# So, someone in your town is a Wife Beater. Do you report them? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 24, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532 "2015-02-24T17:41:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/21 "2015-02-24T23:17:32Z")
Only if you witness it on some level yourself. Have your phone handy to record it too, should it come to this. Be darned sure that he can’t find out you called, because you could be his next victim when he gets out. Otherwise, it’s not your circus and not your monkeys either. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/22 "2015-02-25T00:22:22Z")
> [@buddy431](#): > > Sure, literally it’s the prosecutor who will “press charges”. But if a wife says “no, I’m not going to testify against my husband”, you don’t have a case. Not true. There are some prosecutors? jurisdictions? that have made it a policy to prosecute domestic abusers regardless of the opposition of the abused spouse. How they build their cases, I’m not sure. I imagine photos of the victims and medical records of the victims play a role, perhaps with some aggressive interviews with friends, family and neighbors. Cases can be built if enough effort and resources are spent pursuing them. And that’s the biggest change from the past – these cases didn’t seem worth the effort in the past, and they stayed that way until enough people in authority decided they are worth it. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/23 "2015-03-03T00:02:21Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Not true. There are some prosecutors? jurisdictions? that have made it a policy to prosecute domestic abusers regardless of the opposition of the abused spouse. How they build their cases, I’m not sure. I imagine photos of the victims and medical records of the victims play a role, perhaps with some aggressive interviews with friends, family and neighbors. Cases can be built if enough effort and resources are spent pursuing them. And that’s the biggest change from the past – these cases didn’t seem worth the effort in the past, and they stayed that way until enough people in authority decided they are worth it. And sometimes the abuser makes an admission to the cops who show up and sometimes there is a third party witness or it’s caught on a security video -I myself have seen all three of those situations and I’m sure there are other possibilities. It may be impossible to build a case without the victim’s testimony - but that is not nearly the same as the victim having the choice about whether to prosecute. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/24 "2015-03-03T02:34:40Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > It’s been 25 years at least when I awoke one night to find my neighbor beating his wife out on the front lawn. I got dressed, went outside, cocked my 9mm and aimed it point blank at his head while informing him that if he laid one more blow on her in front of me that he would die where he stood. I’m glad it worked. But this is something I would never do. Because a more common scenario is this: 1. You witness a man beating up woman. 2. You point a gun at the man. You yell, “Stop, now! Stop!!” 3. He stops. And then comes after _ **you** _. :eek: 4. You can’t shoot him, since you put yourself in the situation. (Note: _never_ play cop.) Now you have to fight him or run. 5. He punches you hard in the face before you can run. You go down, he goes down. You’re both fighting on the ground. 6. The woman screams, “Get your hands off my man!!!” 7. Now the man _ **and** _ the woman are beating you up. :o ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/25 "2015-03-03T02:48:05Z")
You pull the gun, you’d better be ready to pull the trigger. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/26 "2015-03-03T03:02:21Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > It’s been 25 years at least when I awoke one night to find my neighbor beating his wife out on the front lawn. I got dressed, went outside, cocked my 9mm and aimed it point blank at his head while informing him that if he laid one more blow on her in front of me that he would die where he stood. She came over to my house, stayed for a few hours and then went back over to him. Next day he apologized for his behavior and I never heard a peep out of them again. > > Guess I could have called the cops, but where is the fun in doing that? 😃 Sounds like a bluff that could very well be called, what if he kept hitting her anyway? If you shoot him, I’m pretty sure you would be in legal hot water, it’s not exactly self-defense or Stand Your Ground is it? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/27 "2015-03-03T05:06:46Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Sounds like a bluff that could very well be called, what if he kept hitting her anyway? If you shoot him, I’m pretty sure you would be in legal hot water, it’s not exactly self-defense or Stand Your Ground is it? Depends on the jurisdiction. Violence in defense of others is a valid defense in many places. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/28 "2015-03-03T09:33:56Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > 1. You can’t shoot him, since you put yourself in the situation. (Note: _never_ play cop.) Now you have to fight him or run. I don’t believe this. Under what legal theory do you give up the right to self-defense because you “put yourself in the situation?” There are all kinds of laws regarding when it’s legal to use deadly force, and they vary by jurisdiction, but I’ve never heard of this one before. From the [California penal code](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=187-199): > [@](#): > > 1. Homicide is also justifiable when committed by any person in > any of the following cases: > 2. When resisting any attempt to murder any person, or to commit a > felony, or to do some great bodily injury upon any person; In other words, in California it’s legal to use deadly force in defense of yourself or another person. This must also mean that it’s legal to threaten to do so. Why would legally defending another person result in giving up the right to defend yourself? Now, threatening to shoot someone in the given situation might be foolish (I’m not saying it is), but not for the reason you gave. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/29 "2015-03-03T11:47:43Z")
IANAL, but I do not believe you can claim self-defense when you have provoked or escalated the situation. Perhaps I have erroneously believed this all these years (and perhaps it varies state by state)… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/30 "2015-03-03T13:13:29Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > IANAL, but I do not believe you can claim self-defense when you have provoked or escalated the situation. Perhaps I have erroneously believed this all these years (and perhaps it varies state by state)… It’s going to vary depending on what state you’re in. But the fact that the man was already beating his wife before you got there makes a reasonable case that you didn’t provoke the situation. You’re probably still going to have to answer some other questions to show that what you did was reasonable: Was the wife in serious danger and was the danger ongoing? Was the danger immediate enough that you couldn’t call the police and had to intervene personally? Was there some other less dangerous action you could have taken to stop the beating? In the situation described, I think there would be acceptable answers to these questions. Of course, in some states, all you’d have to say is that this happened on your property. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/31 "2015-03-03T13:55:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Of course, in some states, all you’d have to say is that this happened on your property. Which ones? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532/32 "2015-03-03T14:17:47Z")
Yes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-someone-in-your-town-is-a-wife-beater-do-you-report-them/713532.md?page=1)