HAHA
yeah... that's all
A German skinhead got a far right going over this week when he tried to nick a pack of cigarettes from a blind man, who just happened be a world-class judo champion. Michael Esser had just bought the pack of tabs, according to Ananova, when the 17 year old yob shouted “Hand them over Stevie”, thought to be a reference to Stevie …
BOF alert
Good thing is was Germany, if it had been the UK the blind guy would be up on assault charges, the ar*ehole would be getting counselling about his smoking problem and the police would be tutting about "have a go civilians", you know "leave it to the professionals" (who will get to the paperwork next Thursday to list your personal mugging as a statistic).
"does this suggest that he was let off without actually being arrested?"
It would probably make no difference anyway. The average sentence, even for serious crimes, seems to be less than than the few minutes this miscreant had already been detained for.
And of course, its the fact that the average sentence is far far far too short that we have to thank for the fact that this guy thought stealing in the street was a commercially-justified calculated risk.
"Good thing is was Germany, if it had been the UK the blind guy would be up on assault charges,"
Rubbish. That only happens in cases of disproportionate violence (kicking someone repeatedly in the head, say, or shooting them in the back). A friend who was jumped by two thugs broke one's arm and got the other down; when they told police they wanted to press charges, they were told in no uncertain terms to "sod off and stop taking the p!ss". And that was Bristol.
David Beck seems to live in "Political Correctness Gone Mad!" land, not the UK.
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I have to admit the British bobbies are generally pretty fair about this sort of thing in spite of the dafter headlines in the press.
My old Jiu-Jitsu instructor got chased up a narrow blind alley by a national front march for shouting something inappropriate. By the time the police got to him he had broken several arms, legs and heads and was happily laying into the remaining skinheads with gay (literally) abandon.
The police arrested him and carted him off to the police station, but then were good enough to explain that it was only because they couldn't get a couple of hundred skinheads into two panda cars and let him of with a tsk, tsk, please don't do it again.
A good and much older buddy of mine (seventy odd at the time) once found himself in a similar situation to Herr Esser. Before anyone else had managed to register that a hazardous situation was about to occur, the tables were turned. The skinhead vermin concerned found himself swiftly subdued by my old drinking buddy (who just happened to have been a royal marine commando who survived things like the Naarvik campaign), who proceeded to offer him (held in a neck lock) around the boozer for "free digs" (no takers - fortunately for all concerned), before the attempted yob was given a good old fashioned kick up the backside and left sprawling outside the pub. The story passed into pub legend, and my bootnecked buddy went peacefully into the afterlife some years later.
Don't you just love it when the good guys come out on top.
... with regards to Police attitudes to self defence. Here in Staffs, my experience is very negative. Not content with simply being incompetent gung-ho wankers who think having a warrant card makes them somehow superior to 'civilians' (they honestly seem to think that Police officers are not civilians), they have frequently, in my personal experience and that of my friends, attempted to press charges against those who defended themselves, apparently on the simple expedient of "Well, the other guys have run off now, so we can't charge them and the stats will look bad if we don't charge someone..."
I wish I was exaggerating. Perhaps I ought to return to Scotland (which, to be fair, I have long intended), like Bristol, Grampian force seemed to have common sense officers and a genuine street presence.
"By the time the police got to him he had broken several arms, legs and heads..."
On the first readthrough, the ambiguous wording here suggested to me that the protagonist in your story hadn't, as turns out to be the case, turned the tide and begun fighting back, but was a poly-limbed, multi-headed genetic freak who had been severely injured by his attackers.
It happens here in NZ.
We are "allowed" to defend ourselves using "reasonable force".
However, being a trained martial artist makes you a weapon and so using a martial art constitutes unreasonable force unless you warned them before hand - and if you do that, the prosecution lawyer in your trial will claim you incited the other to attack you by proclaiming your fighting ability (yep, the poor attacker is not responsible for his actions, you forced him to attack you by bragging about how good you are...) or claim you were "threatening" the poor attacker with violence.
In a lot of cases, a *jury* will let you off by reason of self-defense, but you still have to go through the whole "be arrested, get out on bail, get a lawyer, defend your actions in court" crap while the attacker gets assistance because he came from a "broken home" or some such shit.
Bear in mind that a 6'10, 250-lb gang member with steel-capped boots is "unarmed" and a 5'6" weedy bloke with a black belt in pretty much anything is "armed". "Armed response" is not permitted against said gang member because it's not like he can *kill* you using just his strength, mass and a pair of steel-caps, is it? How dare you use a weapon (martial arts) against such a minor threat.
About the only means of defense you're allowed to use without prosecution is to run away - but you'd better stop when you reach a busy road and let the bugger catch up and beat you because if you were to run across the road and he tried to chase you then was struck by a car and injured, it'd probably be your fault...
Did martial arts for several years in NZ.
Amoungst the people there were several police officers.
Every couple of years they would take aside the senior students and inform
them what the police expected them to do if they were the wrong place
at the wrong time.
I never had any problems with the police ,except they turned up too late,
when this happened to me.
But then I and my mates only did enough to scare the stupid buggers off
and not go out of our way to beat the living daylights out of them.
Perhaps your Marital arts club should have got some police offficers in for a
talk.
Or perhaps you are not speaking from personal experience? but from my
mates cousins, pets, best friends, distant relative on the feline sides?
Also a prosecuters job is to prosecute, not go well the defendant is a nice
bloke you should aquit.
Seems that the crooks are coming up short against the elderly all over the place. A 20 year old punk got his bare butt handed to him by a 69 year old gentleman a few miles from my place over here in the states.
The short:
Wayne and Kathie Boniface returned from dinner at an Observation Hill neighbor’s home shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday to find a burglar in their house.
Kathie Boniface asked the burglar who he was. “I’m with the FBI and you are blowing my cover,’’ the burglar said.
When Wayne Boniface got done with the intruder, he had no cover.
After a more than five-minute scuffle with Wayne Boniface, the burglar lost all his clothes and ran out of the West Ninth Street home nude.
The long:
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=49782§ion=News
This is a bit like a happy-slapping incident down here in Brighton a while back...
A group of half a dozen yoof's thought they'd do the old "punch an innocent bystander and video it on their mobiles" thing. Unfortunately for them, the bloke they picked on was a local amateur boxer - who promptly knocked one unconscious and put two of them in hospital.
Link to the story:
http://www.theargus.co.uk/mostpopular.var.1188750.mostviewed.slap_victim_who_fought_back.php
The law in the UK says you're allowed to use "Reasonable force". But the problem is "What is resonable?". Well, it's rather a subjective thing. But generally using force to defend yourself, others or property is acceptable provided it's in proportion to the offence being committed. Even deadly force can be justified if you genuinely believe your (or others) life is in danger. Also there is the matter of motivation. You're allowed to defend yourself, others and property, but you're not allowed to give someone a kicking once they're past defending themselves, or use excessive force to prevent someone running off once they've given up on the offence. Keeping them in an armlock is probably allright. Breaking their legs with a lumphammer... no...