Look, the issue is that you clearly think that the beating served as punitive.
All the talk about teaching a lesson, and who deserved getting their asses kicked and who deserves a medal, is all a bunch of bullshit. You praise the action because of its punitive nature, and then turn around and ask for a cite about it?
You can’t have it both ways. Argue till the cows come home about what counts as legitimate self-defense (and I might even agree with you), but in the U S of Fuckin’-A, we don’t teach people lessons by beating the shit out of them, no matter how much you think they deserve it.
And you see the cashier’s defense cease as soon as he realizes at least one of two things:
His assailants have been subdued - From his perspective, bodily movement may means the threat is still be present; it’s a grey area, and views will often differ between a victim’s perception and an onlooker’s perception on what constitutes an ongoing threat.
He now nows he has an ally; someone has finally intervened in the situation.
Up until that point, everyone else stands around with their thumbs up their asses. No one bothers to intervene as the cashier is assaulted. He is surrounded by people who know what is happening, but fail to intervene. He is effectively alone in the situation for those moments, and acts as a lone individual would upon assault from multiple individuals.
I was once subject to an attempted strong-arm mugging. It happened in full view of at least three dozen people. The situaltion escalated from verbal threats to physical assault, and I tried to maintain control of the situation as best as I could. I’m not a small individual, and I was able to contain the first attacker, while a second attacker tried to knock me down from behind. In an attempt to find aid, I actually made eye contact with several people in the crowd, only to see them immediately look away. Most people are fucking cowards, but I can’t blame them; they don’t want to become victims themselves.
The point is that I was alone in the crowd. If I had had the opportunity to get to a weapon, you’d better believe I would have used it. And if I had cracked one of their skulls in the process, my actions would have been justified and legal. And if they continued to move toward me, even on the ground, I would have done whatever I felt was necesarry. Luckily, a freind returned to the area, and the thugs realized that it was more trouble than it was worth, and scurried off. Had I lost my footing at any point during the altercation, I could have been stomped into unconsciousness or worse.
The cashier had no aid until the end, and he did what he felt was necessary to prevent injury from his attackers. I’m not saying that he could not have stopped earlier, but it is far too easy to say it in hindsight as a casual observer. A fight or flight response is about self-preservation. He had no idea if or when the assault would stop, and he took measures to ensure his safety. As Martin Hyde tells above, an assault is not necesarrily over just because the perpetrator(s) is on the ground.
With the above interpreted in light of the reasonable person test in Goetz that considers the person’s background.
A more useful hypothetical would be to ask what the fellow with the metal bar would have done if a cop had been standing beside him at the time. Was his mental state such that he still would have continued the beating of the people on the ground, or would he have stopped in the presence of the cop. That’s one way that that the modified M’Naghten test can be applied in some jurisdictions where the defence of irrestible impulse is permitted.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I think you are trying to make the claim that the hypothetical cop’s presence would make the cashier stop his defensive action because the cashier thinks he is doing something wrong. If I stop attempting to put out a fire because the fire department shows up, that doesn’t mean I thought I was doing something wrong. It just means that someone better qualified showed up and my actions were no longer necessary.
The key difference in your hypothetical is that it is (more or less) universally known that a police officer has a duty to act. You can count on a cop to step in and provide aid against an attacker, and as such, you can drop your guard. Your typical crowd can not be counted on to act. In fact, it is just as likely that they will stand around and do nothing as was the case here.
Policeman at the person’s elbow, as in a little angel on his shoulder dressing in a Bobby’s uniform stage whispering in his ear: “What you are doing is wrong.” If the person was in such a mental state as to not be able to stop despite hearing the officer’s warning, then irresitable impulse might succeed. If the person’s mental state should have not stood in the way of the person stopping, then the defence of irrestible impulse would fail. (Note: I do not know if such a defence is permitted in NY).
BTW, you wouldn’t happen to be esquiring about in Vegas, would you?
I think it’s punitive only to the extent that if someone punches you and you punch them back and break his nose is punitive. I think the beating is righteous. It should be that everyone who acts like those two douchebags did gets a beating like that.
Something punitive would come after the initial incident is over. Like if he now went over to one of their house and beat her again. Now, one could argue that the end of the beating was punitive. Maybe it was. And maybe it wasn’t. But there was only a couple seconds separating the righteous blows. For now, Mr. Cashier gets the benefit of any doubt.
For those that consider the fact that the instigators in this story were unarmed women to be irrelevant, let me pose this question; if everything in this story were the same except that the perps were, say, 11 yr old girls, would you feel the same way about the employee’s actions?
Here is a much more clear and unedited copy of video:
Sure looks to me like he fought them off, and once they were down he only gave them a couple of wacks. Fair enough.
Then about four seconds later, after another employee had cautioned him, he started up again on the burgers that were on the floor. Not good.
Then, after another pause of abourt eight seconds, during which time his fellow employee further cautioned him and tried to pull the metal bar away from him, he went back to thrashing the trash on the floor. Very bad.
I think that the cautions and the pauses between the thrashings served to show that he stepped past delf-defence, and crossed into vengeful beatdown.
Of the people in this thread that say they have been in fights I wonder how many have been in a real life or possible death struggle? School yard brawls do not really count. The simple truth is most people never have had a grown adult coming at them with malice, let alone with an accomplice covering their back. Thank the gods for that. I hope nobody ever has to witness such an event, let alone be the focus point for one. Anyone who has never been in such a situation hasn’t a single clue how they would actually act. In truth, I’ve never really been in this sort of circumstance, but I’ve trained for it for some time. Because of my training and attitude I’ve defused and walked away from a confrontation or two, but the key words here are “my training.” The average person on the street never will be involved in something like this cashier and for that we should all be thankful.
Once more, I think he probably over reacted, but I think it might be possible that it’s entirely understandable in this instance. However, given the fact that most of the western population has never witnessed this sort of violence directly, let alone been involved in it I think their reactions and judgements are not valid. However, for those that think this man went over and beyond what was required, I think it’s likely that the dude is fucked.
Oh, and still think the news piece was appalling in the way it was biased.
Christ, almost everyone is saying that it was OK for him to hit them back with a metal bar, even though they weren’t armed. I agree, and said so in the other thread, but if I or anyone else were truly castigating the man for fighting back then surely we’d be claiming he should have fought with his bare hands?
But no - they came behind the counter and there were two of them, so hitting them with a weapon was an entirely understandable reaction. Especially since he sufficiently bigger than them that it was unlikely they could take the weapon off him.
It’s hitting them when they were down that’s the problem. Pause, wait (a few seconds is long enough), hear coworkers shouting stop, hit the people on the ground again.
TBH, those of you who think that was a wonderful thing for him to do: you’re fucking psychos. Absolute pathetic people with serious malfunctions in your perception of the world. Fortunately I suspect most of you are also too physically weak to enact your violent fantasies.
