assault with a deadly minivan
there's a weird ambiguity or paradox in the law-- or maybe the law's clear and i just don't know the answer-- that i keep running into in news stories like this one about journalists breaking into a tesla battery factory.
note first of all that the journalists have their own version of the story in which the security guards (or someone) also did significant damage to their vehicle. i can't figure out when in either version of the story that damage would have happened, which makes me think the whole thing didn't go down quite as anyone is telling it.
but reading between the lines, something vaguely like this seems to happen relatively often: 1) an altercation involving someone in a car and one or more persons outside the car; 2) the people outside the car attempt to get close to harangue and/or grapple the driver, and/or deliberately step in the path of the car to keep it from driving away; 3) the driver attempts to drive away anyhow; 4) driver charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
the ambiguity is: if you deliberately step into the path of a car to try to box it in with your body, does it make sense to charge the driver with "assault" for failing to back down from the game of chicken that you initiated? something about that doesn't seem right to me.
note first of all that the journalists have their own version of the story in which the security guards (or someone) also did significant damage to their vehicle. i can't figure out when in either version of the story that damage would have happened, which makes me think the whole thing didn't go down quite as anyone is telling it.
but reading between the lines, something vaguely like this seems to happen relatively often: 1) an altercation involving someone in a car and one or more persons outside the car; 2) the people outside the car attempt to get close to harangue and/or grapple the driver, and/or deliberately step in the path of the car to keep it from driving away; 3) the driver attempts to drive away anyhow; 4) driver charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
the ambiguity is: if you deliberately step into the path of a car to try to box it in with your body, does it make sense to charge the driver with "assault" for failing to back down from the game of chicken that you initiated? something about that doesn't seem right to me.