T customer service agent fired after beating up customer

Yup, it was illegal years ago, and any older cop, detox worker, or recovered alcoholic will tell you that the worse thing that they could do was to de-criminalize it. There was a basis for picking them up as a group and then giving them a warm cell, food, and a cot in a cell without tieing up the wagon or booking officer (no paperwork) then that doesn't exist now. Every booking desk had a bottle for which to ward off the pink elephants (withdrawal) with. Many lives were saved. On a cold winter's weekend night now, with revenue cuts and down time required, units are just answering radio calls with little time for the drunks.

I looked up the MBTA's rule regarding drunks. They're not allowed to enter a station or car, but if they manage to get into either without initial detection, they may be taken to their destination and dropped off at a safe spot. If they begin to cause a disturbance or are the subject of passenger complaints, they're supposed to be ejected. The Back Bay Station incident strikes me as a case that due to it's publicity, may garner a lot of people who didn't come forth originally who will now shed even more light on this matter. Things may very well change dramatically either way. I've still been unsuccessful in convincing Christa that I need this news in person at my home to pass on to you guys in an accurate manner. I even mentioned the Glenlivet.

Quiz coming up in a few minutes.

CRail wrote:From the employee's report:

...kept pointing his finger directly in my face as he was yelling at me...thrust his phone at my face, hitting my nose.

Game over, Assault and Battery.

I noticed he had his fist balled up like he was going to hit me.

More assault. Can't spell it out much clearer than that.

If it comes out that her report is true, not only should she be reinstated with back pay, she should sue him for slander, loss of wages, and perhaps emotional grief (or however the lawyers milk the life out of people), not to mention press charges on the guy. For what has come of this, I think he deserves a little time confined from society, so he can think about what he's done.

Wow if it's really all that simple I'm really wasting lots of time and money in law school! Thanks Corey!

In reality making a self-defense argument in your favor is really hard, especially in this state. In this state you have a duty to retreat (which means that you have to attempt to get away first, as long as you're not in your own home), you can't escalate the fight (you can't bring a gun to a fistfight), and you can't use excessive force. It's really not as cut and dry as you seem to make it.

If anyone is interested in reading up more on self-defense you can check out the mass. model jury instruction on self-defense here: http://www.mass.gov/courts/courtsandjud ... efense.pdf To be honest I don't really like the way this one is written, it's needlessly confusing, however it's probably the best digest of all the self-defense laws boiled down in a way so a jury with no legal training can make sense of it.

editorial note: I think the passenger/customer is a dickwad however that doesn't mean what the employee did was right or legally justifiable. The proper response for her should have been to go back to her booth and call the transit popo if the guy was still harassing her.

Hi 62 ! Your professors have taught you well. If I may do so, may I suggest that should you elect to go into Criminal Law, you will be head and shoulders above your contemporaries if you learn it well now. Most lawyers don't know fundamentals such as arrestible/non-arrestible, many Constitutional issues, police procedure, etc. (I'll be honest in that I have in the past made a [ahem] mistake [once], testified honestly expecting there to be an immediate objection with a pending motion to dismiss, and the case has gone merrily on.) You are correct in most of your post, however there is not an absolute necessity to retreat in a public area, which might be inferred from your post. You must do so only if such a retreat is reasonable. As an example, if I'm surrounded by a group of thugs threatening me with knives at the edge of a pier, it's not reasonable for me to jump into Boston Harbor. Mr. Sauer (Sig for short) is coming out, and he's going to be angry ! I may blast away until there is no longer a threat. (I can't stand over the injured pukes and keep firing, but I can empty my pistol at them while the threat is still percieved.) As far as the CSA is concerned, if there was an intent percieved on the part of Mr. Passenger to strike her with the camera in the face, he committed a felony when and if the camera made contact with her face. (A&B D/W) It is possible that she could allege that a retreat at that moment was not reasonable due to a confined area, fright paralysis, sprained ankle - any one of many reasons. The bottom line is that each case must be examined on it's own merits by examination and investigation, and even at the same location, what may constitute a required retreat for one may not constitute a required retreat for another.

danib62 wrote:

CRail wrote:From the employee's report:

...kept pointing his finger directly in my face as he was yelling at me...thrust his phone at my face, hitting my nose.

Game over, Assault and Battery.

I noticed he had his fist balled up like he was going to hit me.

More assault. Can't spell it out much clearer than that.

Wow if it's really all that simple I'm really wasting lots of time and money in law school! Thanks Corey!

I guess so! Try charm school first. Never did you argue, nor did you prove wrong the two points that I made in the post that you quoted. Regardless of how difficult a self defense argument is to make, if the statements that I quoted were true, then the perpetrator is guilty of assault at least twice, and is guilty of assault and battery at least once.

In the courtroom, try not to attempt to take down your opponent by arguing a statement that he/she didn't make.

My point is it's not "game over" as you state. Just b/c the passustomer may have committed A&B (still a matter of question) doesn't automatically give the CSA the legal right to start swinging and kicking away. In fact if you watch the video it appears the passustomer is moving backwards and the CSA is following him to swing some more. This would be retaliation which also makes you lose your self-defense argument. My point is that you make it seem so cut and dry that if the passustomer committed an assault then the CSA has free range to wail on him but that is simply not the case. It's hardly "game over".

I really suggest you read the jury instructions I posted (and if you're really interested look up the citations in the footnotes). It's some pretty interesting stuff.

danib62 - You make quite a few assumptions which may or may not be correct. (You'd get killed by skilled opposing counsel in the courtroom with those statements.) All is not as black and white as you profess.

danib62 wrote: Just b/c the passustomer may have committed A&B (still a matter of question) doesn't automatically give the CSA the legal right to start swinging and kicking away.

It certainly does (within reason). The fact is that she's female and is being allegedly attacked by an armed male. I would say that if the camera phone assault is accurate, that she would have even been ok with a weapon.

In fact if you watch the video it appears the passustomer is moving backwards and the CSA is following him to swing some more. This would be retaliation

Or moving the attack to a more victim friendly area. Unless they are of very short duration, few attacks where there is a response from the victim, are stationairy. They tend to be fluid and are a series of advances and retreats.

I'm not trying to make it black and white in the other direction either. I'm just trying to give the opposing view to illustrate that it's not cut and clear. The truth is always somewhere in the middle.

As an aside all of this is somewhat of a moot point as neither party has been charged with any criminal offense yet.

Probably as it should be. Charges filed on behalf of either party are most likely going to result in counter-charges by the other, blowing this thing up out of proportion in my opinion. Both parties know this as I'm sure that they have both had a pow-wow with lawyers by now. Aside from the personal cost (more so for him than she), even probable cause found in court will hurt his civil action. If he goes after her civilly, she's likely to do the same. It seems to me that both parties are marginal here to be honest. Probably the best thing that could happen for all involved would be no civil or criminal complaints, he avoids a criminal record and attorney's fees and continues to be an a-hole, she avoids a criminal record, having her life put on hold for the next four years, and she gets her job back with a letter in her file. Everybody is a winner. The expression "look before you leap" is very applicable here. I hate to say it but I predict that he'll quietly get a check from the T as a non-admission of fault on their part with the stipulation that it constitutes an agreement between everybody that no charges are filed.

couldn't have said it better.