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Path: utzoo!isis
From: isis@utzoo.UUCP (n)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.politics
Subject: Re: NYC subway hero
Message-ID: <4850@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Dec-84 16:52:01 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4850
Posted: Sun Dec 30 16:52:01 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Dec-84 16:52:01 EST
References: <121@cadre.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 71

The author From: geb@cadre.UUCP Message-ID: <121@cadre.UUCP> writes:

>  The manhunt is on!
>  Some poor bastard had the gall to shoot four punks
>  in NYC who attacked him with sharpened screwdrivers,
>  demanding money.  Now the police artist's drawing
>  of him is on nationwide television.  Public enemy number 
>  one.

The man clearly defended himself in a life threating situation.  He
had had
that right.  Why didn't he stay around?   After all he is a "hero"
now.  By
avoiding the inherent legal responsibilities, he has diminished the
effectiveness his action.  He fled for the same reason that criminals
flee from
crimes that they commit.  He didn't want to get CAUGHT!!!

>  If the punks had murdered him he would have been
>  lucky to make the back pages of the NY newspapers, and
>  the "authorities" would have spent far less money investigating
>  his murder than trying to track him down for daring
>  to defend himself. I doubt if hizzoner Mayor Kock (sic)
>  would have gone on TV to denounce the punks, nor would
>  syndicated columnists say that we have a sick society
>  for allowing this scum to roam around harrassing people.

It made the press for the same reason that -> MAN BITES DOG <- would.
The man
from the artist's drawing a friend commented, "He got hit up, because
he looks
like a wimp.  (My friend has accepted the popular culture definition
of what a
wimp is supposed to look like.  I don't agree, so no flames please).


If this became a commom occurence, would it still rated as newsworthy?
I would 
say not.  This is an single isolated incident that caught the media
interest,
hence our interest.  I can hear this conversation being repeated all
over
North America: "Ester, imagine one of us standing up to the scum."
The man who
ever he is, has become a symbol.

Shouldn't a person be required to stick around, just as if the person
has had
an accident with their car causing personal injury?
	
>  So why should someone defending his life and property
>  exasperate the establishment so?  Because of the groundswell
>  of popular support.  That is why "liberal" movie critics
>  hated "Death Wish" with Charles Bronson, too, I'll bet.
>  I just hope the witnesses had the good sense to give
>  the police the wrong description.

Popular support has nothing to do with the "establishment's exasperation."
The "estabishment" can only favour things that maintain the status
quo, and
respect for law. No matter what Mayor Koch privately feels, the office
of
dicates that he can not support an action that circumvents due process.

The real question at stake here is, "Was the man right to defend himself,
and
avoid the legal responsibilities.

-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry