Crying shame. Acting like an obnoxious prick oughta be considered implicit consent to at least get smacked upside the head.
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. 
Yeah, true enough, but at least it has Tula’s and the Two Bells to make up for it.
Shitholes are like opinions: we all have to agree on one.
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.
Here’s 2007.
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.
: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.
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.
(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.
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.
Fuck! I thought those were Spanish wine skins!