Comments on: Man walks near woman; university police panic

By: spike

spike — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:02:18 +0000

that’s it! i’m doing all my shopping on-line; as a big guy, i don’t dare walk into a shopping mall for fear of arrest

By: Stephen J.

Stephen J. — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 06:01:02 +0000

The prosecutor replied that the legal definition of “harasment” is not what the accused person did, but what the victim felt. I am not making this up: the exact words used were “what the victim felt”.

It’s one of those damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don’t legal paradoxes. If you make the legal definition of “harassment” an objectively defined frequency of specific behaviour, some clever assclown with a good lawyer will figure out exactly how close to that line they can get without crossing it and use that to intimidate and coerce people at their whim. If you make the legal definition a subjective state defined by each harassment victim, the paranoid and the vindictive can charge any poor schmuck who’s made one date request too many with a crime.

No law with the necessary flexibility to encompass the clever or covert harassers will have the rigidity necessary to keep it from being abused by malicious or paranoid victims. It’s simply a question of which social evil you deem the worse.

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:39:01 +0000

I was on a grand jury a few years ago where we considered whether to charge a man with stalking and harassment. The story, as presented by the county prosecutor: The man went to a restaurant and asked the waitress who served him out on a date. She said no. He left. He went back to the restaurant later the same day and asked her out again. She again said no. He left. He went back the following day and asked for her. He was told she wasn’t there. He left. He made no further attempt to contact her. She called the police. The police tracked him down to another state — it seems he was just passing through — and arrested him. They did discover along the way that he had recently been released from a mental hospital, though at the time they were still trying to find out what he was in the hospital for. (So they didn’t know whether it was for violent acts, threatening people, or for, say, depression.)

I asked the prosecutor what law he had broken. He may have been annoying, but he only asked her out twice and apparently tried to ask a third time. The prosecutor replied that the legal definition of “harasment” is not what the accused person did, but what the victim felt. I am not making this up: the exact words used were “what the victim felt”.

I was the only member of the grand jury to vote against indicting him. (I don’t know if he was convicted of anything. I didn’t follow the story.) But could I just pick anyone, say, “When he walked past me on the street without looking at me or speaking to me, the way he walked just really scared me,” and have him charged with a crime? That is really scary.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:10:36 +0000

The Incident occurred in a parking Lot.
So Males ar no longer allowed to drive cars or walk in parking lots?

Quantas Airlines has a Policy that Single Adult Males will NOT be seated next to any Female or Child, Because All Males are Perps!

By: Blake

Blake — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:26:20 +0000

I’m a Uconn student and when I was informed of this incident by text-message and by e-mail, I just sat there and laughed. My roommate thought I was insane. I couldn’t believe that someone was so paranoid as to report this.

The real kicker is that the university cops made a huge deal of this, but didn’t even bother to report it when a campus drug deal went south and a couple of armed robbers made off with 9,000 dollars worth of property- on campus! I only read about the incident today in the Daily Campus, nearly a week later. I think that two gun-wielding, drug-running hoodlums are more of a threat to my safety than the poor guy who happened to come within ten feet of a girl, don’t you think?

What a crazy world.

By: RogerCfromSD

RogerCfromSD — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:44:00 +0000

If a woman nervously glances my way at night, I like to think it’s because she’s sneaking a peek at my well-toned glutes… But, that’s just me.

By: Raving Lunatic

Raving Lunatic — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:32:57 +0000

I second that, Mojoe

By: Raving Lunatic

Raving Lunatic — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:28:31 +0000

Karen, if they laughed her off, there’d be no end to the howling of sexism and discrimination. Cheapest and safest bet for college rent-a-cops is take it seriously and demonize the man. Don’t forget this is a University system and not local police; common sense and individual rights are tacky bourgeois crockery

By: mojoe

mojoe — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:14:28 +0000

I am a big, scary looking guy. Unfortunately, we big, scary looking guys do need to go out in public occasionally.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve walked out of a Walmart or supermarket behind a woman that will then glance nervously over her shoulder as we walk to our (inevitably) parked side-by-side cars.

A couple of years back I was standing in a laundramat folding my clothes. There was an adorable, little girl just at the walking stage, pushing around one of the wheeled carts. As she weaved around the place her Mom was on a cell phone, paying no attention to the child. The kid came tottering around a corner and banged into my leg, which caused her to sit down hard and start crying. Mom was there in a second, glaring at me. The few other people in there looked like they were ready to produce torches and pitchforks and string me up.

I’d jump in front of a train before I’d allow any of these people to be harmed in my presence, but how do you let them know that?

By: Steve L.

Steve L. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:32:53 +0000

Yesterday, I walked near some teenaged girls. I must have committed some crime. Oh wait, I work at a high school.