Claiming That Somebody Was Suicidal as a Defense to Battery or Unlawful Restraint

[Taxing Matters]

This is a situation where I think people felt an IMMENENT enough of a threat to call police and get them involved. Police would not have covertly approached the man and remove his weapon if they didn't feel the same way.

No. Once again, you are describing a potential threat. You described him as “crazy” and that can mean a whole lot of things. But you did not describe a situation in which he was posing some immediate threat of harm to anyone — he wasn’t pointing the gun at anyone, he wasn’t threatening to kill or harm anyone. He was simply walking down the street with what appeared to be a rifle. And, in case you didn’t know, in many places walking carrying a firearm in plain view is actually perfectly legal to do. Just as walking around with a knife in hand in plain view is generally perfectly legal to do. You’ll note that the public did not try to disarm this guy; they called the police and let them deal with it, which they did, apparently successfully. There wasn’t any need for someone to disarm him before they got there. Your friend should have done the same thing: call the authorities and not pull her back into the apartment to try to disarm her.

[TechWorker]

You’ll note that the public did not try to disarm this guy; they called the police and let them deal with it...

Uh, maybe the civilians did not try to disarm the guy ... because they were AFRAID to do so?

[cdwjava]

Uh, maybe the civilians did not try to disarm the guy ... because they were AFRAID to do so?

As well they should have been! When unarmed and untrained civilians approach an armed and possibly deranged subject we call them "victims." Best to wait for the police to deal with that. More victims tends to make the job of the police all that much more difficult.

[Question4law]

Why do you call them victims? Is it because the civilians are facing an immanent threat regardless if they are being explicitly threatened by the deranged individual?

If the police call someone like that a victim, I simply don't understand why it is not legal for a civilian to attempt to eliminate the threat themselves. Any other 'victim' of a crime would be entitled to do so as a measure of self defense.

Don't answer that question though. I'm just pointing out the double standard between what you just said and the situation in this thread.

[free9man]

Don't answer that question though. I'm just pointing out the double standard between what you just said and the situation in this thread.

You just can't get it through your thick head, can you? Your friend's GF was not a threat. He had no right of self defense nor was he stopping an imminent threat to himself or others.

[cdwjava]

Why do you call them victims? Is it because the civilians are facing an immanent threat regardless if they are being explicitly threatened by the deranged individual?If the police call someone like that a victim, I simply don't understand why it is not legal for a civilian to attempt to eliminate the threat themselves. Any other 'victim' of a crime would be entitled to do so as a measure of self defense.

I call them "victims" because if an untrained, ill-equipped civilian tries to take on an armed and deranged subject, they are more likely to get hurt or killed than affect any sort of detention! Hence, they BECOME victims. Before that, they are NOT victims, they SHOULD be good witnesses.

Don't answer that question though. I'm just pointing out the double standard between what you just said and the situation in this thread.

Answered anyway, because you misunderstood what I wrote.

[Question4law]

This situation could really get a lot simpler for my friend if he just lied and said she to him she was going to go hurt someone. Maybe that's what I can't get through my head. That's all he'd have to convince a jury of, and it doesn't sound like it would be that diffucult given the circumstantial evidence here.

[Mark47n]

If there were witnesses, which I believe were mentioned earlier, of the GF being yanked back into the apartment then it's not so circumstantial, is it?

[Taxing Matters]

Uh, maybe the civilians did not try to disarm the guy ... because they were AFRAID to do so?

Quite rightly so. I have already said in this thread that it is foolish to get into a fight with someone armed, whether it be a giant knife or a gun, as that may risk doing more harm than good when there is no imminent (immediate) threat of harm from the person. That was true with the OP’s friend getting into the fight with his girlfriend and true with this guy with the rifle. That should be just common sense. The OP’s friend let his emotions cloud his common sense and engage in an altercation that was not necessary and that could have resulted in serious harm to one or both of them. He’s fortunate it didn’t turn out that way.

In addition to that common sense issue, there is the legal issue of potentially being charged with a crime when getting physical with someone who is not posing an imminent threat of harm to anyone else. Had someone tackled the guy just walking down the street with what might have been a rifle he may well have ended up facing charges himself for battery or some other offense.

This situation could really get a lot simpler for my friend if he just lied and said she to him she was going to go hurt someone. Maybe that's what I can't get through my head. That's all he'd have to convince a jury of, and it doesn't sound like it would be that diffucult given the circumstantial evidence here.

He’d have to hope the jury believed him, and that’s not a given. Moreover, the case against him is not circumstantial. There is direct evidence — the neighbors who saw him grab her and pull her back in (and didn’t see a knife) and apparently heard at least some of the shouting between them. I’m going to guess none of the neighbors heard that she threatened him. And there is also whatever the cops heard and saw when they showed up and whatever she told them. All of that is direct, not circumstantial, evidence. His biggest problem is that even if he lied and said she threatened him, she wasn’t threatening him at the time she was walking out the door nor was she in an immediate position to do him harm. Her back was turned to him walking out of the apartment. There was no imminent threat at the time he grabbed her and pulled her back inside. Whatever might have happened before then in the apartment, once the threat was gone he had no right to grab her and fight her for the knife. You don’t want to acknowledge that, but it is certainly what a jury is going to be looking at if it goes to trial — why did he need to grab her when at that time she posed no imminent threat to himself or anyone else? There are independent witnesses that saw him pull her inside, so he couldn’t lie his way of that part very well.

[Question4law]

If there were witnesses, which I believe were mentioned earlier, of the GF being yanked back into the apartment then it's not so circumstantial, is it?

At the end of the day it's pretty clear from the circumstantial evidence that this guy was just trying to keep a person he loved from carrying out a violent and destructive act that was shown to have been in progress, by the factual evidence in the case. It sounds like he made a HUGE mistake in his efforts to do so. And ultimately he is getting punished for trying to help someone. He just went about it in a hysteria, forgot/didn't know his rights, and made one illegal act in the process of all the other things that were going on during that event.

I think this is a case where a defense attorney could handedly convince a jury of non-malificient motive, and convince the jury to nullify the law.