Police priorities – can someone explain them to me?

Thanks Pat. I appreciate that

JCS acted in a reasonable and restrained manner. The cops should have got there sooner to arrest the the other guy.

From what JCS has said, I think he did well.

It's always appeared to me to be difficult to successfully use a defence of self-defence in court - a lot more people seem to get in trouble for it than prove that their use of force was reasonable and appropriate to the situation.

JCS's wife and child were involved and that changes things a lot AFAIC.

I have to say that, regardless of the comments of those re lack of prompt police attendance, we only have one persons side of the story to vote on.

We do not know the full facts.

There are always two sides to such incidents. Please remember this...

regards

andy.

Agreed Andy

However I have some sympathy for the case when an overt bully/aggressor who thinks that they can pick on (what appears to be) an easy Target (lone female and child) gets a shock to find that the potential victim has indeed some protection.

I bet the aggressor got the fright of his life when JCS showed up to defend his wife.

Given that the aggressor was able to get up at the end and walk/run/drive away is indeed testament to the reasonableness of the force used by JCS.

Regards P

P,
I see and take on board your point. However there are always three sides to this type of story:
side a's
side b's
the truth.

The fact the agressor walked away, is one possible indication of a proprtionate resonse - in light of available info, tho.

From limited past knowledge in studying law (very limited in this situation as I studied Tort and that was nearly 20 years ago) - If in the moment you were afraid for your own safety and that of your family, the law allows you take such reasonable measures as required to defend yourself and your family. It's that question of what is reasonable that sometimes gets sticky. If your actions prevented injury to yourself and your family while under attack or even a threatened attack and the assailant had no lasting injuries, you are unlikley to face a prosecution I believe. Even if it was taken further, it's then still a case of determining reasonability and if you had no official assisitance to hand i.e. the police even after calling them, it's hard to determine that what you did was unreasonable. Unreasonable defence is usually pre-meditated e.g. lying in wait with a shotgun or clearly over the top actions by typical standards e.g. someone calls you a name and you stab them with a kitchen knife. You being trained the way you are have a duty of care to use your skills in a reasonable and controlled manner, which it appears you probably did.

From a personal perspective, I believe very few people would be expected to remain calm and try to talk their way through a situation when confonted by someone who is clearly not in control of themselves and apparently threatening or starting violent actions. So good on you! Where can you study that Israeli thing?

quote:

Originally posted by JamieWednesday:
Where can you study that Israeli thing?

The nearest place to you in Peterbprough would I think be Nottingham, where I train

quote:

Originally posted by andy c:
I have to say that, regardless of the comments of those re lack of prompt police attendance, we only have one persons side of the story to vote on.

We do not know the full facts.

There are always two sides to such incidents. Please remember this...

regards

andy.

I cannot agree more, this year i have driven over 40,000 miles, if I had £1 for everytime I witnessed poor driving - with a woman behind the wheel i'd own a cd555.

As Andy says, there are two sides to the story, whilst I cannot agree with what the 18 stone guy "did" in response to what was said to of briefly happened, I would certainly not be happy if somebody pulled out in front of me through bad driving, resulting in me going in to the back of them.

It would be interesting to hear how the collision exactly happened?

quote:

It would be interesting to hear how the collision exactly happened?

Agreed. Always a good starting point in a road accident. But its most unlikely the Range Rover driver will ever appear in these pages to put his side of the story.

So...... just for the fun of it, lets assume that Mrs Smith, driving the Corsa, had pulled out in front of the Range Rover, without looking and without signalling and then slammed her brakes on hard to stop dead. The poor old Range Rover driver, doing about 20mph and driving carefully to match the prevailing road conditions and traffic, valiantly tries, but fails to stop. Through no fault of his own, and entirely due to the completely unforseable, idiotic action of a disassociated, active driver, he has pranged his brand new Range Rover.

I am NOT calling Mrs Smith an idiot. This is purely hypothetical.

Under these circumstances
a) would the Range Rover driver be justified in exhibiting road-rage and terrifying Mrs Smith, all as described by Mr Smith? and
b) would Mr Smith be justified in taking the actions he has described.

Cheers

Don
PS my answers are

a) no
b) yes

quote:

The poor old Range Rover driver, doing about 20mph and driving carefully to match the prevailing road conditions and traffic,

What planet do you live on?

On a somewhat unrelated note. I was reading our local paper this morning and in the letters section was a letter from a lady praising the police and East Surrey Hospital for their prompt actions following an assault on her son. Yes I do knock the police when it is deserved but at the same time will happily recognise and ackowledge when they do things right. It's nice to come accross a positive story every now and again.

My hypothetical view, note hypothetical view, is at what staege could the act of self defence ended? At what point did the act go beyond self defence and become voluntary? Sorry, but u r talking law and stated cases issues here...

The above questions are again theoretical, for obvious reasons..

quote:

What planet do you live on?

I know, I know, its a bit far-fetched....

I had to use all my powers of wierd imagination to dream this one up. Despite the unreality of it however, I persevered. This increadible feat ought to be recognised and applauded by all who read this thread.....

Cheers

Don

...and from personal experience that I won't go into, how do you know when it is safe to stop the self-defence? Sometimes stopping too soon, without the other party disabled as per jcs, signals nothing more than the end of round 1.

I will not make that mistake again.

I do feel however, that there was considerable restraint shown by jcs, can anyone here say for sure that they would have pulled their punches in the heat of battle? The throat strike as described is very difficult to achieve witout applying too much force.

regards,

michael

One man's 'considerable restraint' is another man's mindless thuggery. One wonders why Mr. Smith was attacked?

I think Andy C has made the most pithy and accurate statement so far on this thread. ie: that we have heard only one side of the story (from jcs_smith); but there have been compliments, criticisms and insinuations.

I do hope that the matter can be sorted out to our good forum member's satisfaction and I offer him and his family my kindest regards.

quote:

pithy

Deane,

I had to look up what 'pithy' meant!

Shows just how bad I wasa dragged up....LOL

quote:

Originally posted by acad tsunami:
One man's 'considerable restraint' is another man's mindless thuggery. One wonders why Mr. Smith was attacked?

Well off the top of my head. How about he had a reputation as a hard man to maintain? How about he was out of control? Or a violent psychopath? Maybe he relished to opportunity to beat and humiliate someone in front of an audience? Or maybe because of his size and aggression he was unused to people standing up to him? Or perhaps the most plausible in view of the fact that he was driving a Range Rover – he has a small penis and a big chip on his shoulder and he needs to constantly boost his ego by throwing his weight around?

quote:

Originally posted by jcs_smith:

quote:

Originally posted by acad tsunami:
One man's 'considerable restraint' is another man's mindless thuggery. One wonders why Mr. Smith was attacked?

Well off the top of my head. How about he had a reputation as a hard man to maintain? How about he was out of control? Or a violent psychopath? Maybe he relished to opportunity to beat and humiliate someone in front of an audience? Or maybe because of his size and aggression he was unused to people standing up to him? Or perhaps the most plausible in view of the fact that he was driving a Range Rover – he has a small penis and a big chip on his shoulder and he needs to constantly boost his ego by throwing his weight around?

Why did he attack you and not the other onlookers?

Because they were standing well out of the way on the other side of the street and saying nothing while I came towards him and told him to leave my wife and baby alone. Would you have preferred I said go ahead, do whatever you want to do, she's only a woman, she deserves it? Perhaps I should have invited him round to tea?

quote:

Originally posted by jcs_smith:
Perhaps I should have invited him round to tea?

A good idea, no doubt the invitation would have given him pause for thought, a pause for thought is exactly what this situation needed. I expect if you had walked up to him and said 'Hello my friend, you seem to be upset, what is the matter, can I help'? you might have had a different response from him. But you didnt did you? I suspect first of all that you ran up to him, you admit you shouted at him and you were all puffed up and openly agressive and probably shoved him out of the way. Am I right?

Given that kind of approach and given that said psycho was (allegedly)out of control it was obviously going to escalate matters to the point of violence. This is of course exactly what you wanted. So why the graphic blow by blow account here? To get some sympathy? To bask in the glory of a manly job well done?

I witnessed a total psycho jump out of a car with a baseball bat and set about bashing a volvo to bits because the volvo driver (a woman) had pulled out of a give way without looking and there had been a very minor collision which caused slight damage to both cars.

I walked up to the psycho and we had a violent altercation which went something like this:

Acad - Women drivers eh'

Psycho - Yea did you see what this stupid bitch did?'

Acad - Yes she pulled right out in front of you, typical woman, typical volvo driver.

Psycho - Yes, they are the worst, effing bitches think they own the effing roads

By this time I had showed him I was no threat and that I understood why he was angry and I had walked between him and the car thus stopping the attack.

Acad - Well you have certainly taught her a lesson mate, you better leave sharpish because the police are on their way.

Psycho - yea, right, cheers mate.

He got in his car and drove off. I comforted the woman. From the moment I opened my mouth the attack on the car stopped.

The police got a description of the car and driver and a statement from me and I gave evidence against the chap in court, he had no MOT, no tax and was driving while banned and had a string of convictions for GBH. He got a prison sentence.

Sorted. Not as exciting as your story but Im not a licensed bouncer.

Acad
All well and good but how would you have reacted if it was your wife and 10 month child
being attacked? Jcs would appear to be an experienced and proficient martial artist and
those types of people usually display and are taught to display considerable restraint when required.Please don't assume that all martial artists are licensed bouncers.Well done Jcs ,as far as I can see you were left with no other alternative bearing in mind your wife and son were at risk and the driver attacked you first.I deplore violence but if I was in the same situation and my back was against the wall I would like to think I had the physical and mental capability to control any given situation.
Regards,Trevor

quote:

Well off the top of my head. How about he had a reputation as a hard man to maintain?

intimidating and menacing a woman with bairn? well-hard, that.

You did well to act with restraint IMHO, given the circumstances (as you describe them). Move on; and sell the corsa though as a precaution.

quote:

Originally posted by toby:
Acad
All well and good but how would you have reacted if it was your wife and 10 month child
being attacked? Jcs would appear to be an experienced and proficient martial artist and
those types of people usually display and are taught to display considerable restraint when required.Please don't assume that all martial artists are licensed bouncers.Well done Jcs ,as far as I can see you were left with no other alternative bearing in mind your wife and son were at risk and the driver attacked you first.I deplore violence but if I was in the same situation and my back was against the wall I would like to think I had the physical and mental capability to control any given situation.
Regards,Trevor

Toby,

JCS did not have a choice, this is true. That was his problem, this is also true. The psycho did not have a choice either and that was his problem too. Two men without a choice is always a recipe for disaster.

My wife or not my wife I would have done exactly the same as I did with the baseball bat psycho -this is because I have a choice. I do not see a 'victim' and a 'persecutor' in the JCS scenario I see two victims as both were victims of the same uncontrollable anger (the psychos). My only concern was/would be to de-escalate so that no harm comes to either party. If the psycho had been actually physically attacking/harming my wife (or anyone else) then that is a different matter entirely. However if we actually read JCSs original post we see how is wife managed to call both the police and JCS himself whilst being 'attacked' which is highly unlikely and how on advice she chose to lock herself in her car and we are told she was still being subjected to abuse some minutes later when Bruce Lee arrived on the scene. If Mr. Psycho did not physically attack the wife when she was out of the car then one wonders why he should wait until she was in the car and if he had attached physically when she was out of the car then one wonders why JCS did not list the details as we already know he loves his blow by blow accounts? We are told the police did not arrive which is again highly unlikely. My own expereince is that police arrive at incidents like this within 2/3 minutes. We only have one side of the story and it does not ring true. We can see that JCS is prejediced against men with Range Rovers who reckon they are hard and who have small penises (he would know as we are told he grabbed it and gave it a squeeze which I think is a bit of nerve unless they had been introduced first).

Mr. Smith achieved nothing worth bragging about, he put himself and his wife in more danger- Mr.psycho could have been carrying a knife and/or gun (increasingly common in the UK)or he could have had weapons or mates in his car. He could have got back in his car and rammed the corsa.

What I achieved was a full result with no danger to anyone, no harm to anyone and I achieved it with little effort. If you genuinely think Mr. Smith did a better job that is your business. No where have I assumed that all martial artists are licensed bouncers. I am a former martial artist myself and I am not nor have I ever been a licensed bouncer. Many bouncers are simply people who like the prosepct of being able to use their 'skills' legitimately as are many martial artists. Mr. Smith provides details of one methodology and I have provided details of another. You now have a choice.

Acad (former Personal Guard to Imelda's shoe cupboard.)