, don’t act like them. Seems pretty easy. People should be held accountable for their actions. Especially when they are so dangerous.
Please. The guy was locked in his car. The crowd went from just having raucous fun to getting violent, as mobs are wont to do. That’s what makes them so dangerous and scary. And that’s why if that guy ran that douchebag over trying to get out of there I think he should be given a medal.
I’d say you’re probably right up until windows get broken. His situation gets watched up considerably once that happens. We can’t see that on the video, but we do know that at least one window got smashed. And that point, I think the guy is justified in getting out of there. Now, as it turns out, he chose the right course of action, as the cops finally showed up. But I don’t think he was required to wait any longer. I think he should have gently rolled ahead giving the douche ample opportunity to move. If he didn’t and wanted to ascribe to the level of Rachel Corey stupidity, well, the world’s got plenty of stupid in it.