Vigilantes ?

Samaritans whose knives and knowledge of anatomy were not up to par.
They should have killed him.:eek:;)
 
I don't know. A good lawyer might be able to "justify" each of the culprit's actions, even the theft of the cellphone. Justifying the stabbing of an _unarmed_ man, after he identifies his assailants - forget the circumstances - might be a bit tougher. That's just an uneducated opinion. Any lawyers here care to comment?
 
As the story stands now, if it went to a jury with me on it, my vote would be not guilty.

And I would love to see him try to defend this part:

"Mirabito then sped about 100 feet down the block, where he crashed into a parked vehicle, and spotted a woman walking into her building, cops said.

He allegedly punched 45-year-old Mantza Fermin to the ground, stealing her cell phone, then chasing her across Thayer Ave.

Mirabito tried to beat the woman again, but was intercepted by an unidentified group of onlookers, police said."

By this point he's at his third felony assault.
 
vigilantes or good samaritans?

IMHO Vigilantes are always good samaritans and we need more of them.:thumbup:
 
Poorly armed Samaritans IMHO.
Here in the Commonwealth & it may have a had a different ending (VA being a "Shall Issue" CCW state)
 
James Green Dragon said:
...That is the Bronx man - he is alive because they let him live.
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The attacker-turned-victim is from the Bronx. The action took place in Washington Heights. That's in Manhattan. Where I grew up.

It was a Jewish and Irish neighborhood then, not a Dominican drug store.
 
I am not a lawyer, nor would I like to play one on television. I'd just like to hear how someone with actual legal training would interpret the following:

"...Mirabito tried to beat the woman again, but was intercepted by an unidentified group of onlookers, police said.

One of the men stabbed Mirabito twice in the back. By the times cops from the 34th Precinct arrived, the vigilantes had fled...."

Never mind what happened prior to this moment - if, at this point, it was a GROUP against ONE unarmed assailant, was their ONLY option stabbing him in the back?

(I'm sincerely interested in how the legal system would interpret this situation - not what most of us would have _liked_ to have done to him at that point or what he 'deserved'.)
 
Some years ago in New York City, a woman and her teenage son were waiting on line at a local bakery. A neighborhood junkie came in, saw the twenty-dollar bill the woman was holding, stabbed her to death, and fled with the money.

A crowd ran after him, caught him, and beat him to death on the spot.

The police were told to find the men in the crowd and arrest them for murder.

(I don't know what the outcome of the case was.)

---

Do we really want people killing each other in the street, for whatever reason? Does the kind of neighborhood these incidents occur in make any difference?

If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound ...
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Some years ago in New York City, a woman and her teenage son were waiting on line at a local bakery. A neighborhood junkie came in, saw the twenty-dollar bill the woman was holding, stabbed her to death, and fled with the money.

A crowd ran after him, caught him, and beat him to death on the spot.
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That's a somewhat different situation though, in the first case the crowd used force WHILE he was attacking the woman for a second time, in this incident, they pursued a fleeing person and killed him.

Lethal force is justified during an attack, not after.
 
Lethal force is justified in response to lethal force. Unless the jury finds the attacker seemed clearly capable of responding to the rescuers with lethal force, they had no business stabbing him in the back.

He hadn't killed anyone, either.

Mobs make mistakes.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Lethal force is justified in response to lethal force.
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The standard for lethal force in most states is not lethal force itself, but "reasonable fear of great bodily harm or death"

Victims and bystanders to a violent crime do not have to wait to establish an absolute motive on the part of an attacker of lethal intent before acting, just a reasonable belief that the attacker will cause bodily harm or death.
 
The Last Confederate said:
The standard for lethal force in most states is not lethal force itself, but "reasonable fear of great bodily harm or death"
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I see this definition as a distinction without a difference. What reasonable fear did the crowd have of a man without an obvious weapon, surrounded by the crowd with weapons?

At least in my example of the murder in the bakery, the man had had a knife and used it to kill. They certainly could have a reasonable fear of his willingness to employ lethal force.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Lethal force is justified in response to lethal force. Unless the jury finds the attacker seemed clearly capable of responding to the rescuers with lethal force, they had no business stabbing him in the back.

He hadn't killed anyone, either.

Mobs make mistakes.
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Thanks, Esav. This is the line of thought I was trying to pursue.
 
The Last Confederate said:
The standard for lethal force in most states is not lethal force itself, but "reasonable fear of great bodily harm or death"

Victims and bystanders to a violent crime do not have to wait to establish an absolute motive on the part of an attacker of lethal intent before acting, just a reasonable belief that the attacker will cause bodily harm or death.
Click to expand...



In Oregon, the general standard (and each case is unique) is that to establish a self-defense you have to show three things: means, opportunity, and intent. First, you need to show that at the time and in the circumstances you reasonably believed that the person against whom you used deadly force had a means to cause you a great bodily injury immediately at that time. This could be a weapon or it could simply mean that your attacker is obviously physically strong enough to cause you that great bodily injury by manual means. Next, you need to show that at the time and in the circumstances you reasonably believed that the person against whom you used deadly force had an opportunity to cause you a great bodily injury immediately at that time. Physical proximity is usually part of this. Finally, you need to show that at the time and in the circumstances you reasonably believed that the person against whom you used deadly force intended to cause you a great bodily injury immediately at that time.

Notice, first, that it is all about you.

Second, notice that it is is all about right now.

When a mob chases down a criminal who some time ago committed a crime aggainst someone else, you can't establish any one of the three criteria... and you really need to establish all three.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
I see this definition as a distinction without a difference. What reasonable fear did the crowd have of a man without an obvious weapon, surrounded by the crowd with weapons?
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It's a somewhat fine line, they did not have to have a fear of him harmimg them, but they can act on a reassonable fear of him harming the woman.

At least in my example of the murder in the bakery, the man had had a knife and used it to kill. They certainly could have a reasonable fear of his willingness to employ lethal force.
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Right, and if they had killed him during the attack it would have been fine, but they pursued him after he fled and then killed him. Civilians do not have that option.
 
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