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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   34550 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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In Newton, Massachusetts, a pro-Palestinian man got into a shouting match with a group of pro-Israeli demonstrators across a busy street. For some reason, though he was mostly exchanging words with a woman, he ran across the street and tackled a man named Scott Hayes, who was also part of the demonstration. While he had Hayes on the ground, Hayes -- who had a legal gun -- shot him in the stomach. Two other pro-Israeli demonstrators pulled the man off Hayes, and he was later brought to a hospital.

Hayes was arrested and charged with Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon and Violation of a Constitutional Right Causing Injury. The only justification I can come up with for the latter is that it is the constitutional right of pro-Palestinian people to attack people supporting Israel.

Hayes will certainly plead self defense, but self-defense expert Andrew Branca at Legal Insurrection says it won't work. Basically the government's view is if someone has tackled you and is beating on you, it's not sporting to fight back with a weapon (i.e. deadly force). Think of government as the two guys who hold you while their buddy punches you.

This was all captured on video (linked in the Legal Insurrection article); there's really no doubt as to the course of events.

To add insult to injury, the pro-Palestinian man has not been charged.

(Hayes, BTW, is reportedly not Jewish)

The only justification I can come up with for the latter is that it is the constitutional right of pro-Palestinian people to attack people supporting Israel.

Basically the government's view is if someone has tackled you and is beating on you, it's not sporting to fight back with a weapon (i.e. deadly force). Think of government as the two guys who hold you while their buddy punches you.

To add insult to injury, the pro-Palestinian man has not been charged.

You certainly don't seem like you're unbiased in describing this situation, which makes it difficult to take your account seriously.

In this article it says they're going to charge the pro-Palestinian guy after it became apparent that he would survive.

In terms of self-defense, there should obviously be some limits to prevent society degenerating into one where people try to bait their enemies into attacking them so they get a free pass at murder. See Cartman shooting Tolkien for a comedic example.

It comes down to proportionality here. On one hand you could say humans are intensely, catastrophically fragile. You could scare/startle a person, which could cause them to slip and fall on a jagged piece of cement that severs their spine and kills them instantly. In the same vein, a kid throwing a rock or wielding a stick could be "deadly" in unlucky circumstances. But under reasonable circumstances I don't think that justifies blasting them with a gun.

In this situation, if anything the fall was the most likely to injure. The pro-Israel guy had friends there so I doubt there was a reasonable expectation of getting strangled or anything like that, so him reaching for his gun was at least somewhat excessive, if not strongly excessive. That said, there should be some allowance for the ambiguity of the situation (shock, adrenaline, etc.)... which is what seems like is going to happen. The state is going to charge him, but not with the maximal punishment like attempted murder or even (according the second article you posted) § 15E, Assault and Battery by Discharging a Firearm which would carry a maximum of a 20 year sentence.

It seems like the state is doing a reasonably good job here, although it would be prudent to wait for more info. Though, of course if there's a bunch of info incriminating the pro-Israel guy then we probably wouldn't hear about it on this site, as the entire thing would just be ignored.

It seems like the state is doing a reasonably good job here, although it would be prudent to wait for more info. Though, of course if there's a bunch of info incriminating the pro-Israel guy then we probably wouldn't hear about it on this site, as the entire thing would just be ignored.

Consensus accusations are somehow even more obnoxious than consensus building. We have literal holocaust deniers here, the accusation that we don't allow or have anti-Israel takes or news posted is indefensible.

Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

This whole thread started from a pretty flagrant violation of this rule, which seems to be in complete abeyance at this point.

The vast majority of posts on the Motte are between right-wing takes and far-right-wing takes. If there was a generous population of pro-Palestinian people here then maybe your argument would have some legs to stand on. But most people are treating this as a discussing of 2A rights and whether it's justified to shoot violent leftists. The notion that some Holocaust deniers balances that out is just goofy.

Of course this is primarily a 2A discussion, there is no new angle on the PvI conflict out of this. We also have plenty of left of center people here, just not lot of progressives. Have you considered that the "pro Palestinian" position just isn't very strong?

Though, of course if there's a bunch of info incriminating the pro-Israel guy

Always reason to be patient, but then we couldn't yap. We should know we are selectively watching something.

Perhaps the shooter has a posted litany of online memes incriminating himself with intent to shoot protestors like the 4chan memelord had some years ago. I wouldn't be too surprised if pro-Israel protestor man told his buddy he was carrying a gun to the protest to "blast Arab supporting vermin," inshallah. I am not that surprised that a radical that appears to initiate violence at a protest event retweets stuff like this. When does an idea become Stochastic Terrorism?

wouldn't hear about it on this site, as the entire thing would just be ignored.

I see positions in this thread that range from did-nothing-wrong to Lock Him Up. I'm pretty sure bad shoots have been discussed here before. Facially, this one appears to be more debatable than an example like Rittenhouse. Although I suspect won't be pursued as vigorously nor reported on as heavily.

The state's position here is that if some guy runs across the street, tackles you, and starts beating on you, you're required to take the beating and hope bystanders will pull the guy off you rather than shoot him. If you don't do that, you go to prison for up to 10 years. That the state COULD send you to jail for up to 20 years does not make the 10 years some sort of reasonable middle ground.

you're required to take the beating

Not at all. He could have fought back with his fists to try to get the guy off him. The problem was that he escalated with multiple gunshots instead.

The notion that he can't fight back at all is a goofy strawman.

  • -15

The problem with using one's fists is some people are so much stronger than others.

That's... accounted for? The second article you posted mentioned that neither side really seemed to have a clear physical advantage in stature. If it was a tiny girl that was <100lbs vs an NFL linebacker then a gun might be more understandable, but that wasn't the case here.

  • -11

If you are on the ground with someone on top of you, you're at a large physical disadvantage barring something extreme like being an NFL linebacker assailed by a ballerina.

Right but... he also had friends there to help him out, who immediately intervened to drag the guy off him.

You don't need that much of a disparity to consistently make no headway in a physical fight.

I can understand where the motivation comes from for charging him. Removing the political aspect, if there's a bar fight, as a society we don't want the altercation to progress to shooting. And morally in the bar fight situation, I would think it's inappropriate to escalate to shooting, even if you're being tackled to the cement and the other person instigated it. Not that I have any real sympathy for the person shot: seems to be a FAFO situation.

What gets me is the pro-Palestinian not also getting charged. They seem basically equally at fault, engaging in potentially deadly escalations. Give both a misdemeanor for disturbing the public peace.

What gets me is the pro-Palestinian not also getting charged.

The current story on that is that simple battery not witnessed by the police is not an arrestable offense. Our pro-Israeli guy, wearing his anklet of shame, has to go down to the police station and swear out a complaint.

if there's a bar fight, as a society we don't want the altercation to progress to shooting.

I think that this is a value judgement of society, and I am not sure I agree. I think that once you rule out escalation, the consequences of punching someone at a bar are rather limited. I mean, if you seriously injure or kill your victim, you will go to prison, and if you lose the fight then you might get beaten up, but I would expect that many non-consensual bar fights do not even make in in the police statistics.

Every bar should be free to declare itself a free-for-all dojo. Sign a waiver, enjoy your drink and punch anyone whose face you don't like, if you kill someone we will sort it out just like we would with MMA. Probably not a great place to pick up women, though.

But absent such a consent, I take a very dim view on violence. If you are a adult person of sound mind who was not drugged against their consent, and you think that violence is an acceptable solutions to whatever the fuck your problem is, I have very little sympathy. If the alternatives are that you get to beat up people until you finally maim someone and end up in prison, or you are either motivated enough by the threat of deadly retaliation to keep your fucking barbaric urges under control, or otherwise your third bar fight ends up with you bleeding to death with a punctured lung, then I will very much prefer the latter world.

What gets me is the pro-Palestinian not also getting charged.

Totally agree. Prosecutional discretion seems bad in this case. Perhaps the old English system where anyone could bring criminal charges would be better here.

But even without the politics, the incentives for the DA are very bad here. They want to win the high profile case, not some minor battery case. And if the defense can point out that the victim was already convicted for battery, that will lower their chances of winning the big case. So they throw that case under the bus, justice be damned.

(Hayes, BTW, is reportedly not Jewish)

Then why was he out there protesting? Young white men have already figured out that there is no point in dying for Israel; hence the army's recruitment crisis. It is time for boomers to learn the same.

I highly doubt Israel is part of the recruiting crisis. It is highly popular among the type of people who have stopped enrolling as much as they used to: White Evangelicals.

Not so popular is queering the military and forever wars trying to build schools for girls in hijabs.

The army’s recruitment crisis has nothing to do with the popularity or lack thereof of Israel among potential recruits. The young people who dislike Israel enough to disavow ever working for the US military lest they help it are overwhelmingly leftists, and therefore unlikely to enlist in the first place.

While Israel, like Jews in general, is not particularly popular among young working class men compared to the country as a whole, young blue collar men mostly support Israel over palestine and their unwillingness to join the army has more to do with economics than ideological concern with US foreign policy.

You can support one side of a conflict without personally wanting to put yourself on the front line. The pro-Palestine protesters are not lining up to join Hamas, for the most part.

Why were there any white people at BLM protests? Anyway, he wasn't dying for Israel, though the other guy came close to dying for Hamas.

I've been noticing Russell conjugation of "enemy fights for (leadership) / ally fights for (country)" quite frequently lately - notably, the Ukraine war has people fighting for Putin vs. ones fighting for Ukraine in Western media, and people fighting for Russia vs. ones fighting for Zelenskiy in Russian media. Has this always been a thing?

Also, while pro-Palestinians will certainly say they are fighting for Palestine rather than Hamas, they don't seem to say that Israelis are fighting for Likud/Netanyahu. Is this just because the vanguard of Israeli anti-Palestine action is too obviously pluricentric?

They (or rather, "We", since I do it too) use that when the leadership is an aberration that does not represent its constituents. Sometimes it's a reach.

The IDF's actions in Gaza are popular among Israelis, so they are fighting for Israel. I'd sure like if Hamas was unpopular in Gaza and only represented themselves, so I'm tempted to say their combatants are only fighting for themselves.

I see the same thing at a smaller scale with politics:

  • Something great: "Canada did..." (or "We did...")
  • Something good: "The Federal Government did..."
  • Something bad: "The Liberal Party did..."
  • Something very bad: "Justin Trudeau did..."

Hamas isn’t an individual. It is the government of the Palestinian state. When people say “the US or Israel did X” do they mean the government, the nation, or the people?

Has this always been a thing?

To a degree, but you're conflating correlation versus causation here.

Many of the country-vs-country conflicts you would be tracking/aware of involve exceptionally personalist regimes, whether that's more objective (Putin's Russia as a individual-centric system) or more part of the propaganda narrative (Russian claims that Ukraine is led by Nazis, but that the rest of the country can be salvaged/liberated with a different government). Since regime change was an explicit goal of the Russians in the invasion leadup, but not the Palestinians on 7OCT, the conflict-propaganda reflects the initial rationales for conflict, even as the Hamas conflict is more categorical (Israel/Jews regardless of leader) in nature. At the same time, when it comes to their own allies, no one has a reason to characterize their allies as personalist autocrats as opposed to an alliance with a general nation, so Russia has no real incentive to characterize it's relationship with the leader of Belarus rather than Belarus in general.

The pro-Palestinian protester on the other side doesn't seem to be Palestinian either. People are allowed to care about issues in different countries, or which involve people of different ethnic or religious identities to them.

Not everything is on that video. You do not see if fighting words were exchanged prior to the event. The beginning of the fight is shown, then clipped with the moment he was shot. If fighting words were exchanged before the tackle or if the man re-initiated the brawl after a moment of peace then he wouldn’t have a legitimate use of force (implying it would otherwise be warranted), I’m pretty sure.

What are some hypothetical situations during that cut that make it legitimate to run across the street and try to beat someone up?

"Oh yeah, tough guy? Put your fists where your mouth is, pussy. Come over here and try me. I'll kick your sorry ass."

Man sprints across the street, kicks his ass with his fists, gets shot.

@The_Nybbler says fighting words don't matter most places anymore, and IANAL, but if I were on a jury that would color my perception of his right to defend himself with lethal force. I'd listen to all the lawyer rules given to me as required, but on a personal level, I do think if you're carrying a firearm it's your responsibility to try to disengage and avoid conflict best you can within reason.

Not on a level that is a "duty to retreat". Nor do I think protestors can't carry firearms, or that by going to a protest one loses the right to protect themselves from serious harm. Only to a degree where a person shouldn't invite a punching, find they don't like being punched and shoot someone. It's not a limitless expectation, but it's there.

Not everything is on that video. You do not see if fighting words were exchanged prior to the event.

The "fighting words" doctrine is barely extant, and anyway you actually do hear the exchange prior to the event; he's yelling at the protestors and the person audibly yelling back is a woman, not the guy he tackled.

if the man re-initiated the brawl after a moment of peace

Also clearly didn't happen.

The video is clipped at 0:13, so literally anything could have happened in that indeterminate length of time. Perhaps he decided to randomly attack that man, or perhaps the man said something to instigate the fight. It is almost certainly the case that the Israeli activists have the full footage, and it may be telling that it has not been published. There’s another clipping at 0:40 to 0:41. The new clipping at 0:41 isn’t merely a new angle but occurs at a later chronological point, because at 0:40 the altercation ends with the Palestinian upright and at 0:41 it ends with him on the ground post-gunshot. So there are two critical moments that have been removed from our video.

True. Facts could be otherwise. Always true. But based on what we know right now it doesn’t look great.

There's a real risk of dying if you are tackled onto pavement. Young healthy people die every day from less acute trauma. The tackler should be charged with the crime they committed.

But I'm comfortable asserting the appropriate (and 'legal' I suppose although I don't care about that) response to being tackled onto the pavement at a political protest is not to immediately shoot your tackler multiple times in the gut.

It wasn't out of nowhere, it wasn't the middle of the night, they weren't all alone, the attacker wasn't slamming Hayes' head into the pavement repeatedly - a George Zimmerman situation this is not.

Also:

  • Many of my college buddies were from Newton, they cheerfully call it Jewton, and I haven't heard anything about this yet in the groupchats
  • The reason the woman was not tackled is presumably because she was not a man
  • Like the sun rising in the east, when violence occurs a non-white woman will be nearby to start making noises that are quite precisely like an excited ape
  • Who cares whether Hayes' gun was 'legal' or not. Was it right for him to shoot the guy who tackled him?

No, the reality that 'two other pro-Israeli demonstrators' were readily available to pull off the attacker means the tackled fella was not in danger of his life after surviving the initial impact with the ground.

How could he have known the tackler didn't have a knife, how are you expecting a man who was just tackled onto pavement in a genuinely potentially lethal fashion to exercise perfect judgment!

Yeah, great point. I wouldn't convict this guy in court if you offered to pay me. I wouldn't have been at the protest, but I can put myself in the mindset and I might've shot the tackler too. Still, it's not absurd to me to have an arrest, investigation, and probably trial about this incident.

To that point - this guy bailed out for 5k and is facing 10 years max. I have more than one buddy who had bail set with a 0 behind this guys for things like repeat DUI or possession. I personally know at least one guy that was offered a plea deal for 12 years after DUI with injury and after a financial black hole of lawyering is serving 8.

In summary, if someone tackles you onto the pavement in the middle of the night when no one else is around and they start pounding your head into the pavement - by all means protect yourself by all available means! If someone tackles you in broad daylight and your buddies immediately start pulling him off you and you shoot him twice anyway - I would not take your case!

(I am not particularly predisposed toward charity for the argument 'trauma from the Holocaust made me do it' - but apparently Hayes doesn't even that going for him...)

Like the sun rising in the east, when violence occurs a non-white woman will be nearby to start making noises that are quite precisely like an excited ape

Dude, come on, that's a bit much.

There's a real risk of dying if you are tackled onto pavement. Young healthy people die every day from less acute trauma. The tackler should be charged with the crime they committed.

Many Australian districts have so-called "one punch" laws, in which punching someone once in an urban environment can result in you getting a jail sentence comparable in duration to what you'd expect for attempted murder (and the maximum sentence increases if you're intoxicated at the time).

Funnily enough, the last time I brought this up was in the comments of an ACX article, in which I was trying to argue that certain trans activists can be very aggressive and violent, and my interlocutor was trying to argue that a fit and healthy adult male punching a woman in her sixties in the face was no big deal.

Many Australian districts have so-called "one punch" laws,

When are we getting “chainsaw” laws? “Death note” laws?

You know this is Australia, right? If they haven't gotten around to it don't let them know they forgot to.

When are we getting “chainsaw” laws?

Licensing requirements to operate a chainsaw vary from state to state. A NSW chainsaw license may not necessarily entitle the holder to operate a chainsaw in Victoria.

“Death note” laws?

Section 31 of the Crimes Act makes it an offence, punishable by a maximum of 10 years imprisonment, to intentionally or recklessly send or deliver a document threatening to kill or inflict serious bodily harm on any person.

(I understand it's an anime joke.)

Licensing requirements to operate a chainsaw vary from state to state. A NSW chainsaw license may not necessarily entitle the holder to operate a chainsaw in Victoria.

Not sure if this is a shitpost, but there’s no license required to operate a chainsaw. Some employers/industries require you pass a training course, but there’s no state or federal government licensing programs like there is for say, forklifts.

Complete shitpost in response to a shitpost comment.

It appears that Queensland at least requires anyone operating a chainsaw professionally to have a license, as a requirement of the (state-run and required) workers compensation program. Western Australia seems to require it only for forestry workers specifically.

But as far as I can tell it's not true that there are different licenses per state; there is a national "chainsaw ticket".

But as far as I can tell it's not true that there are different licenses per state; there is a national "chainsaw ticket".

Each state has different training courses, as education and training is run at a state level. However, the states try to standardise around a national framework.

Also, from what I can tell, there is no chainsaw “license” in any state or territory. There are only training course requirements in some states for certain industries. For chainsaws there’s various training courses ranging from basic handling and maintenance, to cutting fallen trees, to felling limbs, to felling entire trees. But these are all separate courses that can be taken either individually or as part of a larger training course for a higher certification or diploma.

The main difference between a license and a certification requirement is that without a certification, you’re unable to be hired in the relevant field, while without a license, you’re not legally allowed to perform the relevant task at all.

For example without a first aid certificate you might not be allowed to be hired as a life guard at a swimming centre. But without a forklift license you’re never legally permitted to operate a forklift even if it’s privately owned and on private property.

"DA is also trying to determine if the shooting was a hate crime"

This is every parody of Massachusetts rolled into one ball of insanity and malice.

The defense has to be proportional to the threat; deadly force can only be used if the perpetrator has a reasonable threat of death or serious bodily injury (serious usually meaning permanent disability, not a black eye). Based on the information available, if he hadn't been shot and were arrested instead, the charge would have probably been something like misdemeanor battery, which wouldn't usually even merit jail time. If the facts come out that the guy were being wailed on, he may have a good defense, but if it's a mere scuffle as described in the article, it's a long shot that should get pled down. This may seem unfair, but for public policy reasons the state prefers that scuffles don't escalate to shootings.

I think the threat posed by an attacker doesn't just mean the attack that has already happened, but what a reasonable person might believe will happen imminently if the attacker is not subdued. This is especially relevant when the ability to change the situation may decrease significantly.

For example, choking someone with a noose or a garrote for a minute or so will not produce any serious lasting injury but continue on another two minutes and it's irreversible brain damage. So I think the question is, if someone has you in a garrote, is it reasonable to perceive this as a threat of serious injury even if, as yet, they haven't crossed that line? And again, especially relevant given that the victim doesn't have a ton of time to wait and see before it's gonna solely be the aggressor's choice whether to stop before or after the line.

I don't know the intricacies of self defense law, but I think it's more than merely unfair if the law demands victims put themselves at the mercy of an attacker.

The standard is only concerned with what is reasonably likely to happen, not with worst case scenarios. The likelihood of an attack with fists or tackling isn't reasonably likely to result in death or serious injury, absent some aggravating factor that isn't present here. That's pretty much black letter law in any jurisdiction.

I didn't watch the video, so this is more of a general question: Doesn't the guy having a gun change this? If a guy tackles you and there isn't a huge skill/strength disparity it'll probably take him at least a minute to beat you to death. If you have a visible gun, it takes him seconds to take it and kill you. At the very least you need to secure your gun (taking away from your ability to defend against strikes) at which point he reacts to you reaching for your gun and the two of you are fighting for control of a gun. What am I missing?

No, not really. As I said in another comment, the legal standard is whether there's a reasonable likelihood of death or serious bodily injury, not the worst-case scenario. If the person is carrying a concealed weapon, and there's no evidence that the attacker either knows or has reason to know that his victim is armed, there's no way the victim could form a reasonable belief that the attacker is going to take his weapon and shoot him with it. Especially consider that the vast majority of fights, even one sided fights, don't result in death or permanent disability.

That does not seem factually true or we are not talking about the same thing.

A person tackled on the ground then pummeled with fists while defenseless is likely to get a concussion or worse.Every single punch to the head is a spin of the roulette wheel.

Sorry, I was on mobile yesterday and while I was trying to give the general principle I wasn't sufficiently clear as to the details. It's highly fact dependent. The general principle is that you're allowed to defend yourself, but the degree of force has to be proportionate to the threat. So if someone attacks with fists, I'm allowed to respond with fists. In the scenario you describe, where someone is being pummeled with fists while defenseless, then yes, I do believe that a self-defense justification would be appropriate. But that's not most attacks or scuffles, and it's not what happened here.

Every single punch to the head is a spin of the roulette wheel.

Exactly. Remember, the standard isn't that death or serious bodily injury is a mere possibility, but a reasonable likelihood. A roulette spin is not a good analogy for something that is reasonably likely to happen. Getting shot or stabbed is not a mere "spin of the roulette wheel" as to whether you could die or be seriously injured.

but the degree of force has to be proportionate to the threat.

Right, this I understand.

So if someone attacks with fists, I'm allowed to respond with fists.

Either I don't understand this or it is inconsistent with the previous sentence. A person could be attacking me with fists but threatening me with a noose or threatening to throw me in a van.

The lower bound for the severity of the threat is what the attacker has already done, but a reasonable person might believe the threat is significantly higher based on the circumstances.

In the scenario you describe, where someone is being pummeled with fists while defenseless, then yes, I do believe that a self-defense justification would be appropriate. But that's not most attacks or scuffles, and it's not what happened here.

I think the issue here is that by the time that happens, the opportunity for self defense has already passed. A reasonable person does not wait until they are already on their back getting their head smashed into the concrete before escalating because they know that at that point successful self defense is unlikely.

Of course, one has to have formed a belief that the attacker is imminently likely to use serious force and that belief has to be reasonable under the usual tests. But there is no requirement that I can discern that requires actually waiting until that happens.

A quick flip through the caselaw doesn't seem so clear either. A jury did acquit Bernhard Goetz (except on the carrying without a permit charge) despite none of the attackers even punching him, with the notion that when a group of strangers says "give me $5", they are implicitly threatening serious bodily harm. And there's a few more less prominent cases of deadly force in response to unarmed attacker(s) that I found that seem to imply that reasonable beliefs about imminent threats that are not yet materialized count.

Are you sure tackling isn’t reasonably likely to result in serious injury where concrete is concerned?

Context also matters. I am reminded of Bernie G. The miscreants were menacing and the implied next step was reasonable to infer. Same here where a dude decides to run through traffic and tackle you. There isn’t a ref blowing the whistle.

If you had statistics suggesting that tackling onto concrete presented a risk of serious bodily injury or death comparable to being shot or stabbed, then you could call someone like an epidemiologist at trial to testify to that effect. And it would be a fairly strong defense, if tempered by the fact that the prosecution would call their own expert reaching the opposite conclusion. That's not relevant here, though, because Hayes shot the guy after he was tackled. You're only privileged to defend yourself out of apprehension of an imminent threat, not out of a response to a past threat. Once Hayes was on the ground he wasn't getting tackled again, and any argument about the supposed dangers of being tackled on concrete is moot.

The point is that anyone crazy enough to run through traffic and tackle someone onto concrete is someone who while the scuffle is on going is crazy enough to do a whole sort of things. That is shooting someone seconds after that happens is reasonable self defense.

Go ahead and make that point at trial... and prepare to get destroyed on closing. Seriously, if I'm the prosecutor in this case, I can pretty much ignore whatever other arguments you've made (or just hit on them briefly) and run that point to the end of its tether. "Is someone acting crazy? Who knows what they're crazy enough to do; better shoot them before anything bad happens. The defendant wants to convince you that this is a reasonable course of action." I'd then go on to describe a series of examples of "crazy" behavior and suggest that your argument would require them to view any shooting or the perpetrator as justifiable self-defense, and the examples would get progressively more absurd. I'd characterize the entire defense as "people should be able to shoot anyone who looks suspicious", and by the end there's the possibility that the jury would forget that the defendant had even been attacked. If this is "the point", then it's not a very good one.

This is just blatantly strawmanning. The person just wasn’t looking suspicious. The person just wasn’t acting crazy. The person committed a physical attack after engaging in a pretty crazy (ie out of the ordinary) prelude to the physical attack (ie this wasn’t a situation where two guys were squaring off — a guy ran a cross a street to tackle another guy).

If you are worried about slippery slopes suffice to say we can cut the slope pretty earlier. Don’t engage in crazy attacks and self defense then would not be credible.

More comments

Goetz mostly got off because he had a Gotham City jury who knew exactly what was up. I think according to the law he should have been toast.

They still destroyed him with the 43 million dollar judgement that a judge then ruled was nondischargeable.

As far as I know he never paid any of it. But he's a glutton for punishment; he still lives in New York City and in 2013 they actually set up a sting to get him for pot. (A pot sting in 2013? Can you be more obvious) He managed to beat that one on speedy trial grounds.

From the video it does look like it ends as a mere scuffle. The video also shows the initial aggressor start in a shouting match from across the street. Then, the aggressor decides to charge, sprinting through traffic to cross the street, and tackles the shooter in 2.5-ish seconds. After he tackles the shooter, the aggressor is in a position on top of the shooter with his right arm around the shooter's head behind his neck. The aggressors left arm and hand are not in frame. Seems like there is at least one cut in the video.

We can't see exactly what is going on from the angle, but roughly 1 second after sprinting across the street, tackling the shooter, and assaulting him a firearm goes off. It is possible the pistol was being drawn while the aggressor was sprinting, while they were on the ground, or it is possible the aggressor crossed the street in response to a pistol being drawn. The aggressor may have struggled over the firearm. He did not retreat to the presence of a firearm, nor react to being shot. He still had to be dragged off and restrained by bystanders after being shot once in the gut.

I imagine the state does prefer fistfights not escalate to shootings. I also imagine most people that don't want to sit, take a beating, and trust that the person assaulting them has the wherewithal to not do something stupid like kill them-- such as bash their head into the ground, draw a weapon when in a position of dominance, and so on.

Like the state, I also prefer fistfights not escalate to shootings. Unlike this state, I don't think it is reasonable to sprint across traffic to tackle a man 20 years your senior with legal protection. That victims should just trust you bro and in the 3-4 seconds that an altercation occurs you are expected to allow a stranger to wail on you a bit, because he probably is not going to kill you.

A different setting and I may agree with you outright. Two guys getting hammered at a bar and one of them escalating to homicide is pretty generally wrong. Here, we have a middle aged guy at a protest doing protest things, like being loud. Is it reasonable to assume that protestors that assault you won't do you serious bodily harm? Statistically, like all physical altercations, of course, but the state has nothing close to a reasonable assurance that you won't be the fellow whose head hits the pavement too hard, a protestor is particularly deranged with nothing to lose, or he has a knife in his back pocket he's been waiting to pull that you can't see.

If we're arguing about something as strangers and you cover 30ft, across traffic, at a full sprint to tackle me it sounds reasonable for me to assume you may very well aim to to do me severe bodily harm. It is unreasonable to sprint across roads to assault strangers with the protection and backing of the state. If you put me on the ground while I am carrying a firearm, doubly so. This is not the modal fist fight.

Now he's in Mass, so he's probably fucked. Unfortunately, I think providing aid to the assailant will be used against him. Only firing one shot to stop the threat might have been a prudent, measured defense of his self, or it might be argued it means he didn't really consider the threat was all too great.

It is possible the pistol was being drawn while the aggressor was sprinting, while they were on the ground, or it is possible the aggressor crossed the street in response to a pistol being drawn.

Some twitter people have been saying this, but it is very unlikely. We see the pistol, holstered, at 0:21 after the guy is first tackled. So for it to be true (and there's no evidence it is), Hayes would have had to draw the pistol, then re-holster it before being tackled.

There's video. The pro-Palestinian guy hit the shooter with a flying tackle and then while they were on the ground had his arm around his neck. I realize that Massachusetts law means that a person must take a beating from a criminal in order to uphold "civilization", but that doesn't make it reasonable.

If you read my recent post on the South Side, you'd remember that I mentioned a spare of shootings in 2021 and 2022. I didn't get into it then, but almost everyone they arrested pled self defense. These were all groups of black kids who got into altercations outside of nightclubs, and their claims of self defense were much stronger than this guy's. Sometimes they were the result of scuffles similar to the one described here. By your logic, these shooters weren't threats to public safety, but a legitimate response to dangerous situations.

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"Threat to public safety" is what you're going for now? A man is at some sort of political rally when a guy from the opposing side runs across the street to tackle him. First guy shoots him while they're both on the ground, and that makes him the "threat to public safety"? Pull the other one, it's got bells on; he's not the one who started the physical altercation.

You aren’t responding to anyone’s specific claims. Would an objective person reasonably fear serious bodily injury when a guy runs through traffic to tackle them? That’s such aggressive odd behavior to start with that I would say in the seconds afterwards (especially given there is a delay of a second or two to draw your gun and shoot) a reasonable person would fear serious bodily injury.

Bringing up unrelated cases with zero background (outside of telling us the shooters are black) just seems like an attempt to say “you wouldn’t support the black kids so you can’t support this guy without being a bigot.” Maybe I would support the black kids. Maybe I also don’t think you are reasonable about what reasonable.

their claims of self defense were much stronger than this guy's.

Can you expand on that? I'm having a hard time imagining how someone leaving a bar at closing time would have a better self-defense case than someone exercising their constitutionally-protected right to free speech. At minimum, their judgment would be in question after a night of heavy drinking.

One example: A guy and two women attempted to enter a bar but were denied admission because the guy had an expired ID. As they were walking away the man was approached by a man who had been in a relationship with one of the women several years earlier. The other man started yelling at the first man and cornered him in a doorway. The first man claims that the other man threatened to kill him and it looked like he was carrying a concealed weapon in his sweatshirt. So the first man shot him with a licensed gun that he was carrying legally. It seems like a fairly anodyne story when told that way, but when the news starts out with a story like "23-year-old Javonte Diggs was arrested outside the Pause nightclub after an apparent dispute with 22-year-old Martavius Allen", the online right doesn't start making the guy a martyr of self-defense and concealed carry.

I wouldn't rate that as stronger, but maybe I'm missing some relevant aspects. Specifically:

  • Fighting words and threats are less of a justification for force than tackling and grappling
  • "looking like" he had a gun is a weak standard to base your actions on
  • A lack of video evidence makes everything wishy-washy (granted, that does favor the defense in criminal trials).

How do you judge the strength of a case? It's clearly not the same as I do if you're using that example.

Why are District Attorneys so reluctant to charge multiple opposing parties in a single incident? In this case why isn't the pro Palestinian charged with assault or Violation of a Constitutional Right Causing Injury?

It reminds me of another example; the Apple River stabbing, where the teenagers weren't charged with assault which happened prior to the man pulling his knife to stab people. Same problem.

Are DA's reluctant to muddy the waters with conflicting cases like this? Is this a political motivation where they are 'chasing wins'?

Edit: Turns out the DA did charge the other party a day later as per a news article linked in Ben Garrison's post here.

I was once a juror on a murder trial where the guy filmed himself murdering the gal and throwing her in a trash can and they called in a city worker to testify for like 3 or 4 hours about his entire career in waste management and how trash trucks and cans work and the entire city's trash collection schedule, etc because apparently the DA didn't think that watching the video of this guy murdering the gal and throwing her into a trash can would be enough to convince us he did it

So presumably the answer to your question is because the DA considers it essential to have every possible witness testify in excruciating detail and charging a 'necessary' witness with a crime might throw a wrench in that desire

Massachusetts hates guns, and wants people with guns to leave the state. The DA charged the person who used a gun. The point is that they believe only the person who used the gun committed a serious enough crime to charge.

After all, the other guy was just involved in a fiery but mostly peaceful protest.

Are DA's reluctant to muddy the waters with conflicting cases like this?

I think it's this: if they charged the pro-Palestinian guy, the pro-Israeli guy's defense would definitely bring it up. And the pro-Israeli guy's crime was greater -- the pro-Palestinian guy committed battery, the pro-Israeli guy usurped the power of the state by defending himself.

In this case why isn't the pro Palestinian charged with assault or Violation of a Constitutional Right Causing Injury?

Well, was Scott Hayes actually injured? The pro Palestinian got shot, a much more severe punishment than if he were to be convicted of simple battery.

Let’s change the facts. Let’s say like Han Solo pro Palestinian guy shot first but unlike Solo he missed. Mr Hayes wouldn’t have been injured and Bad Solo would’ve been when Hayes returned fire. That fact though wouldnt queer Hayes self defense.

Actual injury shouldn't be necessary. You can't tell the police that you didn't need your kids to wear seatbelts on the freeway because they haven't been injured. Tackling someone on a sidewalk could have lead to them cracking their head open.

I do understand the 'fuck around and find out' assumption that justice has been done, but is this actually a consideration from DA's when considering which cases to take?

According to KassyAkiva, the Violation of Constitutional Right Causing Injury charge was not read during the arraignment. Still can be added in, but not including it now is more typically a sign it's been dropped. May have been thrown in at arrest, charitably out of mistaken understanding of events, or less charitably just to spice the news coverage -- no small amount of mainstream coverage heavily contradicts the clear video.

Hayes was allowed (5k USD) bail, albeit with a GPS monitor and curfew. But it's a long way from Kessler, where it took over a week to arrest someone who had far less clear evidence of legitimate action.

As for Branca's analysis, in normal states, I think the situation is more complicated than Branca suggests. To quote from Massad Ayoob:

Another element of disparity of force is position of disadvantage. Maybe my student is 6’ 2’’ 220 pounds and a body builder, but they are seat belted into their car and in the road rage incident the attacker is punching them through the open window. That seat belt is going to act like an accomplice that is pinning your arms and holding you in place. You will not be able to get body weight behind a counter-punch, you certainly will not be able to kick, and you would be virtually unable to slip or evade a punch. That was the classic element in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial when the evidence showed that Zimmerman had, in fact, been down on his back, with a taller man smashing his head into the pavement.

That doesn't make it a slam-dunk, given the presence of allied protestors, but it can definitely aid -- once downed by a surprise attack, both juries and caselaw are . But Massachusetts caselaw is especially messy here, his prosecutor is famously bad on self-defense of any kind (in fact, was the prosecutor in Caetano!), and the jury pool is gonna be a clusterfuck.

On the flip side, Massachusetts is one of very few states where prior bad acts by an attacker unknown to the person claiming self defense not only may be used at trial, but must in some cases. The falls outside of the realm where it would be clear reversible error to exclude unless the state disputes who was the "first attacker", but there's still a strong precedent to work with. And the attacker is, unsurprisingly, a piece of work.

But, again, Massachusetts juries, so not a great situation.

I don't think prior bad acts are going to matter. Massachusetts has a very strong form of proportionality; you have to use the amount of force necessary and no more. The jury instruction disclaims it being Shylock-style exactitude, but I suspect the prosecutor tries to make that case anyway. Mostly it's going to come down to shocking the conscience of the jury about SHOOTING AN UNARMED PERSON.

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