ccrunner609;390457 wrote:You are taking the perspective of your own mind sitting at home watching a video. Of course you dont see or feel intimidated. But I am sure if you were these students or if you were there on the street you would have a different perspective. Laws are written without bias of perseption.......what he did was commit a criminal act of assult and battery on that kid and would lose in every court in the United states if it applied the law as it is written.

i showed you the written law of assault, prove to me he was attempting to cause physical harm. he wasnt. Battery probably, but two seperate crimes(well not really crime, battery is civil i think). if this crime was as bad as everyone is making it out to be, why havent the students brought charges against him in the past week or so since this happend?

"Assault" is defined differently in different jurisdictions. In some, an assault is actually making contact with the person, while in others, that's a battery, and an assault is an attempted or threatened battery. Knowing what the Ohio assault law is has zero bearing on what the assault law is in NC.

Under the common law, if you raise your fist and threaten to punch someone (and they see it), that's assault. If you actually hit them, then it's a battery. I have no idea what the NC laws are on this, but the Ohio law on it is irrelevant and meaningless here.

Regardless, this was a stupid act on behalf of the Congressman, and he should be held accountable. How can he possibly think it's okay to grab some guy who asks him a fair question? That's just ridiculous.

I wonder if that kid (or whoever the one with the camera was) would have knocked the congressman on his ass, if he wouldn't be the one to get arrested?

ccrunner609;390513 wrote:Prove he was trying to cause physical harm.......did you watch the video? He wouldnt let go of the kid. What if the kid had a degenerative bone disease and the congressman broke his wrist? So its assult then?

if he did, yeah it would be assault, there would have been physical harm and he probably would press charges.

fan_from_texas;390517 wrote:"Assault" is defined differently in different jurisdictions. In some, an assault is actually making contact with the person, while in others, that's a battery, and an assault is an attempted or threatened battery. Knowing what the Ohio assault law is has zero bearing on what the assault law is in NC.

yeah i know its different everywhere. i just know ohio law better and can reference it faster than the laws for D.C.

Glory Days;390051 wrote:
Oh I agree that he should have acted better. But if you want to hold him to the same standards as everyone else though, forget about this incident. I have seen bouncers treat drunks 10x worse yet they arent being charged with assault etc. parents grab their kids like this and scold them everyday in stores when the kids are running around and don’t get in trouble for assault.

Does he have a history of this type of thing? I mean, one bad day and this is the worst thing he has done, I think I’ll let it pass.

I think comparing bouncers "manhandling" drunken bar patrons to this CONGRESSMAN physically grabbing a law abiding citizen that was asking a question in a respectful manner is a terrible, terrible analogy. Also, parents grabbing their children is not a good analogy either as they are the legal guardians of said children. However, there is times (albeit not too often) that bouncers have been charged with assault as well as parents getting in trouble for grabbing or hitting their children.

That being said, I am not debating the legality of the Congressman's actions, I am not an attorney and do not know the law in that particular jurisdiction. What I am saying is that this congressman was way out of line here. He should be publically reprimanded and hopefully his actions effect him in his next election.

Glory Days;391150 wrote:if he did, yeah it would be assault, there would have been physical harm and he probably would press charges.



yeah i know its different everywhere. i just know ohio law better and can reference it faster than the laws for D.C.

As FFT stated, Ohio law is irrelevent in this situation, so referencing it really doesn't support your argument that this wasn't assault or battery. I'm not saying it was, just that referencing Ohio law isn't appropriate in this scenario.

Why is there no mention of attempted abduction, attempted holding a person against their will or even attempted kidnapping? The student repeatedly asks the congressman to release him and then the student is pulled toward the congressman and additionally held against his will.

As far as assault/battery, who knows how tight the grip was being held by the congressman on the student. If the student can show any type of bruising/contusion caused by the extent/harshness of the grip than the congressman could be seen as having assaulted or committed battery against the student.

Ultimately, it depends how the law is interpreted where the incident took place.

The guy's a dummy...probably just got swindled by a hooker and was salty about it. Even if the kid sued him for some kind of intentional tort it would be silly as it doesn't seem like there's damages. Also, certainly not worthy of criminal charges. How's about voting him out North Carolina?