# Video beating: Just assault?!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-beating-just-assault/119622
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 18, 2002, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-beating-just-assault/119622 "2002-07-18T14:50:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@peasea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peasea)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2002, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-beating-just-assault/119622/1 "2002-07-18T14:50:56Z")
The officer in the tape who threw the punch, Jeremy Morse, has been [charged](http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/07/18/inglewood.indictment/index.html) with assault, which carries a maximum penalty of three years. As far as I know, assault doesn’t include any actual contact, just the _threat_ of violence. Why wasn’t this guy charged with battery? I searched other related threads here, but didn’t see mention of the charges against Morse. If I missed one, please let me know.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2002, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-beating-just-assault/119622/2 "2002-07-18T15:06:43Z")
That’s true in the older common law sense of the terms, a battery is causing a harmful or offensive contact and an assault is putting someone in reasonable apprehension of a battery. Nowadays, though, some state penal codes just use the term “assault” generically for intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury or offensive contact to another or threatening the same. Here in TX we have assault, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault, etc. No mention of battery, but it’s more or less the same thing.
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### Author:  [@peasea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peasea)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2002, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-beating-just-assault/119622/3 "2002-07-18T18:11:58Z")
The [California Penal Code](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacodes/pen.html) has definitions of both [assault and battery](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacodes/pen/240-248.html):
> [@](#):
>
> 1. An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another.
> …
> 2. A battery is any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another.
Now, I just noticed that he was actually charged with “assault under the color of authority,” according to CNN. I could not find that crime or “battery under the color of authority” in that Penal Code link, though, so I’m still at a loss.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2002, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-beating-just-assault/119622/4 "2002-07-18T23:34:09Z")
Well, shoot, me too then. I’ll try to root around some for it when I get back home tonight.