What should happen to this kid?

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

Wednesday evening in Seattle, A 60 year old man was watering the trafiic circle in the street in front of his house. He doesn't like people running over his hose so he blocks traffic on that side of the street with traffic cones.

Most people go around the other side but a young women yells at him to move them. When the man refuses. She gets out of her car and starts to move the cones. At this point, the man sprays her with the hose and they both push each other. A young man seeing this, gets out of his car, and pops the guy once in the mouth.

The older man falls, hits his head and dies.

What should happen to the young man??


Both papers in the area make it seem like the young man was a murderer. Personally, I think the guy had no right to stop traffic, no right to spray the girl with water and no right to push her. The young man was simplely coming to her rescue. [STRIKE]Hitting the older man once in the mouth doesn't seems that unreasonable to me. Who could have known he'd fall down and die??[/STRIKE] I take this back! Hitting anyone just isn't OK. The young man shouldn't have hit the guy. But the number of comments on the local paper's website which say that the young man should get the death penalty are surprising.

The girl may have been very aggressive, the young man may have hit him really hard. The older guy may have thought that he had to protect himself by spraying the girl. It is a terrible thing.

But I'm shocked by the level of hate leveled at the young man.

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Young guy is at fault but IMO no jury will give him a severe penalty. Sometimes it is best not to get involved.

[Joe L Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe L]

In NYC he would be charged with misdemeanor assault. He punched him, that's all. His intent was to stop the man from spraying the woman. If he has no priors he should get nothing more than probation for a year and if no more incidents, his record wiped clean.

[chs225 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close chs225]

Here comes the contrarian point of view.
In Philly he would probably be charged with murder. The reason for this is he murdered someone. Seems pretty simple to me. If he pulled out a gun and shot the guy in the foot and he died no one would say he didn't mean to kill him and he shouldn't be charged with murder. The jury can then decide if he intentionally tried to kill him, if he intentionally tried to harm him or if his actions were reckless or if he should be excused for his actions.

This kid(and i don't know anything more about him) upped the violence level by physically assaulting a man substantially older then him. Personally whacking a 60 year old man in the mouth (and I am a 60 year old man) has the known potential to cause serious bodily harm to that person. While death is not likely, it is not that remote either and the serious harm should be anticipated. We are supposed to be a society that abhors violence, yet we react with violence and condone violence. I am not defending the older man for spraying or getting into a pushing match with the woman, but the woman did not have to escalate the problem and the kid certainly did not have to go on the offensive. Choosing to proceed with violence, he should now stand before his peers and face the penalties that striking a person and causing his death warrant. As the slogan says Stop The Violence Now!

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

We are supposed to be a society that abhors violence, yet we react with violence and condone violence. I am not defending the older man for spraying or getting into a pushing match with the woman, but the woman did not have to escalate the problem and the kid certainly did not have to go on the offensive. Choosing to proceed with violence, he should now stand before his peers and face the penalties that striking a person and causing his death warrant. As the slogan says Stop The Violence Now!

I certainly agree with you. Also, that at any time, almost anyone of them could have and should have backed off and stopped this from becoming a real tragedy.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

In most area's I know, murder is the intentional killing of another person. This was not intentional, which would fall under the label of manslaughter or the result of an act with the unintended result of the death of someone else. The intended act was to strike the man in the mouth. Hitting someone in the mouth ordinarily will not result in death. However, this act resulted in causing the man to fall and hitting his head, which did result in his death.

Every day I see very stupid people. Blocking a city street (public property with a right of way) isn't usually legal and should not be done. Especially if it's just a convenience thing (man didn't like people running over his garden hose). Essentially, he had no right to be there and he had no right, in most cases, to block through traffic without a permit. It may be argued that he created his own hazzard resulting in the events that took his life. Add to that the fact he was aggesive and used an object (water from a garden hose) to attempt to inflict injury on another person and he's potentially in the wrong not once but twice. He has blocked traffic, been asked (politely or not) to remove the obsticle, been aggesive to at least one person and, at this point, it is unknown what he said to the other man (newspapers will leave out important details).

I'm afraid if I had approached him about spraying the other woman and blocking traffic without a permit, and if he'd said anything aggresive to me, I might have popped him in the mouth as well. It's unfortunate but every day I'm at work I have to deal with people at the hospital who believe the rules dont apply. They should be allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want and however they want. That's fine in your own home (to an extent) but not when you're in public. This man exemplifies this selfish attitude the seems to exist in our country and is backed up by so many. I can do what I want, when I want and it does not matter if it inconveniences anyone else.

I'm not saying that he got what he asked for. I am saying he created his ow hazzard with the attitude that he can just stop traffic whenever he wanted and defended that attitude by spraying at least one person we know of with water.

There are many things that could have worked out differently.

1. He didn't have to block traffic to water the circle. Garden hoses are rarely damaged by being run over by a car.

2. The girl might have been more polite (who knows, maybe she was polite. Newspappers only cost a $1 and are rarely known for accuracy).

3. The deceased certainly DIDN'T need to spray water on the girl.

4. The man who hit the the man in the mouth could have called 911 and assisted the girl with filing assult and battery charges against the man who sprayed her (if he hit her with the water, it could be considered battery).

Any of those action might have prevented this unnecessary and unintentional death IMO. I also feel that many of those same people who are calling for the "death penalty) would have probably done the same thing. They appear to be a little bit more than hot headed over something they may not have all the facts about. I'm reasonably certain that, if the man sprayed water on a woman they knew, they'd probably have taken action themselves. I know if someone sprays my wife or daughter with a garden hose I'm probably going to have a few words with them and, if I feel they are about to do the same to me, may take further action as well.

[Joe L Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe L]

This is not murder. This is one man punching another man in the face. Age is not relevant. We don't know the size of the man punched nor his physical condition. Nor do we know know the size and physical condition of the puncher. I know many 60 year old men who could kick the crap out of alot of youngsters.

We also don't know if the older guy became aggressive to the younger guy. He definately became aggressive to the girl. He is watering a traffic circle? Seems a bit unusual to me. We need to read the article.

In NY, murder must be the intent of the action. The only other way would be Depraved indifference to human life. His actions, lacking intent, would have to be so off the charts, to be convicted of murder. One punch to the face would not raise to the level of Depraved Indifference.

[chs225 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close chs225]

In Penna. murder is the intent to do serious bodily injury which results in murder. Hitting someone in the face could be looked at as intent to harm and could result in a murder conviction. I am not advocating the death penalty (or for that matter any penalty for this kid), what I am saying is his actions in my opinion were too severe for the incident and he should now have a jury hear the evidence and decide whether he is guilty of murder. As I said before, I don't condone the older man's action, but it was still a needless death caused by unnecessary violence by the kid. We are fast becoming, but should not allow ourselves to become, a vigilante society that determines when we physically attack a person in order to break up a water fight or a pushing match. In this case it proved to be dead wrong

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

Fry him !

[Faust Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Faust]

Fan Dies In One-Punch Fight Outside SF Ballpark
SPORTSbyBROOKS Fan Dies In One-Punch Fight Outside SF Ballpark

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

If he had simply pushed the old guy in order to stop his assault on the girl that would be one thing. I believe he went too far in punching him.
That said I'm not sure a murder charge against him would stick in the UK, although courts are coming down much harder on this kind of offence. I certainly think a prison term is both likely and justified on the basis of the information we have here. After all what message would any other result send out? That it's OK to come upon an incident between 2 people and intervene violently without good cause?

[stasik Member Find all posts View Profile Close stasik]

Here comes the contrarian point of view.
In Philly he would probably be charged with murder. The reason for this is he murdered someone. Seems pretty simple to me. If he pulled out a gun and shot the guy in the foot and he died no one would say he didn't mean to kill him and he shouldn't be charged with murder. The jury can then decide if he intentionally tried to kill him, if he intentionally tried to harm him or if his actions were reckless or if he should be excused for his actions.

Give me a break. He would get very little in PA. The most he could probably be charged with is murder-3 (five year minimum sentence). I am not even sure that a prosecutor could be convinced to charge him with that. I think it would be relatively easy to convince a jury that he saw a woman being assaulted and stepped in to help. The deceased can't testify against him and it would be up to the woman to testify as to who was more guilty. With all of the crap going on in Philly, the papers would start coming back and arguing why Lynne Abraham is wasting her time with a guy who went overboard in defending a woman against a belligerent old man when there are serious violent crimes going on out there. Maybe the guy would get a year.

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

I personally knew a guy who served time for manslaughter for killing someone while "defending a woman's honor". Apparently there was a fight and the other guy died. From what I understand, it was a fist fight. Probably a similar situation to this, only the guys were roughly the same age in this situation.

[brucecz Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close brucecz]

In NYC he would be charged with misdemeanor assault. He punched him, that's all. His intent was to stop the man from spraying the woman. If he has no priors he should get nothing more than probation for a year and if no more incidents, his record wiped clean.

IMHO it should be on his record for ever and never wiped of as the old man is dead forever.

The old mans family sould sue the young man at least for all the funerial exspences and any other exspenses related to this death that the young man caused.

Bruce

[Joe L Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe L]

One thing left out by the OP is that the puncher FLED the scene:

Traffic circle dispute turns tragic

There are times when someone needs to be punched, such as when defending yourself or defending another. I can understand the outrage this has created. The puncher did not render aid to the man and fled the scene. Sounds like a local thug to me. I'm guessing he has numerous prior arrests.