Cops charge prankster who 'corona-coughed' on aged officer and had it filmed Police have charged an Australian moron who coughed on a copper in Coffs Harbour and claimed he was suffering from COVID-19. It gets worse: the woman police officer was 71 years old, and therefore rather at risk if the coronavirus-infection claim was true. And worse still: while the 21-year-old cretin coughed, a friend filmed …
And any cop can use the "I thought he was a dangerous Aborigine attempting to escape" and empty 2-3 clips into his back at close range.
Sometimes the sneaky criminals even try to face the officer shooting them while they run away and shield themselves with their arms. So sneaky.
Or have things moved on as Australian society has being more multicultural so that Aussie cops avoid guns now and just stick to a good old fashioned shoeing in a police cell?
Also I note the story of one Constable Rolfe - who shot and killed in self-defence an indigenous man who had attacked and stabbed both he and his partner.
For his troubles in defending himself he was charged with murder by the very police force he serves.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/was-constable-rolfe-charged-with-being-white/news-story/f8f539cea0e5d040238d674a4abaa839
Which begs the question, if the attacker was a white bogan, would Constable Rolfe had been charged with even manslaughter? I think we all know what the answer is.
There is no doubt there is a history of atrocity in the early colonial period, however, please show me the part of the world that was rainbows and unicorns in 1788.
not at all, this is stupidity, it's is universal. There was a similar case in Russia (a guy "advertised" his services to get rid of business rivals). There was vandalism (delivery vans burnt) by youngsters in N. Ireland, right after the latest "stay at home", help save lives, etc. from Boris. I'm sure media have similar stories from around the globe. After all, media desperately want to "stay relevant", thus attractive, thus stories pulled out of the backside, to share the indignation (and clicks). Uh-uh...
I agree he and his accomplice are idiots. Trouble is the world does not have capacity to treat every idiot as they deserve. For that matter it's probably just as well; knee-jerk reactions can be over-reactions.
I quite like that they charged this prat with 'stalking with intent to cause fear or physical harm' - good use of existing laws. It could have gone a lot worse for him if the cops had simply identified him on 'social' media (accidental, honest, we were short of staff at the time) and released him into the 'care' of the other idiots.
I cannot believe so many people in here are taking this stance. There are two obvious problems with such an... inventive...use of stalking laws to charge someone who coughs.
1) The further erosion of equality in front of the law. Since the charge is obviously ridiculous (unless this 21-year old really is a stalker) if he can afford to hire any half-decent lawyer it will be thrown out and possibly a malicious prosecution countersuit filed. If he's poor, he's going to jail.
2) Normally we are against twisting the law to make someone into a criminal who performs an act that the government doesn't like. If you want to be consistent then you should probably take this approach even when the person does something you don't particularly like either. Cheering the government on when it overreaches on your behalf makes it a lot hard to accuse them when it does it in other circumstances.
There's precedent in other countries for knowingly transmitting a disease to be a form of bodily harm (prominently HIV cases). I'm not familiar with the law in Australia, but threatening people with bodily harm is likely also a crime, he's guilty of something. This isn't a twisting of any normal principle, does it matter whether I shot you or injected you with a syringe of ebola? What about threw acid at you? What if I threaten to throw acid at you but it turns out to be water?
What I'm a bit surprised at is a 71 year old police officer, in the UK they mostly retire before the national pension age.
prosecuting someone for knowingly causing fear seems to be quite proportionate.
I don't think anyone disagrees with that. DavCrav's point is simply 'don't make some shit charge up' in the process of doing it. That merely opens doors to someone deserving punishment dodging any.
He "done wrong" but how's that "stalking"? It seems to fail the very basics of what "stalking" involves, and that likely includes premeditation and repeated behaviour.
In the UK it appears such incidents are being treated as GBH which look to me to be proportionate. Leave it to the judge or jury to decide whether his behaviour and any remorse deserves punishment at the lighter or harder extremes of punishment.
"In the UK it appears such incidents are being treated as GBH which look to me to be proportionate"
I believe the police today said "assault against an emergency service worker" would be the charge, which carries a two-year maximum tariff. This seems an appropriate charge. Stalking, let's be honest, does not.
In the UK it appears such incidents are being treated as GBH
The problem is our piss-weak CPS will bottle it and go for section 21 rather than section 18. Meaning the scrote will be back on the streets by tea time.
Given that offense is apparently to be held in the eye of the beholder, so should intent be held in the eyes of the victim.
"Stalking" here is being used as a term of art, not in its common sense. There's no point in discussing whether the charge makes sense until we know precisely how the law in the governing jurisdiction defines that term.
Some years ago, a man in California was charged with lynching himself - because in California, the law defined "lynching" as the forcible removal of someone from custody by a mob. The accused was arrested, and as officers were leading him to their car, he shouted out for help and incited a small riot, which ended with him escaping (briefly). So under the law (at the time - it's since been changed) he had participated in lynching himself. That's certainly not the common meaning of lynching. [Details can be found in Kevin Underhill's blog.]
So somebody that intentionally follows someone and commits some sort of innocuous action knowing that it will cause distress is perfectly fine?
Dialling a wrong number is fine, dialing a wrong number and silently listening to whoever picks up quickly becomes a different matter.
Intent counts for alot in the eyes of the law.
Through the book at him
Yes, but also recognise he is going to continue to be a danger to others, and that there is a solution to this.
He puts others at risk because he doesn't know if he has the virus or not, so lets give it to him, that way we can be fairly sure he doesn't have it again. I realize the virus may mutate, but that just means we'll have to give that one to him too.
the relevant government minister falsely claimed it had been the victim of a distributed denial-of-service attack before reversing that stance within two hours.
It can be difficult to distinguish between a sudden surge of genuine users and a DDOS - they can both knock the service offline. I don't expect a government minister to be able to tell the difference. However, a minister making any definitive statement before the facts are in is being a prat and asking for worse trouble.
IT bod: Boss, we're gonna need more capacity, pronto - we'll have a tidal wave of claims and we won't be able to handle it.
Manager: I just collect stats and manage annual leave requests and absences due to sickness. I've never done the job so I've no idea of what's needed and why, despite being paid considerably more than you... I'll gently query this with my manager at the next meeting and get fobbed off.
Manager's manager: I just collate the stats that the other managers give me and forward emails from head office. I've no idea what this guy is talking about but he doesn't seem worried... I'll adopt a wait and see approach...
Tidal wave: Hits.
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Didn't the article say he was tested? If so, his antigen count for SARS-Cov-2 must be too low for the test to be positive, right? (I haven't actually looked into the details for the test - maybe it tests viral load, rather than antigens.) That suggests he can't be an asymptomatic carrier, within the accuracy of the test.
Yeah well, our federal government is known for its high level of technical acumen.... not.
Who could possibly, possibly, possibly have foreseen that hundrrds of thousands of people would be rushing the Centrelink website after they'd lost their jobs?
Stuart Robert should be sent into permanent social isolation. He is unfit for purpose.
From the article: And the nation's government today revised its restrictions on having a haircut. Previously patrons in need of a trim were limited to 30-minute visits.
And the UK restrictions came in just as I was considering having a haircut; the sort that takes about 3 minutes never mind 30. I have since bought a set of barbers' hair trimmers but the thought of letting Mrs Commswonk loose with them on my hair makes my blood run cold. She has a well - developed malicious streak. :(
A stiff drink or six* may be required before I take the risk.
* For me, that is, not Mrs Commswonk.
"A stiff drink or six* may be required before I take the risk."
Fortunately for me, Mrs Brown used to be a hair dresser about 40 years ago and has been cutting my hair for many years now. I trust her implicitly and would never say a bad word about her. Luckily I no longer have to go out in public.
Here in Hong Kong, many years ago, I used to sit - in very close proximity to the crowded sidewalks of Aplui Street in Sham Shui Po - to get a HK$40 {about 4 UK Quid} haircut from an aged crone.
But when progress wiped out her stall, or old age carried her away, I then invested in a ~HK$60 package of rechargeable haircutter & ancillary attachments in the aforementioned Aplui Street, but after some years of use, I had to crack open the casing to replace the rechargeable batteries.
It is still going strong, and every 4 weeks or so, my 'pina domestic helper does an excellent job of making my head look "good" again.
I understand many people are sensitive about this sort of thing - and I think no less of them for it; we all have our personal concerns - but I, for one, wouldn't be worried if I got an unfortunate home trim. Particularly when I'm not supposed to be in public anyway. Frankly, it would probably bother my wife more than me.
These days, when my hair provides only marginal protection from sun and rain anyway, I don't much care what happens to it.
A similar moron got eight weeks (plus two conditional) plus 700 euros damages plus a driving ban for ten months for a similar stunt, though not intended as a prank, but as a way to dodge an alcohol test.
Pretty stiff sentence by Dutch standards.
https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/tien-weken-cel-voor-corona-hoester-ik-heb-corona-nu-hebben-jullie-het-ook~ac87e87a/
(Sorry, no Google Translate link, it trips on the cookie wall)
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