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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32956 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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I didn’t unintentionally end the man’s life due to a tragic and unforeseen accident;

Penny applied a form of restraint that obviously can very easily lead to death instead of applying any of many other kinds of restraints that just lock the person's arms and/or legs and so pose almost no threat of killing the other person.

I have been in fights before and so I know that in the heat of the moment one does not think clearly about exactly what one wants to try to do to the other person. So I don't judge Penny in that sense.

The question for me boils down to, was Neely actually attacking other people when Penny attacked him.

Chokehold isn't the same thing as choking. He wasn't choking him outright, supposedly the incident took 15 minutes.

I guess he messed up, although it's just possible like St. Floyd with his drug habit and severe heart issues, Neely just wasn't a healthy guy due to being a homeless drug abuser.

We might learn something from the autopsy perhaps.

I think folks should recognize that a crowd trying to restrain someone will end badly a certain percentage of the time, regardless of whether neck restraints are used. Violence is random like that -- people don't die when they should, others die when they shouldn't. Some just drop dead from the stress. Add the extreme exhaustion of fighting for ones life, a person who would otherwise survive might not be able adjust their position to breathe adequately. Like with drowning, the death process and mechanism might not be obvious to observers.

Right, which is why you shouldn't escalate a confrontation unless it's necessary to prevent imminent violence. If this guy was about the attack someone and he intervened imperfectly then it's self defense gone wrong. If he was simply spouting profanities and throwing (non-injurious) trash then the person who decide to escalate the confrontation to physical violence shoulders the legal risks of that violence going wrong.

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