bruce fee

Toronto man charged for catching thief has day in court - The Globe and Mail

they want to make an example out of a man who defends his ****.

i hope i never get raped, i might end up blinding the rapist with my fingers to potentially save my life and go to jail for it.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

miss_jess

iTrader: (2)

ridiculous

Trybal

Hope Mr Chen wins.

A challenge of Citizen Arrest is well needed.

kane2k

Yep, chasing people down in a gang with boxcutters, tying them up and throwing them in a truck.

Obviously there's no need to discourage that kind of behaviour. /sarcasm

In this case, maybe Chen was in the right. I think it's much better for society for him to be raked over the coals and maybe let off at the end of it rather than setting a new precedent for mall cop brutality.

Or did you guys really think that rent a cops weren't salivating over this as a license to power trip like they've never power tripped before.

trunk_munkey

WTF is going on in the world? I can't believe I pay almost 50K a year in taxes of one kind or anouther and this **** goes on. “It's easy for people to say things like, ‘You should do something about drugs' or, ‘You should do something about theft,'” he said. “If people really want to help, then they should be offering some sort of positive solutions or positive ideas.” who hired that clown. isn't that what law enforcement is for? this is why ppl take law into there own hands.

FiveO

[QUOTE=kane2k;1430418]Yep, chasing people down in a gang with boxcutters, tying them up and throwing them in a truck.[QUOTE]

Had Chen and his friends done that the moment they saw the guy stealing from their store, they would have probably been in the clear as far as being charged is concerned. The law allows you to use reasonable force to stop a crime in progress or to apprehend someone that you have personally "just seen" commit an indictable offence and are in hot pursuit of.

Unfortunately, what Chen and company did was not done in hot pursuit of the original crime.

The law does not permit you to go hunting for a suspect at a later time. That would comprise vigilante action and we all know how that can turn out.

Maybe you get the right person at that later time, or maybe you don't. Eye-witness identification of strangers is notoriously inaccurate, and becomes even more inaccurate when the witness is of a different race than the suspect.


"Eyewitness identification evidence is the leading cause of wrongful conviction in the United States. Of the more than 200 people exonerated by way of DNA evidence in the US, over 75% were wrongfully convicted on the basis of erroneous eyewitness identification evidence." Eyewitness identification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's just one reason why the citizen's arrest law is restrictive to hot pursuit or crime in actual process. Otherwise the door would be open to any wannabe CSI or neighbourhood vigilante to grab and rough people up in the street.

trunk_munkey

Everyone has an interpretation. He was pissed he had the guy on camera and no one does anything.
All i have to say is if I catch the punk who stole my sh?t I'm not calling the cops anymore. Prove it was me that threw him in the river. I guess I'm the vigilante.

bruce fee

Police don't like it when you do their job for them.

My friends and I took a case of theft over $3000 into our owns hands, tracked him down, recorded evidence and notified police. We setup a sting and the guy got arrested.

Our original plan was to get the item back, or the money for it. Turns out the guy wasn't going to pay.

The officers weren't as pleased as we thought they would be. I'm not sure why.

It's not about vigilante justice, it's about protecting yourself, your family, and whatever you hold value to.

Just because we hire people to protect us and our rights, does not mean we should be forced to sit back and let people punch us in the face, kick our dog, or steal our wallet.

I for one think we need a sort of castle doctrine enacted in Canada.

It's not like these store owners were smashing the guy in the face with a wrench. The law at least provide safety for people who are reasonable in detaining someone who is found guilty.

"They caught him, tied him up and put him in a delivery truck to await police."

The only inappropriate thing here was the police response.

FiveO

Nothing in the law requires you to let "people punch us in the face, kick our dog, or steal our wallet". You are entitled to resist such at the time it is happening with as much force as is reasonably needed.

You only face restrictions on how far you can go if you decide to go hunting for the people that did it at a later time. "At a later time" you are no longer acting in immediate defence of person or property. That does change the spin on things no matter how much you think the perps deserve payback.

1999blksi

It's always open season for Bruce....there is no time limitation as to when he can go after someone

bruce fee

if someone rapes your mother and you see them shopping for plastic christmas trees at canadian tire, I'm pretty sure the last thing on your mind is calling the police and making sure you do not break the law by restraining him until police arrive.