Seattle "Superhero" Arrested For Pepper Spray Assault

[Zing]

Well from what I'm gathering from the Escapists commenting on this who are actually from Seattle, their police department seems to be lackluster.

That and he did call the police. In fact he called 911. Multiple times.

I think you and a lot of people demonizing Jones here haven't actually seen the video. The people he went up against were all drunk. None of them were in a normal state of mind. They were fighting in the middle of the streets like barbaric people.

And trust me, I've spent plenty of time on the streets. I may be from Canada but there are some reeaally sketchy places up here. But if I see a guy in what seems to be a well made lightly armoured costume running up on a group of drunk people fighting with pepper spray as his defense, I would cheer him on. Crazy people don't spend their time learning martial arts and making homemade armour. Crazy people don't walk into a situation that's more dangerous for them and try to dissolve the problem. Just because he's in an outfit doesn't mean he's crazy.

If this was a police officer in the exact same situation people would be calling him epic, or badass.



It's funny that every time someone actually does something in the world people on forums find some reasons to crap all over what they did, sadly these same people complain that no one does any good in the world.

That's just it. He isn't a police officer. What right does he have to run in and stop a fight? He went looking to break up the fight which makes any claims that he was acting in self-defense completely bullshit. Vigilantism is not a good thing and shouldn't be encouraged.

 

[PaganFury]

How is that guy still alive. Its a good thing he`s in seattle where people are fairly laid back. He wouldnt last long in a lot of other cities.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

If you attack someone already in a fight, it kind of makes sense that they'll hit you. That is called self-defense. Bringing a weapon with the sole intent of committing assault however is never ever self-defense, no matter how you look at it.

You have to get this foolish idea of Jones running in and attacking this group of people out of your head. It's like you didn't even watch the video in question. He ran in between the brawl and shouted at everyone to stop fighting. Then HE was attacked for it. In which case he pepper sprayed them. SELF DEFENSE. It's not like he ran in an punched someone in the teeth, then pepper sprayed them.

Actually, even if I was just a bystander and not being attacked myself, I would move to disarm someone displaying a weapon whenever possible. And they'd better not raise it at me while I'm doing it.

So what you're saying is if you were a bystander in this situation and a guy went to:
1.Break up a fight with a crowd of drunken club goers, then
2.Gets attacked by some of them, and
3.Pepper sprays the attackers in SELF DEFENSE,

you would move to disarm him? That's assault. You just got involved in a situation just like you're demonizing Phoenix Jones for doing, but in your case, you're just attacking him. Because that makes sense.

Beating someone to keep them from using a weapon that could lead to you getting hurt or killed is never assault. If he hadn't attacked me, I wouldn't have fought back. If he hadn't brought a weapon, I would never go all out.

HE DIDN'T ATTACK ANYONE. Get that through your skull. Watch the video. It's clear as day that he just ran in and the first thing he says is, "get me 911". That's not what people who go for an attack generally do.

No, he joined in the fight and when he got what he had coming he acted like a little *****. Breaking up a fight involves de-escalation. Ussually by targeting the ringleaders, grabbing a hold of them and separating them firmly without giving them a chance to attack either you or others.

Watch the video again. I hardly call yelling, "hey break it up" joining a fight.

For this you'd typically start by leading them away, and using a armlock type of hold if it doesn't work, preferably one that doesn't involve joint manipulation, not untill the others fail anyway. In an extreme case where the violence is out of control you could choke someone out and lay them aside untill they wake up, remembering to keep anyone attacking them while unconcious off them. That's for instance a usefull tactic when dealing with people on drugs that render them unsensitive to pain.

Yep, because the techniques you described would work when surrounded by A GROUP OF DRUNK PEOPLE. Derp. I'll assume by now that you've gone back to actually watch the video. He gets attack just for showing up. Imagine what would've happened of he armlocked one out of the 8-10 people there. He probably would've been jumped instantly.

If there's multiple attackers, holds don't work. Use punches to the nose and jaw and kicks to the groin while positioning yourself well, or throw them into objects. Avoid being surrounded, always pick on one and strike with maximum violence untill he is incapacitated, then pick your next target, never throw half a punch at all of them at the same time

Don't try to tutor me on how to stop a situation with multiple people. You've probably never done this yourself, and even if you have probably not in the same situation as the one in question. You're probably not even qualified to be handing me instructions on how to stop 8-10 drunk people.

Actually I've been peppersprayed before. And I think it's perfectly possible to incapacitate an attacker, providing you have grabbed a hold of them before they use it. Which is why you go apeshit at them the moment you see the weapon, and you *never* wait for them to use it.

Have you been pepper sprayed while shitfaced? Doubt it. And I doubt you'd be able to incapacitate anyone while pepper sprayed, as well as being drunk. Especially a guy in body armour who knows self defense. Goooood luck.

The problem is you can't place techniques using sight anymore, so it would involve some serious brutality. Whatever the case, it is essential to keep attacking them untill they are unconcious or thoroughly uncapacitated by pain. If you let them back off after one or two strikes, they recover faster than you regain your eyesight, and you die. Then again, your attacker agreed to any degree of injury when he pulled out his pepperspray, so no need to feel guilty.

Good luck incapacitating a guy who knows martials arts and is wearing body armour, while drunk and peppersprayed.

You're talking half out of your ass and half analyzing a situation you've never been in. And what you're arguing really isn't my point. My point is that what he did was not wrong. Legally he's clear and the Seattle Police are most likely going to have to drop charges.

You keep going on about him running in with a weapon. He's going into a group of 8-10 drunk people. If he didn't show that he had some sort of protection, he would've been jumped instantly.

A police officer would have done the exact same thing.

 

[Fwee]

At least with a single person in a costume you know who's responsible when they get out of line. The police? They go far beyond what is required of them in the use of force and never have to deal with the consequences because of tacit indifference from the rest of their department.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Well from what I'm gathering from the Escapists commenting on this who are actually from Seattle, their police department seems to be lackluster.

That and he did call the police. In fact he called 911. Multiple times.

I think you and a lot of people demonizing Jones here haven't actually seen the video. The people he went up against were all drunk. None of them were in a normal state of mind. They were fighting in the middle of the streets like barbaric people.

And trust me, I've spent plenty of time on the streets. I may be from Canada but there are some reeaally sketchy places up here. But if I see a guy in what seems to be a well made lightly armoured costume running up on a group of drunk people fighting with pepper spray as his defense, I would cheer him on. Crazy people don't spend their time learning martial arts and making homemade armour. Crazy people don't walk into a situation that's more dangerous for them and try to dissolve the problem. Just because he's in an outfit doesn't mean he's crazy.

If this was a police officer in the exact same situation people would be calling him epic, or badass.



It's funny that every time someone actually does something in the world people on forums find some reasons to crap all over what they did, sadly these same people complain that no one does any good in the world.

That's just it. He isn't a police officer. What right does he have to run in and stop a fight? He went looking to break up the fight which makes any claims that he was acting in self-defense completely bullshit. Vigilantism is not a good thing and shouldn't be encouraged.

What gives him the right to stop a fight? Citizen's Arrest laws.

How does his self defense stay up even though he ran in to stop the fight?
The fact that he was going into a fight involving 8-10 drunk people. He ran in bransishing his pepper spray first because of that fact. A police officer would have done the exact same thing, difference being it would have been mace.

People say Vigilantism is bad but when someone gets attack in a situation where the bystanders just watch, they complain about no one taking action. Can't have it both ways.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

He didn't ask for this.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

think you and a lot of people demonizing Jones here haven't actually seen the video. The people he went up against were all drunk. None of them were in a normal state of mind. They were fighting in the middle of the streets like barbaric people.

And being drunk clearly warrants attacking them and assaulting them with weapons, I see....

And trust me, I've spent plenty of time on the streets. I may be from Canada but there are some reeaally sketchy places up here.

I see, and that you regard a place as sketchy is reason enough to carry around weapons and look for a fight?

Crazy people don't spend their time learning martial arts and making homemade armour.

If that guy has real experience with a fighting sport, I'm eating my socks. And his teacher would eat his socks too. For one thing he's actively looking for a fight. For another, he's scared of some slapping by a small girl, and already waving a weapon when a man looks like he might turn around to stop walking.

If this was a police officer in the exact same situation people would be calling him epic, or badass.

No, more likely he'd get penalised for excessive use of violence.

You're clearly going to ignore the fact that he didn't actually run in and attack anyone so this argument is over. Obviously you can't accept the fact that you are wrong in that regard even with video evidence showing that the fist thing he did was tell the guys filming him to call 911. Clearly you're being dense. I'm done with this. You can say that he ran in and assaulted people all you want, but I actually watched the video. He got hit first. One of the guys filming the situation got chocked, while the other was getting assaulted and the pepper spray was used in self defense. No argument, that's what happened. End of discussion.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

He didn't ask for this.

No he didn't. He just wanted to stop a fight.

 

[Treblaine]

In one case its about an innocentt bystander decided to act but in the other its about a guy who goes out at night looking for trouble.

I don't like your use of that term. I consider it an example of weasel words.

There are two meaning of "looking for trouble" literal and figurative and you are using the worst of both in a hostile characterisation:

-Figurative: "Going out with the intention to CAUSE trouble, such as a rowdy mob with pitchforks and flaming torches they intend to cause damage and no attempt at justice"
-Literal: "going out and searching for cases where trouble has already started without their influence, literally, there is trouble (a fight) to be sought out and interdicted"

You are being literally true that he is "looking for a fight" but your point hangs on the unfair implication that he wants to have the outcome of a fight, to sadistically inflict damage/pain which you have no reason to assume considering his initial conduct of non-violent separation of the fight. That is not provocation. It is unreasonable to lash out at someone - however dressed - who tries to stop a fight.

However, it is confusing as fuck what the hell happened there that night, a camera gives a pixel perfect but extremely narrow and select image of the events.

Common Laws says guilty till proven innocent. Where is the proof that he intended to do harm as the pure intention not the by-product of another intention such as to defend oneself, enough with this vague "looking for a fight" weasel wording.

I don't think a trial is unreasonable, but I do find this preconceived notion of "looking for trouble" an unreasonable premise.

PS: I will add that the mask is somewhat provocative in that it both conceals identity and empathy. In the comic books they wore masks because they did not want their real lives to be answerable either to the authorities or villains for many and various reasons.

I think a neighbourhood watch like this can be a positive and legal entity, but what purpose of the mask is he still intends to be answerable?

 

[chronobreak]

That and he did call the police. In fact he called 911. Multiple times.

I think you and a lot of people demonizing Jones here haven't actually seen the video. The people he went up against were all drunk. None of them were in a normal state of mind. They were fighting in the middle of the streets like barbaric people.

And trust me, I've spent plenty of time on the streets. I may be from Canada but there are some reeaally sketchy places up here. But if I see a guy in what seems to be a well made lightly armoured costume running up on a group of drunk people fighting with pepper spray as his defense, I would cheer him on. Crazy people don't spend their time learning martial arts and making homemade armour. Crazy people don't walk into a situation that's more dangerous for them and try to dissolve the problem. Just because he's in an outfit doesn't mean he's crazy.

If this was a police officer in the exact same situation people would be calling him epic, or badass.



It's funny that every time someone actually does something in the world people on forums find some reasons to crap all over what they did, sadly these same people complain that no one does any good in the world.

I watched the whole video. I realized he had someone call the police, that is not the issue here, obviously. The thing is, he shouldn't have "went up against" anyone. Nobody was asking for him to step in. If you would really cheer on a guy like that, I don't know what to say. Myself, I know I would just call the police on a possibly delusional individual. And if it was a police officer, nobody would be calling him anything, because it would be a non-story, and he would just be doing his job that he has been appointed to do.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Videos can mislead you into thinking you see the whole story of an event, but I don't think Jones did anything that should be illegal. He tried to break up a fight, and did not become embroiled in it himself. I did not see him swing on anyone. He ran away from attackers many times before using pepper spray. When he did finally use it, he did so at point blank range while still attempting to escape his attacker. He obviously is using it as a last resort and a deterrent to more harmful physical force. It's not illegal to keep an eye out for criminals and I don't think it should be.

I'm not sure what he is doing is wise or even responsible, but I don't think he should be locked up for garish fashion sense or, more to the point, because the police consider him a nuisance. I hope the charges get dismissed. Maybe one day something bad will come of his antics, but we can't lock people up for what we suspect they may do.

 

[JMan]

We need to institute a superhero registration thing where people wanting to be masked vigilantes have to undergo some form of weapons and self defense training, register their real and vigilante name and their costume to be able to fight crime legally.

 

[jawakiller]

"Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. Seattle is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No.""

-Phoenix Jones
(Actual quote)

"They had a choice, all of them."

 

[MrHero17]

All I'm gonna say is I'm on pheonix's side, I think vigilantism has some uses and shouldn't be totally discarded by society.

 

[Sir Prize]

Firstly, unless we see the whole scene, it's pretty hard to judge. I'm already against this guy for a few reasons:
1) The guy is a massive danger to himself and maybe those around him. If he gets into the wrong situation, he's screwed.
2) The guy brought a crew with him, so possible attention seeking.
3) Costumed 'heroes' are a bad idea. Too easy to spot and too east to target.

EDIT: Just to point out, I take no issue with those who take things into their own hands, so long as they are willing to take responablity. However I do have a bone to pick with those who go about it in a dumb manner. Leave the costumed heroes in comics and stick with reality.