Lot of future murderers in this thread. Pro tip: don't harrass a bunch of kids and definitely don't put your hands on them. This guy was the aggressor and the law rightfully treated him as such. Yet another instance of people not understanding how self defense works and basing their opinion on their pre-conceived bias.
Really? You obviously did not follow or review the testimony of the boys or witnesses. They harassed the shit out of him for several minutes before the video started. Under cross examination, one of the boys admitted that the man never said anything to them. Not one word-yet according to the cheerful screams “he said he’s looking for little girls.” That same boy then said that “if he had said something, even a word or two, it might have cleared the situation up.”
Yeah, he grabbed their inner tube in an awkward interaction, but it lasted one second and then he was looking for his goggles as they all stood around and laughed and got other people to come over, again claiming that he said he was looking for little girls, which prompted the loud mouth woman to get in his face. Guess who got rid of all her social media and has gone silent because she knows she threatened a man that was innocent of pedophilia based upon the lying boys cackling and joyful declarations.
He just stood there and awkwardly smiled and nodded as he was shouted at until they brutally attacked him, knocking him to the ground, hitting him as he lay in the water-5 on 1 until he ended the attack using a knife.
Future murderers? Yeah, ok.
And I completely understand how self defense works. His life was in put into jeopardy by their repeated attacks and he defended himself with the only manner in which he could. He was much older and weaker than the 5 boys/men that attacked him one after the other. He has a bad heart and was in water. No one was trying to stop them and they laughed the entire time. With his ailing heart, age, being outnumbered and attacked, being in water where he could drown if knocked out or held down. He didn’t know if they would stop hitting or shoving him into the water, he didn’t know if he would have a heart attack, he didn’t know if even more than five would jump in(this is an alleged pedo after all), and all these thoughts are likely racing through his head as he is being hit in the face, kicked, shoved down over and over.
The only time he stabbed anyone was when they made contact with him to hit or shove him and only the people that were actively attacking him. They would come in to shove him or hit him and he flicked that blade out. According to one source, he held the knife out and some of them actually ran into it as they charged him, so basically, they technically stabbed themselves.
From what I saw of police interviews, I don’t like this guy. He is shady af and a liar. But I hold the right to self defense very high. When being
Violently attacked by multiple attackers, a person should be able to defend themselves with what they have at hand-be it a knife, gun, bottle, stick, whatever. Kids and young adults think they can jump someone with superior numbers and beat them to a pulp with no consequences-and this was after calling him a pedo for several mins and getting other people after him. These kids could have easily killed him and without the knife, he wouldn’t have been able to defend himself. He can’t go hands on or fist to fist against five young men. Once attacked, what are his options? Shut up and take it and hope they stop or his heart doesn’t give out? Or fight back? Outrun them when they won’t even let him stand up? I would always choose to fight back.