Should this "Karen" be locked up for falsely accusing an innocent Black?

[krypton iodine sulfur]

And yet, I think it was his choices that eventually provoked this woman to escalate to physical aggression. Physical aggression is not safe! He made a bad choice that did not preserve the safety of his child and it is okay to call him out for it.

So you're blaming the victim. Sorry, only cops are allowed to get away with that when they screw up and assault someone.

Fine, if you want to look at it like that, I'm blaming the victim. The victim had the choice of indulging in a trivial act that had a great chance to de-escalate a tense situation and he chose not to do so.

You keep saying trivial. It's only trivial in the sense that it was physically easy. But the events unfolding are not trivial. Being randomly accused, having someone demand proof of your innocence and then requesting a grown man takes your phone from you is not trivial.

You also say 'had a great chance to de-escalate' but that is entirely an assumption on your part.

And just to be clear, I'm not ONLY blaming the victim. She screwed up, but he did too and it doesn't help society to ignore or excuse people making bad choices like this.

He didn't screw up. He made choices in an emergent situation that were all well within his rights and aimed at protecting his son against a situation that was quickly escalating against him. The woman was escalating and the hotel manager was now approaching him for his phone. Had she not decided to behave in an unlawful manner, they would have been on their way and out of the situation.

It's easy in retrospect to opine on what would or would not have been optimal, but it's all angels dancing on the head of a pin. Why would we assume that showing her the phone would have placated her when we cannot even account for her irrational accusation in the first place? Why would we assume that prolonged interaction would have led to increased calmness when people were getting amped up?

 

[zorq]

Third part, no, citizen's arrest is not a thing compatible with unecessarily attacking and scratching someone: doing things minimally necessary to block or stop them maybe. Maybe.

Uh, no. Details depend on the state but for example, a citizen is allowed to chase down and tackle a purse snatcher they have witnessed snatching a purse. If that purse snatcher breaks their arm, loses a finger or goes blind in one eye in the process of being tackled during that citizen's arrest the tackler is protected from any legal repercussions.

Regarding the rest: Yes, as I already said, she was not making a legitimate citizen's arrest.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Third part, no, citizen's arrest is not a thing compatible with unecessarily attacking and scratching someone: doing things minimally necessary to block or stop them maybe. Maybe.

Uh, no. Details depend on the state but for example, a citizen is allowed to chase down and tackle a purse snatcher they have witnessed snatching a purse. If that purse snatcher breaks their arm, loses a finger or goes blind in one eye in the process of being tackled during that citizen's arrest the tackler is protected from any legal repercussions.

Regarding the rest: Yes, as I already said, she was not making a legitimate citizen's arrest.

Then, she is NOT entitled to assault them which was the question.

So where did her sense of entitlement to assault them come from?

Also, where did her sense of entitlement to demand the boy to prove his innocence come from?

 

[zorq]

Fine, if you want to look at it like that, I'm blaming the victim. The victim had the choice of indulging in a trivial act that had a great chance to de-escalate a tense situation and he chose not to do so.

You keep saying trivial. It's only trivial in the sense that it was physically easy. But the events unfolding are not trivial. Being randomly accused, having someone demand proof of your innocence and then requesting a grown man takes your phone from you is not trivial.

The situation was not trivial, yes, I totally agree. I never called the situation trivial. Earlier in this thread I suggested that people in the US have been shot dead in the streets for less consequential reasons. But don't conflate the situation with the choice the dad had to prove his son's innocence. Pulling out your phone in public flashing it for a stranger is a trivial act. Any trivial act that we can accomplish to de-escalate dangerous situations ought to be encouraged.

You also say 'had a great chance to de-escalate' but that is entirely an assumption on your part.

No, it's not an assumption. It is a statistical extrapolation based on a lifetime of experience with humans. When people ask for evidence supporting claims they dispute the great majority of them accept concrete evidence when the evidence is provided. There's no guarantee the woman would have been satisfied, but it is totally worth the effort given the minuscule effort required.

And just to be clear, I'm not ONLY blaming the victim. She screwed up, but he did too and it doesn't help society to ignore or excuse people making bad choices like this.

He didn't screw up. He made choices in an emergent situation that were all well within his rights and aimed at protecting his son against a situation that was quickly escalating against him. The woman was escalating and the hotel manager was now approaching him for his phone. Had she not decided to behave in an unlawful manner, they would have been on their way and out of the situation.

It's easy in retrospect to opine on what would or would not have been optimal, but it's all angels dancing on the head of a pin. Why would we assume that showing her the phone would have placated her when we cannot even account for her irrational accusation in the first place?

The primary reason we can't account for the rationality of her accusation is because we don't have enough information to do so, not because it is inherently irrational. That aside, it is totally useful for us to retrospectively opine on the optimal course of action. If we refuse to be Monday morning quarterbacks we will remain completely unprepared to handle the big game when we get drafted next Sunday. This is how people learn to do better. By identifying bad choices and avoiding them in the future.

Why would we assume that prolonged interaction would have led to increased calmness when people were getting amped up?

We wouldn't. Ending the situation as quick as possible is always advisable. As quick as pulling out a cell phone and holding it up for a stranger to see.

 

[zorq]

Third part, no, citizen's arrest is not a thing compatible with unecessarily attacking and scratching someone: doing things minimally necessary to block or stop them maybe. Maybe.

Uh, no. Details depend on the state but for example, a citizen is allowed to chase down and tackle a purse snatcher they have witnessed snatching a purse. If that purse snatcher breaks their arm, loses a finger or goes blind in one eye in the process of being tackled during that citizen's arrest the tackler is protected from any legal repercussions.

Regarding the rest: Yes, as I already said, she was not making a legitimate citizen's arrest.

Then, she is NOT entitled to assault them which was the question.

So where did her sense of entitlement to assault them come from?

Also, where did her sense of entitlement to demand the boy to prove his innocence come from?

No, she is not legally entitled to assault them. But you asked for where the SENSE of entitlement comes from. I think the SENSE of entitlement comes from these citizen's arrest laws and their common-law ancestors. People are taught in American culture that you can defend yourself from assaults and you can seek instant redress from wrongs performed in your presence. This kind of cultural norm gives the people brought up in it the SENSE that they are entitled to retrieve property they believe has been taken from them. They are often wrong about some of the details, but that's just a human thing. Plus, not many people know all the laws.

Eh, it's just my opinion.

Maybe she is just a racist bitch as so many people are so eager to assume and that's where the entitlement you perceive comes from. …Or maybe she is just a product of American culture in an unusual situation.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

There's no guarantee the woman would have been satisfied, but it is totally worth the effort given the minuscule effort required.

But he already complied earlier. She demanded one person to empty their pockets (possibly for cover before asking him). She then asked/demanded him to empty his pockets and *poof* he had an iphone.

Then, it just became even more. She asked for more. She asked him to remove his case. And give the caseless phone to her.

I will remind you that we have protections of personal property in this country according to the Constitution. A citizen's arrest like hers ought to be based on certainty and it should be clear that she was trying to be dictator by demanding him to remove the case so she could see if it was hers. OR she concluded it was hers from other evidence that doesn't actually merit that conclusion, such as his race, gender, and age.

In any case, you can expect teenage boys, adult men, and most women to have a lot of private stuff on their phones...some things even incriminating, like stuff about weed, sex with other minors (if a teen), porn pictures, maybe stuff about other drugs, or maybe nothing incriminating of themselves but maybe something of a friend, maybe a friend stole something from a store. OR just super private things like conversations with friends about suicide or that so-and-so cheated on a girlfriend or on a test. OR his personal diary. OR his phone numbers of hookups. OR his second cousin sent him nude pictures. OR maybe he's secretly gay and has a gay dating app on his phone. Maybe he even has nude pictures of himself which would be illegal for her to look at. I don't know!!! [By the way, I suspect the reason she is so irrational and panicked is the contents of her own phone but that's an aside.]

Seizure of property requires a warrant based on probable cause and persons looking at children's electronics should be professionals or parents, not ordinary random strangers.

What you think happens next by an irrational person is that you think she'll see the phone and be like "Oh that's not mine. Sorry." What might happen instead is "Oh, I think you changed the card since you changed the case. Or you hacked the background to look like yours. Lemme see the files." How do you know? OR loudly, "why did you put a gay app on my phone? Oh wait..." He's got his stuff on there! What else happens? Does she ask the hotel manager to be judge and jury by examining the phone? Do police show up 5 minutes later and take it into custody? It's a good thing the father showed up and asserted his child's rights.

There's no mention in her story of her trying to call the number. She could do that instead but instead insists, no demands, that he prove his innocence by exposing himself to risks of his private property in other, strange hands. He's only a 14 year old kid. Calling her own phone number is the path of de-escalation, not trying to take private property.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Maybe she is just a racist bitch as so many people are so eager to assume and that's where the entitlement you perceive comes from. …Or maybe she is just a product of American culture in an unusual situation.

I can buy that maybe she is just a fascist against anyone and it's a coincidence about race. Maybe she has incriminating things on her phone and was flipping out and maybe that isn't typical for her. Police are having a hard time finding her for some reason. Maybe there is a lot more to her we will find out.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

The situation was not trivial, yes, I totally agree. I never called the situation trivial. Earlier in this thread I suggested that people in the US have been shot dead in the streets for less consequential reasons. But don't conflate the situation with the choice the dad had to prove his son's innocence. Pulling out your phone in public flashing it for a stranger is a trivial act.

I am not conflating them. I am saying specifically that showing the phone is a non-trivial event. Complying with unreasonable demands after false allegations is non-trivial. Caving in to a grown man who is now asking for property you have no obligation to give him is not trivial. It matters when you are put on the spot and pressured to comply. It matters when even your parents don't have your back in that scenario. Maybe not to you. If I generalize less, maybe even not to that kid specifically--I don't know what was in his head, but it is not particularly strange that it might not be trivial to a person in that situation. There should be no presumption that the act of showing her the phone or handing it over to the manager was trivial, especially given the emotionally charged atmosphere. Maybe you've never been in a situation like that, but it tends to play over in your mind for quite some time.

Whether showing your phone to a stranger is trivial or not has a whole lot of variation depending on the context.

No, it's not an assumption. It is a statistical extrapolation based on a lifetime of experience with humans.

I'd like to see your data, then. Also, in your "statistical extrapolation based on a lifetime of experience for humans" how often to they start randomly pointing fingers accusing people of theft then asking for people to start confiscating property when they lose their phone in a car?

Anecdotally, my experience is not the same. People struggle to deal with being wrong, especially in emotionally charged situations. When things get heated, people seem prone to rationalizing their point of view and aren't particularly receptive to new information contradicting what they think happened. But that is not a statistical extrapolation.

The primary reason we can't account for the rationality of her accusation is because we don't have enough information to do so, not because it is inherently irrational.

She had no evidence he stole her phone let alone that it was stolen in the fist place beyond the absence of her phone. By her own account, she demanded someone else empty their pockets first and she supposedly demanded to see the hotel security footage. Granted, the bit about asking someone else to empty their pockets could be a lie to deflect from accusations she singled out the boy based on racial bias, but honestly, she doesn't seem to leave much room or account for a scenario where she had reason to suspect this teenage boy.

We wouldn't. Ending the situation as quick as possible is always advisable. As quick as pulling out a cell phone and holding it up for a stranger to see.

Not being in the same space as her seems a much more likely way of reducing further conflict than continuing to engage with an unreasonable person, your 'statistical extrapolations' aside. Prolonging the exchange means more opportunities for escalation, and more likelihood that security or police intervene in an active dispute (security were already there at least by the time she tackled the teen).

Given a choice of continuing to engage on any level or leaving, I'd vote in favour of leaving without showing the phone. What actually would have been better in this specific case cannot be determined by us. So no, the armchair quarterbacking doesn't actually yield effective insights here. I can't generate a reasonably accurate model of what would have happened had the father and teen taken a different course for comparison. I highly doubt you or anyone else in this thread can either. I can only say of the options available, the one the father chose was within reason.

 

[Derec]

How about a month as Susan Smith's cellmate?

Or Crystal Mangum's. Scratch that. Cruel and unusual. That bitch is stabby.

 

[Derec]

Your example proves the point - the accusation was about rape.

Why do you think rape accusations require believing the female accuser without any evidence but cell phone theft is not?
Rape is a much more serious crime, and thus protections for the (often falsely) accused need to be stronger than for larceny, not weaker.

#BelieveWomen is about believing the story in order to verify it.

Before a story is verified or refuted the correct stance is neutrality, not automatically believing the woman.

 

[Derec]

Pretty sure about 42 million people would be thrilled not to be national news. For example: I'm pretty sure that Breonna Taylor's family would be delighted if she remained obscure--and alive. Ditto Tamir Rice's family and Botham Jean's family and George Floyd's family and a lot of other families would be delighted if their family member were obscure and alive.

Had George Floyd not tried to pass that phony $20, he'd be obscure but most likely still dead because of all the fentanyl and meth in his system.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Your example proves the point - the accusation was about rape.

Why do you think rape accusations require believing the female accuser without any evidence but cell phone theft is not?

Typically, rape victims actually witness the crime first hand, but an element of he said; she said often gets thrown into the mix, even when there is physical evidence. There have long been concerns of underreporting for a variety of reasons including (but not limited to) not being believed, being summarily discredited, victim blaming, or being denigrated. I assume the hashtag is #BelieveWomen due to statistical data indicating women are disproportionately affected and due to #MeToo being largely driven by women.

Reporting theft doesn't tend to face the same issues, or is at least not perceived to face them.

#BelieveWomen was a response to how people* reporting rape were mishandled and mistreated and what impact that had. The issue wasn't limited to getting criminal convictions, but even just to being generally heard, believed and supported. There was a heavy stigma to saying you were raped. Some took that hashtag to an extreme state of guilty until proven innocent. Others did not. I am not aware of a foremost definitive explanation of what it is supposed to mean in effect. I am just talking about what prompted the hashtag and why it exists in connection with rape/ sexual assault, specifically.

*I am saying 'people' in recognition of men/ boys and enbies who have faced the same issues. I didn't follow closely enough to know how inclusively most people interpreted the hashtag. I have fuckall interest in debating it one way or the other (nor, on the off chance he's reading along, having metaphor explain it with his particular brand of wtf).

 

[Gospel]

Pretty sure about 42 million people would be thrilled not to be national news. For example: I'm pretty sure that Breonna Taylor's family would be delighted if she remained obscure--and alive. Ditto Tamir Rice's family and Botham Jean's family and George Floyd's family and a lot of other families would be delighted if their family member were obscure and alive.

Had George Floyd not tried to pass that phony $20, he'd be obscure but most likely still dead because of all the fentanyl and meth in his system.

Had Derek Chauvin been as clever as you he wouldn't be facing second degree murder charges.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Pretty sure about 42 million people would be thrilled not to be national news. For example: I'm pretty sure that Breonna Taylor's family would be delighted if she remained obscure--and alive. Ditto Tamir Rice's family and Botham Jean's family and George Floyd's family and a lot of other families would be delighted if their family member were obscure and alive.

Had George Floyd not tried to pass that phony $20, he'd be obscure but most likely still dead because of all the fentanyl and meth in his system.

Nope. Being drug free wouldn't save a person from being chocked by 8 minutes and 26 seconds. The body needs air to survive.

 

[TSwizzle]

Karen stories are not national news.

Pretty sure about 42 million people would be thrilled not to be national news. For example: I'm pretty sure that Breonna Taylor's family would be delighted if she remained obscure--and alive. Ditto Tamir Rice's family and Botham Jean's family and George Floyd's family and a lot of other families would be delighted if their family member were obscure and alive.

Three people squabbling over a phone in a hotel lobby is not national news.

 

[ZiprHead]

There are already laws on the books against physical violence against other people outside of legal justification. Why not apply them? You haven't given a good reason to exempt her from the legal or social consequences for her behavior.

Women are never charged for domestic violence.

And while on the subject, the real news should be all the fake domestic charges that routinely happen during divorce. Why is all that lying socially acceptable? If a women wants the guy out she fills out an order of protection even if there was never any harm done to anyone. Why is that socially acceptable to society and wrong people accused on a routine basis? But then in this case, someone not stealing a phone is some kind of big news for this story?

Its because the media has to make the news and not report it.

Never?

It was an issue in an election here a few cycles ago--big guy calls the police on his little tiny wife and got her arrested. Which is exactly what he should have done in response to domestic violence!

It was not uncommon on the tv show COPS that women were arrested for domestic violence.

 

[TomC]

Pretty sure about 42 million people would be thrilled not to be national news. For example: I'm pretty sure that Breonna Taylor's family would be delighted if she remained obscure--and alive. Ditto Tamir Rice's family and Botham Jean's family and George Floyd's family and a lot of other families would be delighted if their family member were obscure and alive.

Had George Floyd not tried to pass that phony $20, he'd be obscure but most likely still dead because of all the fentanyl and meth in his system.

Nope. Being drug free wouldn't save a person from being chocked by 8 minutes and 26 seconds. The body needs air to survive.

But then again,
if Floyd hadn't tried pass a fake $20.
and if Floyd hadn't demanded to be let out of the police car
and hadn't remained belligerent after getting out of the car
and Chauvin didn't know him as the burly bar bouncer Chauvin used to work with

Maybe Floyd could have gone on living a life of crime and drugs. But the life expectancy wouldn't have been very good.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

Nope. Being drug free wouldn't save a person from being chocked by 8 minutes and 26 seconds. The body needs air to survive.

But then again,
if Floyd hadn't tried pass a fake $20.
and if Floyd hadn't demanded to be let out of the police car
and hadn't remained belligerent after getting out of the car
and Chauvin didn't know him as the burly bar bouncer Chauvin used to work with

Maybe Floyd could have gone on living a life of crime and drugs. But the life expectancy wouldn't have been very good.
Tom

You see a homeless guy dying in the street from pneumonia and you bash his head in with a rock, are you any less a murderer?

 

[ruby sparks]

It was not uncommon on the tv show COPS that women were arrested for domestic violence.

It's not uncommon in real life either.

 

[laughing dog]

Your example proves the point - the accusation was about rape.

Why do you think rape accusations require believing the female accuser without any evidence but cell phone theft is not?

Since I have repeatedly written (frequently in response to your blather), that it is about believing but verify, you ought to know the answer to your question - I don't.

One could belief that woman's story and one could have easily verified its veracity without engaging in violence or hysterics.

Rape is a much more serious crime, and thus protections for the (often falsely) accused need to be stronger than for larceny, not weaker.

Nope. One's life can easily be ruined any false accusation of any crime.

Before a story is verified or refuted the correct stance is neutrality, not automatically believing the woman.

There are plenty of instances of half-assed verification attempts of rape allegations. Belief implies one takes the accusation seriously and puts in the commiserate effort. I realize that upsets rape apologists, but that is what it means.