What would you do if a stranger threatens to slap your child for crying in public?

[Martyn van Halm]

61-year old miser slaps 2-year old infant in Wal-Mart (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/02/georgia.tot.slapped/index.html?iref=topnews)

This was posted on a motorcycle forum, where most 'fathers' would 'maim or kill' this man. I tried to be the voice of reason, claiming that I would make sure that the store security would be involved as soon as someone threatens to shut up my crying infant. What I wouldn't do is allow a stranger close enough to my infant to pick him up and slap him five times.

How would you react to the scenario from this news article?

[Josh Reyer]

61 years old? I imagine I'd pick him up and slap him four or five times. No need for maiming or killing.

[Inazuma]

Put him in a lock and let my two year old slap him back [well she's two and a half but she packs a mean punch]...

[william northcote]

March him to an ATM and ask to check his balance. Then kick his cane away and see how he fares then.

[elder999]

Break his fingers.

[william northcote]

Only his fingers?

[Martyn van Halm]

You bunch sound as violent as the motorcyclists on the other forum.

Read well: an old miser threatens to shut up your infant if you can't.

What do you do?

I will point out that if he touches my child he's in serious legal trouble. Also, I will take my kid as far away from the old coot as possible.

I don't think it's a healthy example to an infant if his father stomps everyone who seems like a threat.

[Flintstone]

I'll tell him to mind his own business. If he manages to slap my 2 year old, then I AM in serious legal problems. I'd slap his face. Simply as that. Only once. With all my might. All my 115kg put in my palm. Cruel as it seems. My child is my first priority.

Sorry to look as violent as the bikers.

[william northcote]

Well saying that if he did would count as child abuse if there was a slap you would have every right to slap that person into his next life.

[elder999]

You bunch sound as violent as the motorcyclists on the other forum.

Read well: an old miser threatens to shut up your infant if you can't.

What do you do?

I will point out that if he touches my child he's in serious legal trouble. Also, I will take my kid as far away from the old coot as possible.

I don't think it's a healthy example to an infant if his father stomps everyone who seems like a threat.


I am a biker, and sometimes I am that violent.

Of course, I wouldn't kill him-but he slaps my kid a couple of times-a crying 2 year old????!!!! :redhot:

I break his fingers-from phalanges down to metacarpals-the instruments of his stupidity, arrogance, and assault, so badly that he has a looooong time healing to think about pulling that kind of crap on anyone else's crying baby, fer chrissakes, ever again.

As for examples, my kids are grown, and if you asked them what my 25 year old or 28 year old self would have done (the ages I was when they were two) their answers would likely be similar to mine......after they got done laughing at the very notion.:laugh:

[Martyn van Halm]

I think someone who allows some old miser close enough to hit their two-year-old, especially after being forewarned, is an insult to parenting.

[Martyn van Halm]

Well saying that if he did would count as child abuse if there was a slap you would have every right to slap that person into his next life.

You think that it would count in the courts as 'self-defense'? I don't think so - you may block someone's slap, you may hold them to prevent them from slapping someone, but as soon as you start slapping [or kicking, or punching, or breaking someone's fingers] you cross over to assault.

The reason I posted this question here is that I can understand that ordinary civilians might not have the skills or cool head to avert this kind of danger to their children and would impulsively lash out in retaliation. But we, as martial artists, would show a lack of situational awareness to allow a child being slapped in the first place and a lack of control if we'd kick the slapper's ass.

[william northcote]

And would you run the risk of having a label of allowing your child to be abused by a stranger? Or would you defend your child from a stranger?

Example is in this link from Robert Humphrey. http://www.lifevalues.com/hunting.htm

After reading that and digestingthe ideas around it, would you say again that you would allow them to do that?

[Martyn van Halm]

William, I'm not saying you shouldn't slap him - it's your prerogative to take whatever action you want to take, but don't be surprised if your slap isn't considered self-defense. And with your martial arts background, it might even be considered assault.

The thing that bothers me most, is not that the mother allowed her child to be slapped, but that she allowed the child to be slapped after being warned by this nutbag that he would shut her child up if she didn't.

Do you get my point? I'd be disappointed in myself if someone slapped my child and I would be unable to prevent it, but I would be ashamed of myself if I'm forewarned and still unable to prevent someone from slapping my child.

I would defend my child with my life, if it would come to that, but in this case, I would just block the slap intended for my child and make a citizen's arrest. I wouldn't go nuts and kick the nutbag into the next world, because that would probably land me in prison. And I wouldn't be able to raise and defend my child from behind bars...

As to the 'label' you speak of in your post, I don't give a **** what people might label me, as long as I would be able to look myself in the eye.

[T. J.]

I am a biker, and sometimes I am that violent.

Of course, I wouldn't kill him-but he slaps my kid a couple of times-a crying 2 year old????!!!! :redhot:

I break his fingers-from phalanges down to metacarpals-the instruments of his stupidity, arrogance, and assault, so badly that he has a looooong time healing to think about pulling that kind of crap on anyone else's crying baby, fer chrissakes, ever again.

Nice. (NOT)

Then the old guy goes to the hospital and YOU will be going to jail. When you get out on bail you are most likely going to find that you have been named in a civil law suite and your home has a lien on it, the title to your bike has a lien on it, and all of your bank accounts have been frozen.

Based on what you describe, you likely could spend time in jail and when you get out, you won’t own that home or that bike and your bank account will be empty and anytime you get money it will be garnished… for several years into the future. Oh and by the way, the old guy’s attorney is going to print out your post here on E-Budo where you admit you are often violent and a biker, and willing to commit severe bodily injury (broken bones). And you are going to have to defend this statement in court. Good luck. You’ll need it. Maybe not luck, more like a very expensive attorney who specializes in civilian use of force in self-defense situations.

What you describe above is violent assault and beyond reasonable in legal terms. If the old guy was breaking your kid’s arm or suffocating him/her then you could take a reasonable violent response. But it has to be reasonable and appropriate for the situation. Once the guy is no longer a threat to your child and if he is not actively attacking you and you brake his fingers, you are the one committing assault.

I have kids. I am not saying that I wouldn’t be angry in the same situation. I am saying though, that it really wouldn’t matter in a civil litigation where you would have to prove the 61 year old man was assaulting you or your child, that he had the means and capacity to hurt you or the child and that the serious bodily harm he suffered was reasonable and no other reasonably effective alternative to the use of force appeared and that the amount of force used was reasonable to effect the lawful purpose you intended.

One should let common sense prevail. There might be a price to pay for teaching this guy a lesson when one could have called the local police and then agreed to press charges against the old guy for assault and perhaps the old guy would be the one defending him-self in civil court for assaulting a child. And he would have to argue that his actions were reasonable.

I am not an attorney. I am not offering legal advice. But I would say it wouldn’t hurt to read very carefully the self-defense laws in your state. You would I think, find that breaking this guys fingers would not be self-defense of your child or self defense of your person.

[Amir]

As a proud father of twins, almost two years old:

I think someone who allows some old miser close enough to hit their two-year-old, especially after being forewarned, is an insult to parenting.

IThe thing that bothers me most, is not that the mother allowed her child to be slapped, but that she allowed the child to be slapped after being warned by this nutbag that he would shut her child up if she didn't.

Do you get my point? I'd be disappointed in myself if someone slapped my child and I would be unable to prevent it, but I would be ashamed of myself if I'm forewarned and still unable to prevent someone from slapping my child.

I would defend my child with my life, if it would come to that, but in this case, I would just block the slap intended for my child and make a citizen's arrest. I wouldn't go nuts and kick the nutbag into the next world, because that would probably land me in prison. And I wouldn't be able to raise and defend my child from behind bars...
.

From experiance, running after each of my twins to keep them both out of trouble + keeping their stroller is often more difficult then facing multiple attackers.
I am not sure at all it is practical for me to continously try to prevent his attack, it would also make me open for any attack and make me deal with the less important issue - him, even post the warning, my child is crying and I should care for her, not look for threats.

Therefore, I might not be in place to block a first strike, or him lifting her. But, once he did both, I would consider him to be an imminent life or death threat to the life of my child ... , I would do everything to make sure she lands safely from his grasp.
I would not wait for retaliation, nor give any chance for any such action - as long as my child is in his range of reach, he just proved himself as a major threat, my criteria for action would be finding the safest and fastest way to remove the threat from both girls, I can lift one very fast, but what about her twin?

If I only find out about that after the action, I would use the authorities - I have better things to do (care for my children) then handling him.


Amir

[pgsmith]

I'm a native Texan, and so tend to be a bit on the violent side of most issues. However, I have to totally agree with this statement ... I think someone who allows some old miser close enough to hit their two-year-old, especially after being forewarned, is an insult to parenting.
In my opinion, the woman is the main culprit in this scenario. What the heck is she doing calmly wandering around the store while her child is wailing? What the heck is she doing allowing a stranger, who has already threatened, to get close enough to her child to slap it in the face?
My youngest son had control issues. When he was in his terrible twos, he would often go off the deep end and begin wailing. If this happened in a store or restaurant, I would immediately take him outside since it was my child that was being an irritant, so I should be the one to lessen his impact on others. The way he used to cry, I can easily imagine someone getting angry enough to slap him if I had just ignored his cries and let him irritate everyone. I just think the old guy should have slapped the mother instead of the child, who is too young at two to understand.

[Hissho]

We have to be careful reading into what is not there. It is VERY easy to second guess, to talk tough, and woulda, shoulda.....in fact, it is useful to do so, but that does not mean we have all the facts.

BTW, it is also troubling to me that someone would think that because the man was 61 years old he could simply be slapped around...

We have no idea that she "calmly wandered around the store." She may have. She SHOULD have removed the child from the area and gone directly to security. But maybe she took the child to just get away from the guy and he followed. Or they got away from him but came back in contact. Many people, when confronted with actual belligerence and even violence, shy away and rationalize rather than act decisively. We have no idea this woman's capabilities or her mental state.

Tough talk aside, the right thing to do has been hit upon:

When such a comment is made, tell the man to leave you and your child alone, loudly and assertively. Remove yourselves from the location and go directly to security to report a threat. If they aren't present, call the police - once again AFTER you have removed yourselves from the area of threat.

Once the man has made contact with the child, Amir has it exactly right - you can and should view him as a potential lethal threat if he physically strikes the child. Even a light tapping blow, you cannot predict what he may do next. You can very much articulate a whole raft of serious potential damage he could do.

At this point, and taking the welfare of the child into account, you are perfectly legally justified in doing a great deal of damage to this man.

Once the child has been assaulted and put down, you have the legal right to detain him for police. You cannot, however, exact revenge by beating him senseless, breaking his fingers, what have so long as the threat no longer exists without facing potential criminal charges yourself.

If he fights you and presents a physical threat to you, you can deal with it accordingly, but you cannot use the lethal threat justification that exists with the child unless he engages in actions which could be lethal to you.

[Richard Scardina]

Nice post about the legal issue of force.

[Amir]

We have to be careful reading into what is not there. It is VERY easy to second guess, to talk tough, and woulda, shoulda.....in fact, it is useful to do so, but that does not mean we have all the facts.

BTW, it is also troubling to me that someone would think that because the man was 61 years old he could simply be slapped around...

We have no idea that she "calmly wandered around the store." She may have. She SHOULD have removed the child from the area and gone directly to security. But maybe she took the child to just get away from the guy and he followed. Or they got away from him but came back in contact. Many people, when confronted with actual belligerence and even violence, shy away and rationalize rather than act decisively. We have no idea this woman's capabilities or her mental state.

Tough talk aside, the right thing to do has been hit upon:

When such a comment is made, tell the man to leave you and your child alone, loudly and assertively. Remove yourselves from the location and go directly to security to report a threat. If they aren't present, call the police - once again AFTER you have removed yourselves from the area of threat.

Once the man has made contact with the child, Amir has it exactly right - you can and should view him as a potential lethal threat if he physically strikes the child. Even a light tapping blow, you cannot predict what he may do next. You can very much articulate a whole raft of serious potential damage he could do.

At this point, and taking the welfare of the child into account, you are perfectly legally justified in doing a great deal of damage to this man.

Once the child has been assaulted and put down, you have the legal right to detain him for police. You cannot, however, exact revenge by beating him senseless, breaking his fingers, what have so long as the threat no longer exists without facing potential criminal charges yourself.

If he fights you and presents a physical threat to you, you can deal with it accordingly, but you cannot use the lethal threat justification that exists with the child unless he engages in actions which could be lethal to you.


Mostly, I agree.






However, many things in the description and perception of the situation are difficult to capture, and are also culturally dependent.

When one of my daughters cries I will try to solve the situation and convince her to stop. But, even in a public place, I might choose to try and calm her down without taking her outside. The conditions outside might not be suitable for any number of reasons (weather, trafic, distance, ...) . In such a situation, most of my attention would be on the crying daughter. As a father of twins, it is likely the reminder of attention would be given to her sister; to be sure she is not getting into trouble.
In such circumstances, I might not identify such an adult as a threat: I might not hear what he says, and even if I do hear, the cultural biases would likely make me underestimate the threat, to be idle talk, especially when I have a "real situation" at hand – dealing with my crying toddler.

I would expect a theft attempt, many times before expecting anyone to be violent towards the child of another, just because that child cries.

Amir

[Hissho]

Amir

Sure - you seem to have a very realistic assessment of where you (and the rest of us) are generally at when it comes to these kinds of things.

Complacency and rationalization are built in to our everyday lives, and cultural factors do affect that matrix. It takes a lot to counter that baseline from an everyday awareness perspective, as well as in developing a self protection approach that does not devolve into paranoia.

Divided attention, as well, also comes into play.

Still, an adult male, a stranger, that makes such a direct comment SHOULD register as a potential threat under almost any circumstances. Recognizing that is the first step, addressing it through appropriate action (based on the the articulable threat) is what takes training and confidence in that training.

In my non-LE CQC classes the bulk of the interest lies in exactly these kinds of things: how and what to be aware of, how to act without over-reaction, and when can you use and how to articulate actual physical action.

Great discussion, all.

[Amir]

Kit

In normal circumstances without the girls, I had an "internal radar", alerting me to any violent interaction in the area. Often noticing youths as they started thir infights and so, from dozens of meters away in busy malls.

With the girls at their current age ~1y 9m, I realized almost anything in a public area manifests some threat. To continue the radar analogy - my radar became full of false targets. It is not the normal case of complacency, since this is not the normal state I was used to, this is the case of being overwhelmed already. I just turned in the state of very long list full of threats, and having to prioritize them.

An adult assaulting a toddler in such circumstances, would be bizarre, On the other hand, here, commenting on a parents behavior towards his child is common. Therefore I would assume I misunderstood him (handling a crying child, the limited attention I have to hearing anyone makes this a common occurrence. That is the reason, I would simply consider this as a much less likely situation then one of my girls running down an escalator or pulling some shelves on her, or climbing some ladder, or just getting lost.


You could think this is similar to the state of a civilian who is in a state of Complacency, but there is a significant differnce.

Amir

[Hissho]

Amir, I think you bring up some good points. I can sympathize with you re: having to deal with children, it truly alters your filters and you have to re-adjust some previously considered notions.

Still, I would counter that assuming a particular situation is less likely, or assuming you misunderstood someone who made a direct, negative statement regarding your child, IS complacency. While certainly the actual assault is a bit of a black swan event, there was a direct warning given in this instance.

Now, OTOH, here is where we are in the dangerous territory of "reading into" what we think happened from a news account. So many other factors that we do not have access to were in operation here: his demeanor, the manner in which he said it, etc. We might look at the actual event and go "Of course I would have removed my child, the man is a loon!" or "No wonder she didn't think too much of it, I wouldn't have thought the guy would hit the kid, either."

I also hope I am not casting some of this as if there is some kind of character fault in complacency. I think there is often a sense within the training community, martial arts and tactical, that becoming complacent, or experiencing tunneling of attention, is somehow the "fault" of the person.

To me, rationalizing complacency away is the problem, because as human beings we are geared almost inevitably to become complacent. Recognizing it while "in the moment," and re-engaging rather than rationalizing is where we want to be at. Training is to my way of thinking the way to do that, and to overcome the deficits we encounter by being human and having these attentional lapses.

It is part of being human that they do happen, how we process them and our way through them are where training comes in, and learning takes place.

Either way, I think the discussion is fruitful.

[Amir]

Now, OTOH, here is where we are in the dangerous territory of "reading into" what we think happened from a news account. So many other factors that we do not have access to were in operation here: his demeanor, the manner in which he said it, etc. We might look at the actual event and go "Of course I would have removed my child, the man is a loon!" or "No wonder she didn't think too much of it, I wouldn't have thought the guy would hit the kid, either."

Kit

I believe you are right in this statement. Obviously, if someone was presenting a very clear threat, I would not have ignored it.

In my previous posts I tried to point out, that the nature of child caring situations (and especially with a crying toddler) makes us rather desensitized to our environment, compared to normal situations. And that trying to examine such situations, should come from the point of view of parenting as well as the S.D.

And yes, I believe this was a fruitful discussion - and I normally enjoy reading your posts.

Amir