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Silly rule? Yah it's completely unacceptable that people ask for the rules of their property to be obeyed and their employees to be treated with dignity. Some of you are really sad.
the sidewalk is not their property. it's city property. Once they were on the sidewalk he should have gone inside and called the cops.
Technically but that’s a major stretch and the whole situation could have been avoided. Last I checked Dela was removing their barricade and skate their ledge. So, again, entitlement attitude leads to a fight and a disabled senior citizen. Bravo, guys!
I can’t wait for Dela to lose his sponsorships. Then I can harass him at his job when he has to get a 9 to 5.
the mental gymnastics you're going through to vilify these guys despite clear video evidence showing self defense is really impressive.
Dela fucked your girl?
You must be one of the good homies huh. The courts disagree with you, rationale disagrees with you, and I disagree with you. No gymnastics required as I have a functioning brain, one that isnt compromised by the pathology that is skateboarder ego. Thank god I have yet to run into a motherfucker like you while in s.f, but then again, I do avoid art shows. You see I'd rather be riding my skateboard instead of using it as a means to extort the culture, or to paralyze an old man. Fuck gx1000. Skateboarding may be eternal but bullying should never leave grade school.
Do you really think that a security guard should get physical over protecting property from skaters? This spot has been getting skated for the last thirty years, why would anyone go to the extreme that the security guard did? Certainly there must be a protocol before getting violent and certainly he could have just called the cops, right?
Completely irrelevant when weighed against the end result.
No amount of errors or physical interjection ( save for lethal force ) on behalf of this particular security guard ( being old and out numbered 5 to 1 ) warrants any modicum of returned physical force under the guise of self defense, per the legal definition of self defense ( especially in CA ). This fact is definitive once put into the context that the gx dudes created for themselves.
Gx dudes were effectively on the property illegally after guard asks them to leave. This makes them responsible for any outcome moving forward. This reality mutes any rational or justifiable self defense argument by proxy.
Self defense is contingent upon the subjects actions of reasonableness. An example of how prosecutors define reasonableness in this capacity; did the subject attempt to de-escalate, avoid, or escape the situation before having to reasonably resort to physical force? Were the physical actions of the gx dudes reasonably justifiable within the parameters of the use of force continuum?
Gx dudes made absolutely no attempt at de escalating the situation ( exemplified by moving barriers, refusing to leave ). They certainly could have avoided the altercation altogether, and they irrefutably could have escaped guards "aggressive behavior" and his range of force simply by hopping on their boards and bombing the hill ( like they so effortlessly did after paralyzing the dude ) Use of force on behalf of the gx dudes does not reflect a reasonable continuum: One unarmed old man vs 5 young men who resort to using an improvised weapon.
Because guard didnt die the prosecutors are only required to provide their burden of proof based off of the propensity of the evidence in order to get a conviction ( as opposed to having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt ). Its obvious to me though that these guys are fucking freaks for their behavior and I have no doubt that if I ever witness some shit like that I will do my best to prevent those bullies from harming elderly.
The guards choice to get physical is not completely irrelevant and if you have been following the case than you know that a majority of the jury agrees with the self-defense argument the lawyers presented. I’m not saying what happened was right nor was it not tragic but to not look at the responsibility of the guard and his choice to get physical first is at best being blind.
If the majority of the jury agrees with the self defense case that's tragic. I'm sure the judge will take into account how fucking stupid jurors can be in s.f. I know that what those kooks did was wrong, and I can only hope that if they dont get prosecuted criminally that they get reamed civilly. Ideally GX gets sued and shut down. I have no tolerance for violent bullies in skateboarding. Please take your bigotry, hatred, hypocrisy and ego to the football field.
I am an actual lawyer and this whole thread is melting my brain. All criminal charges--all of them, from minor property crimes to serial murders--require that the prosecution prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as in: you can't think of a single plausible reason to doubt the person's guilt. It's supposed to make it pretty hard to wrongfully convict someone of a crime. Preponderance of the evidence is the civil liability standard and it means "substantially more likely than not, based on the evidence presented", and it does not apply in any criminal cases.
Your DA friend might have been telling you that if the criminal case is dismissed because they don't want to retry it after a hung jury, the guard could still pursue a civil claim (for $$$, not jail time) that carries a lower burden of proof. But he won't do that either because civil suits for major injuries cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and these dudes are fuckin broke so there isn't even a pot of money at the end of the process to justify the trouble. I've heard people say around here that professional skateboarders are considered independent contractors under California law everywhere but in organized competitions, and there is no vicarious liability by businesses for the acts of indepdendent contractors pretty much full stop. So his sponsors won't have to pay anything either because he's a contractor. The difference between an employee and a contractor is that contractors decide for themselves how to do the "job" they were hired to do whereas employees are legally presumed to be directed and controlled by their employers while on the job. Since the sponsors don't have any control over how a skateboarder does their job (except, apparently, when they are skating in organized competitions), they aren't responsible for skateboarder's actions. Simple as that.
Finally, a judge can't "do something about" a jury unless there is some kind of evidence of juror misconduct or jury tampering otherwise, worrying about what the jury decides isn't his job. That's because the judge and the jury do completely different things: the judge decides what law applies in the case (which includes deciding what evidence may be presented at trial and the specific legal definition of the charges being brought by the DA, among a lot of other things) and the jury decides "fact" questions, e.g., did the person actually do the thing(s) they are being charged with based on the evidence presented. The jury definitely heard all of the evidence about trespassing, who was the initial aggressor, and who had the duty to disengage in order to be able to claim self defense at trial because the judge decided to instruct the jury that they could acquit for self defense based on the evidence. Some of the jurors voted to do that and it resulted in a hung jury.
In a super fact-intensive case like this, a hung jury might tell the prosecutor they didn't do so hot at presenting their evidence, and if they can't find a way to tighten up their trial strategy with they evidence they have to work with, they'll often just drop the charges instead of trying a losing strategy again hoping for better results. I'm guessing that's as likely as anything to happen here, but on the other hand the prosecutor might just want to bag a skateboarder for some reason. You asked a cop (your DA friend) about this and you got a cop's response, which is of course he's guilty there's no other way about it. Good thing there are non-cop lawyers out there out there who actually care about what's fair instead of just getting convictions to please their bosses who will be up for reelection in a year or two.