# Little shits on a train **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 26, 2011, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404 "2011-12-26T06:35:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/121 "2011-12-30T16:10:12Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I would have to see a citation. Generally speaking, “consent to battery” applies to things such as surgery and contact sports, not to being beaten up just because you were behaving obnoxiously. Crying shame. Acting like an obnoxious prick oughta be considered implicit consent to at least get smacked upside the head. ---
**Author:** ![FlyByNight512](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/82dd89/32.png) [@FlyByNight512](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyByNight512)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/122 "2011-12-30T19:30:47Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I would have to see a citation. Generally speaking, “consent to battery” applies to things such as surgery and contact sports, not to being beaten up just because you were behaving obnoxiously. Yup, on further research you appear to be right about that. “Consent to battery” isn’t a law, rather it’s a legal doctrine that applies to tort law. Sports and medical treatment involve lots of actions that meet the legal definition of battery, but as long as you stepped onto the playing field knowing what to expect you can’t sue for it (barring extraordinary circumstances). Other than some sketchy-looking online guides, I couldn’t find any clear statement that consent to battery applies to brawling. My original source (a college professor who’d once been a cop) was either confused or exaggerating. Searching for the term “mutual combat” doesn’t bring up a nice concise definition, but it may be closer to what I (and the cop/professor) was thinking of. I also found a couple sets of definitions for assault and battery for the purposes of tort law, and it appears that the little shits’ actions met both definitions (threatening harm, contact via thrown material). So if he could find them the older guy could probably sue and win, although I doubt he’d be awarded much in the way of damages. [QUOTE=Kobal2] Crying shame. Acting like an obnoxious prick oughta be considered implicit consent to at least get smacked upside the head. [/QUOTE] I couldn’t agree more. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Philliam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/philliam/32/3011_2.png) [@Philliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philliam)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/123 "2012-01-02T01:58:17Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > I can’t argue with that really, everyone’s got their own line. But the two predominating features of Belltown are giant condo buildings and, to use the vernacular, ‘douchebag’ bars. It’s not particularly a run down neighborhood. It happens to be a relatively moneyed area with a lot of homeless service agencies embedded in it. There’s more drug dealers downtown at 3rd and Pike at any given time than you will ever find in Belltown. Yeah, true enough, but at least it has Tula’s and the Two Bells to make up for it. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/124 "2012-01-02T18:32:29Z")
> [@Bad\_News\_Baboon](#): > > This thread is odd because it’s as if people are implying only one place can have shitholes: > “San Francisco has shithole parts of town” > “oh yeah? Then about Chicago, hmmm?” Shitholes are like opinions: we all have to agree on one. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2012, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/125 "2012-01-03T23:38:56Z")
> [@FlyByNight512](#): > > Grr. Maybe the rest of you will think this is small potatoes - and I’m pretty sure it happens everywhere, every day - but this pissed me right off, so I’m ranting. > > I was riding home on the light rail yesterday when four kids got on. Three looked to be junior high age (all under 5’) and the fourth was probably in high school. They were chanting a rap song at the top of their lungs. As far as I could tell, the lyrics consisted entirely of variations on “shit fuckin’ bitch” and other such pleasantries. I have no problem with well-placed profanity, but this was not it. They sat in the very back row of the car, right behind me. > > A middle-aged guy two rows in front of me told them to knock it off… This reminds me of something I saw back when I worked in downtown Chicago and took the El to and from work. The El car was not terribly packed - a lot of seats were taken, but I don’t recall many people standing. A couple or three Black (this is relevant) teenage boys got on, talking trash and throwing around various racial and sexual epithets. A Black man happened to be sitting nearby, and he started talking to them. I couldn’t hear everything, but what I did hear went like this: [QUOTE=Anonymous man on the train] I was traveling in the South. Some white guy called me “nigger.” I got the attention of a nearby cop and complained, “That guy over there just called me a nigger.” The cop just shrugged and told me that people talk like that, and what did I expect him to do about it? Think about that when you throw words around. [/QUOTE] The teenagers shut the hell up for the rest of their ride. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/126 "2012-01-04T09:22:44Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > You can cite that then, can’t you? 'Cause I resubscribed to the Post approximately one minute after I got back in town, and I watch the local news on Channel 4 almost every night, and I’ve seen nothing in or on the news that gang crimes are going up. Here’s [2007](http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5034516). A few years after that, I was at MHS and an inservice day with officers told us quite clearly that there was a resurgence of a gang problem. Maybe the gang problems are worse in Aurora or NE Denver, I don’t know. I’m just saying what I’ve been hearing from PD (Aurora, Arapahoe & Denver) from being a teacher and working in schools. I’ve been told that gangs are becoming a problem again like how it was in the 90s. As in, it’s headed there. I see it in the number of suspensions that have gone up in schools. (I teach those kids now.) I hear it. They aren’t necessarily violent kids or anything. Just how it is, I guess. Maybe I am being all get off my lawnish. I guess I see it every day, so I don’t have reason to doubt my teacher friends who teach in ‘less rough but rough’ schools. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/127 "2012-01-04T15:34:32Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Here’s [2007](http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5034516). :rolleyes: That’s certainly an up-to-date look at the issue. And even according to that article, that resurgence peaked in 2004. You seem to think that I am arguing that there is no gang problem in Denver. I am not. I am arguing that there is no evidence that the gang problem in Denver is returning to the glory days of 1993. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/128 "2012-01-04T15:41:28Z")
If there’s a rising gang issue in Denver, I can see it returning to those days. It doesn’t mean it will. but it is a problem. And part of ‘those days’ was the memory of a very shitty summer. When gangs target non-gang members, it becomes an issue. But kids in gangs? Psssht. Practically a rite of passage in some neighborhoods. Of the last 3 youth deaths I’ve noticed in the Denver area (read: _noticed_) this school year, all 3 had some kind of relation to gangs and one student of mine or another. Just because the paper doesn’t say it doesn’t mean it isn’t so. The DPD isn’t going to label something a gang crime without solid proof. It doesn’t mean, however, that the crimes aren’t gang related or that the kids don’t belong to gangs. Whether or not these kids are hardcore Latin Kings, Crips, Bloods, whatever, almost doesn’t matter with the OP. It’s the mentality. ---
**Author:** ![smaje1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@smaje1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smaje1)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/129 "2012-01-04T18:31:25Z")
> [@Haredye](#): > > Again if it were \*\*your \*\*kids \*\*you’d \*\*be screaming bloody murder that \*\*your \*\*pwecious ittle angels were just misunderstood and they really didn’t mean it and how dare you accuse them of such a thing and other bullshit. Sure \*\*you’d \*\*let them sit in jail for a few hours.:dubious::dubious::dubious: > Sure you’d let them be convicted of a felony.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: (bolding mine) Haredye, you are using the word “you” to describe a very specific person on this board. Surely there are some parents who would defend their “pwecious ittle angels” for such punk-ass behavior, but it only makes you look silly to insist that everyone would do the same. My child is only 1 year old, but if she grew into a teenager who harrassed folks on a public train and actually threw shit at them (i.e., committed a felony), I would be the first in line to ask the cops to lock her up for the night. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/130 "2012-01-04T18:35:20Z")
> [@FlyByNight512](#): > > Because the largest of the little shits offered to fight the guy who told them to knock it off. (“You want to go?” is a challenge to fight.) I forgot to address this point. The “fighting words” doctrine is about speech that is not protected under the First Amendment. In other words, under this doctrine, the government can punish you for using “fighting words.” Like the concept of consent to battery, it’s not a free pass for people who want to beat you up because you said something nasty. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404/131 "2012-01-06T02:03:18Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > I can’t argue with that really, everyone’s got their own line. But the two predominating features of Belltown are giant condo buildings and, to use the vernacular, ‘douchebag’ bars. Fuck! I thought those were Spanish wine skins! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-shits-on-a-train/607404.md?page=6)