Martial Arts and the Law

[D-Man]

Here is something else I will throw into the couldron. People around here like to carry guns.  Especially little punks who think they are real men for carrying guns.  I don't like guns. Too slow, too loud, too illegal.  I have a thing for knives though.  I carry them most of the time except for when I am at school and can only think of using them in the most scariest of situations involving attackers with weapons or even that 6'6", 300 lbs former linebacker who wants to kill me with his barehands who I would not stand a chance against at my present state.   Like using hands on someone, when are you in the right to pull a knife.  I have only have had to use my knife once against another guy with a knife.  Walking through downtown in broad daylight some dude walks in front of me, eyes more glazed than a jelly donut and bloodshot.  Then he starts mumbling and pulls his knife on me.  I knew the guy was stoned out of his mind and I was scared but luckily he soon quite as I got the first slice on his forearm.  I was scared to death but was I in the right legally or should I have taken a couple of new scars.  I felt I did what was best for me.

You said that someone pulled a knife on you, you pulled yours, you cut him, and he was scared off.  WHY DIDN'T YOU RUN!!!  From my experience, you are extremely lucky that you didn’t get cut.  You don’t know this guy.  If he had any training or reflexes whatsoever, you would have been hurt.  I am not familiar with your skill level or comprehension level in the martial arts, so I will not tell you that I am positive that you made the wrong decision.  

I feel obligated to add a response to that story for any young martial artists out there that may have read your post, and decided that they want to be just like you.  It is important for ALL to understand that even the most skilled knife fighters and knife defenders will likely get cut when dealing with a knife.  I consider myself to be skilled in the art, and my teacher far more skilled.  However, our first choice when we see a knife would be to RUN!!!   Even armed police officers consider knifes to be their worst enemy (any law officers can correct me if I am wrong about that).

[Karazenpo]

  Yes D-Man, as a police officer and police training officer we have specialized training in what we term, 'Edged Weapon Awareness'. The mindset we teach when confronted with an edged weapon is that we will see our own blood. If we don't, that's a good thing , but we stress that mindset so the officer will not panic, thinking he screwed up, doesn't have a chance and basically goes into a form of shock and is finished off at the hands of the assailant. This way he faces the reality that he will be cut and just because he does get cut doesn't neccessarily mean he can't survive and defeat his attacker. Personally, I've had both experiences and I was more comfortable dealing with a man with a gun in close to me than a knife. Why? Predictability. The gun can only be fired by pulling the trigger and the bullet comes out in a linear trajectory but a knife can cut you from eight different angles.    Shihan Joe

[D-Man]

Awsome explanation Shihan Joe, it takes an expert like you to say it that well.

I would like to address the issue of the use of force, with an ancient Chinese quote: “Avoid rather than check; check rather than block; block rather than strike; strike rather than hurt; hurt rather than maim; maim rather than kill—for all life is precious." This can be translated into a quote that I found on a martial art web site: “Walk away rather than argue; Argue rather than fight: Fight rather than harm; Harm rather than maim; Maim rather than kill; and kill only as a last resort.”  Following this advice is more of an ethical decision than a legal decision, but it seems to serve the same purpose as our laws.

[adacas]

To tell the truth I had no training of any kind at the time I was attacked.  The only martial arts knowledge I had was attained by books, internet and videos.  This was three years ago and I was 16 at the time.  I didn't know that in a fight involving a knife chances are no matter how good you are you will get cut.  I never picked up on that information until recently.  My first response to seeing the knife was not to run but to pull mine.  I look at it now and wonder how stupid I was as well as lucky.  I tell you now that even though I still carry a knife if I was to be put in that same situation again I will run.  I just brought up that situation because I was wondering if an officer was to find the both of us how would we have been treated.  Would I have been charged with a crime as well or would they be leiniant?

[KBOWARRIOR]

Shihan Joe...

     Remember I am talking California law, not Massachusetts.  A citizen here can arrest on any misdemeanor committed in his presence.  Just like a police officer can arrest on one committed in their presence.  
      As to my mention of the broken arm, I was not referring to Nagi's situation.  In that situation, a subject swinging a stick/club at you the level of force you can use will also go up, a level of force greater than that being used against you.  The stick/club classifies this as a assault with a "deadly" weapon and Nagi's response could coincide with the "deadly" terminology...Lethal force...
      Nagi had the absolute right to get out of his vehicle to talk with the subject, but most people are referring to this as a confrontation.  If you confront someone, you will be classified as the aggressor to most district attorneys or the courts.  That is why I said if the subject has violated the law, make the citizen's arrest.  That is in California, those of you out there reading this need to realize that the police officers responding to this question are in different states and every state has it's own laws.  If you don't have a police officer that goes to your school that can explain the laws of your state to you in regards to use of force, contact a local attorney or the prosecuting attorney for your area.  Most of them are very outgoing and would assist you with your questions.  
     California police officers receive approximately 16 hrs of weaponless defense training in the academy.  If they don't go out and get additional training on their own, there are very few classes in regards to advanced weaponless defense.  I teach the only one in my area in regards to this.  I would love to teach stick disarms/knife disarms/ ect., but the governing agency in regards to teaching for California, POST, gives you a very detailed guideline on what you can teach and what you can not teach.  Most citizens believe that the police are martial arts masters and that is not the case.  In my agency of 500 sworn, there are approximately 15 to 20 of us that train in the arts.  "Small percentage"...
     Remember that you did not "confront" the person if the police ask you.  Just like Shihan Joe said, I was asking for his name and information for my insurance and to give to the police when they arrived.  If you are going to do this, as I said earlier, the subject might be armed, on meth, PCP, ect.  Those of you that have never fought this type of individual, one thing applies...they don't feel pain...you can break bones, rip eyes, rip throats, and they will keep coming.  Until their body completely shuts down, they will not stop.  I have seen training video's where police officers shoot these subjects 30 or 40 times and they don't stop.  "Not a person to run into on your own"...If you do run into someone like this get behind the subject and use a carotid restraint...Cut the blood off to his brain and it shuts down for a short time.  When the person goes unconscious, "RUN" unless you are prepared to kill that person.  That is the only way you are going to stop them.  

[D-Man]

Relative to the original question:

I saw a story on the local news last night.  A man saw a group of about 35 kids on the street (all teenagers, about high school level).  He noticed that 6 or 7 of them were beating up on his son.  Obviously, he had to intervene.  Now, this is how he described the events that were to unfold:

He confronted them.  He did so with his hands behind his back, telling himself, "I'm not going to hit a minor, I'm not going to hit a minor."  Then, one of the boys swung at him.  The man described it as being "blindsided."  (Sorry, I know it's sad, but I couldn't help but crack up at his utter stupidity at this point)  He went down, and the kids proceeded to stomp him repeatedly.

What an upstanding citizen.  He sure didn't break a law (WA state law against violence towards minors).  I think he let it break him.

Also:

Self-Defense - California Jury Instruction Code Section 5.30

The following is read to jurors who sit on criminal court cases in California involving defendants who have been charged with assault and battery (CPC 240 - 242) and are claiming self-defense.

"It is lawful for a person who is being assaulted to defend himself/herself from attack, if, as a reasonable person s/he has grounds for believing and does believe that bodily injury is about to be inflicted upon him/her. In doing so, that person must use all force and means which s/he believes to be reasonably necessary and which would appear to a reasonable person, in the same or similar circumstances, to be necessary to prevent the injury which appears to be imminent."

[Karazenpo]

KBOWARRIOR, agreed, good points, I think we're pretty much on the same page. If you notice in all my posts regarding the laws I always refer to 'in Massachusetts'. For some reason I was under the impression, though, that citizen arrest laws were fairly standard amongst the states, so I stand corrected on California law. In Massachusetts here's how it goes. A citizen's probable cause is he has to see a felony taking place and if so, he has the power of arrest. No power of arrest on misdemeanors. Now, if I am in another municipality I essentially have no police powers but I have a little beefed up citizen arrest powers. My probable cause on a felony arrest can be second hand, in the sense I am told the suspect committed, let's say an armed robbery and is running to his vehicle. I don't have to actually know or see him do it first hand. Still no arrest powers over misdemeanors, though. Adacas, as far as your incident at 16, don't worry about it, it's called "in the fog of youth", lol,  
I think we've all been there at one time or another.  

                                Shihan Joe

[KBOWARRIOR]

Shihan Joe

Sounds like a big difference between the states.  I don't know what you mean by different municipality.  We have counties here, but my police officer powers don't change from county to county.  I am a peace officer in the whole state, not just one section of it.  It is weird to learn how different the laws are between the states.  It is nice to talk with other officers from the states like this...

[Karazenpo]

KBOWARRIOR,
            The Massachusetts State Police have jurisdication throughout the state. I was a graduate of the Massachuseets State Police Academy (live-in), 72nd M.P.O.C. which stands for Municipal Police Officers Class which means we were appointed by towns and/or cities, hense, municipalities. So we only have jurisdiction in our city or town. The only time that changed for me is when I worked for the Southeastern Massachustts Drug Task Force, that broadened our police powers, multi-jurisdictional. Always a pleasure talking to a 'brother' , keep in touch, my e-mail is listed. Shihan Joe

[John Bishop]

Yea Shihan, It's funny how the states differ.  I once worked a case with a Investigator from the Colorado Attorney Generals Office.  He told me that Colorado cops didn't have peace officer powers outside their city or county.  What was even worse is he told me that he had gone to 3 differant academies because every time you transfer to another agency you had to go to the academy again.  He had worked for 2 city police departments, and the A.G.'s Office.
In Calif, law enforcement is governed by the California Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission. Once you meet their academy training standard, it is good for any agency in the state, although a very few agencies may make you take their specialized training academy.  
In Calif. a peace officer (830.1 P.C.)has 24 hour jurisdiction throughout the state, whether they be city police, county sheriff, state highyway patrol.  Here peace officers are broken down into various categories that define their police powers.  The highest would be 830.1 P.C. (Penal Code section that defines peace officers).  This includes municipal (city) police, county sheriff's, and District Attorney's Investigators.  
Highway Patrol would come under 830.2, meaning their primary duty is to enforce traffic law, but they can act on other crimes commited in their presence.  Calif Dept. of Justice Special Agents are also in this category (limited duty officers).  
The list goes down to State University and College Police, state investigators with the Department of Motor Vehicles, Bureau of Medical Quality Assurence, Insurence Fraud Bureau, Medi-Cal Fraud, Alcoholic Beverage Control, etc. etc.  
Only police officers that are in the 830.1 and 830.2 category may carry off duty weapons.
As to citizen arrest powers, a citizen may arrest someone for a misdemeaner comitted in their presence, or a felony.  Police officers are required by law to accept a arrest from a citizen whether they feel the arrest has merit or not.      

[Karazenpo]

Hey Sigung John, over 26 years on this job and I'm still learning! I never knew that about California. I always thought all states were basically the same as in the New England area. Our state police is the only agency that has state-wide jurisdiction other than of course federal agencies and Department of Natural Resources. We have county sheriff's departments also but their jurisdictional powers lies within the counties they represent. The rest are all city and town police. Boston does have M.B.T.A. (Mass. transit) Police and other cities have Housing Authority Police but they all have their specific jurisdictions and none are state wide. Interesting about California.
   As far as citizen's arrest goes, I did research on it back around the mid 80's because there were some questions on it in our department. I was working with the Lt. in charge of training at that time and he had me research it for our town. I might still have all the information somewhere in my files. If I recall, talking to some authorites in my research, the reason why Massachusetts has it the way we do is to prevent some citizens from abusing the powers by having them arrest for misdemeanors according to their own interpretation, not to mention to get back at someone for something. Like KBOWARRIOR stated, the police have to enforce a citizen's arrest whether they believe it was proper or not. Do you guys have that problem in California, the abuse? So ours is on the books as felonies only and it must happen in their presence, again, unless you're a cop and in that case word of mouth is your probable cause when you're outside your jurisdiction.
   Also our police academies are standard training curriculums for all city and town police including Department of Natural Resources (wildlife, etc.) State Police varies slightly in the sense that the basic training is longer but the curriculum is essentially the same from what I've seen with maybe more of an emphasis on motor vehicle laws since they are responsible for patroling the state highways.
    When I was working narcotics we needed help financially
because our area had a major drug problem with some heavy hitters and we were even working with the state police at the time. We didn't have the money to make big drug buys, so my partner and I asked permission to bring in the Feds, the D.E.A., to work with us and having that cash behind us really opened the doors and we knocked off some pretty heavy people.
    One more point that KBOWARRIOR made about California. We have the same problem out here as far as preparing officers for the street with intense D.T. programs and Officer Survival training. Very limited and much too liberal. Its like sending us into a street fight with boxing gloves on with the many constraints they put on us of what we can use and not use. These decisions are made by men and women who sit at their desks in suits and ties or blouses and skirts who don't have a clue and never rolled around on the sidewalk with anyone! Its really screwed up! They have no idea how it is to go up against an individual who has no capacity to feel pain and doesn't care at the moment whether he lives or dies or that you do either!  They have no business dictating what is proper police techniques for confrontations with dangerous suspects. Don't get me wrong, we have a head training coordinator who is a veteran cop and black belt in charge of the state program. He is an excellent talent, realistic in his approach and a real good guy BUT he still has to answer to them of what he can teach or not teach in his training curriculum. He is not afraid to make his stand when he attempts to implement something, but, like I said, they have the FINAL word! Sorry for being long winded but as you can tell this is a passion of mine along with every police officer I've ever met!  Shihan Joe

[adacas]

You know I think that lawmakers and judges should be required to take on a different perspective when it comes to self-defense.  All over our country cops and citizens are getting sued and thrown into jail for defending themselves in ways that could be interpreted as stepping on the toes of the law.  I say interpreted because that is how our laws are written.  Assault can be interpretted by spitting in someones face by one man and for another it would have to be putting your hands on another.  I propose that lawmakers and judges take special self-defense classes or just be required to research it extensively.  With the knowledge that many self-defense experts have I think that a lot of cases wouldn't go any farther than walking into a court building because they understand the circumstances.  Most judges and lawmakers live in the nice part of town where the milkman still comes to visit.  Perhaps they should be relocated to places like South Central L.A. (oops I mean South L.A.  The new name sounds so much nicer doesn't it. )  Hey they could even make money off of it as a reality show.  It would chronicle the lessons learned as they live the streets of reality.  That would be a nice change wouldn't it.

[Sifu_George]

Hello everyone. I've been reading this post for a while and find it very interesting.
I think I have to tell you about an incident that a friend and I were involved in about 10 years ago and about what the law did for us.
After leaving a night club in downtown San Jose, Ca., my buddy and I were outside talking to some women...the male thing to do; the girl whom my buddy was talking decided she wanted a kiss and went in for the kill. My buddy wasn't about to reject her being the gentleman he was, and accepted the advance, little knowing that her big brother was watching her. The brother didn't like what he was seeing and cold cocked my buddy. I was like whoa! That was cold. But didn't jump in,(I had hit him harder than that in the dojo during practice) cause my buddy (Lou) only stumbled back and looked slightly upset. Lou was going to try to talk his way out of this thing, as is his personality, when the brother's friend decided to punch him from behind. Ok, thats when I got into it. We were class mates afterall. I locked the guys punch up and swept and stomped his punk asp. Lou and I then went back to back and expected trouble. Which came in the way of 7 guys, as witnesses counted. Anyway, after more than a few punches came our way, we decided that this was to crazy and that we needed to be real with this situation. As I put it to Lou, "this ain't class no more Lou, start busting people up". We came out of this "jumping" with black eyes, bloody mouths, Lou tooth went through his bottom lip and had a dislocated pinky finger. They, on the other hand were left with four out of commision, one with a broken leg, one holding his face screaming and another on the ground trying to decide what to hold, his groin or his eye. The other three were stopped held by the cops. After the mist cleared,  I had a cop pointing a gun at me threatening to shoot me. I told the cop that I was cool and that we didn't start the thing but we thought these punks were going to kill us. The officer laughed, and asked us to assume the position. After being patted down and asked for our side of the story, a few witnesses came forward and told them the what they had saw. The officer looked a both of us and laughed again, and told us we were both lucky that we hadn't been shot or stabbed during the altercation. And that we both looked liked sh--!
Anyway, after laughing a little with the officer, he let the both of us go! He also told us that he was glad that someone finally kicked the crap out of the punks who usually jump guys and end up putting them into the hospital or even worse.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is...that the law is not always in the court, sometimes it's on the street. And the law (officer) knows whats right and what's wrong. :-/

[KBOWARRIOR]

John Bishop...
    It was nice to meet you this weekend at Grandmaster Pierces event...What a nice time standing around the fire with everyone trading stories like that...

     I don't know if you have received the new information on citizen arrests, P.C. 837, but it has changed...The way the state law used to read is what you are saying, the police officer must arrest on a citizens arrest...The federal law states that you must have reasonable belief that the crime happened...There was a major case where the officer took a subject into custody for the citizens arrest and the subject arrested sued the officer civilly – federally - for the arrest and won...The officer argued that per state law he was mandated to arrest or he could be charged with a misdemeanor for not arresting the subject...The federal judge told him that was to bad, federal takes precedence over state...The officers in California were in a catch 22, arrest the person and be sued federally, or not arrest and be arrested by state authorities...State law makers have now changed the citizen arrest laws to read that the officer must believe there is cause for the arrest or he doesn't have to arrest...That was a big win for us...Some drunk saying that he wanted someone arrested for some crazy thing can't force me to take someone into custody...
Shihan Joe...
     When we used to take someone into custody for a citizens arrest, we were to explain to the person placing the person under arrest that we as the officer are not making the arrest, that person is...We explain to them that if this is a bad arrest, they will be liable for the false arrest, not us...(As you can see from above that this did not work...It would have held up in a state court, but obviously not in federal)...When we as a police officer in California make an arrest, as long as we have a belief that the crime occurred, we are not civilly liable...There is a State Code Section that protects us from civil suit...That was the argument that the officer tried to make federally, but was told that as soon as you take that person into custody for the citizen making the arrest, you are arresting that person...Therefore you must have a belief that the crime actually happened...
    We used to get a lot of citizen arrests for mutual combat, one person would say he wanted the other arrested for battery and then that person would say he wanted the other person arrested for the same charge...We would cite right there on the spot and that would satisfy the state code of having to take that person into custody...That is what the officer did that was sued federally, he cited the subject right there, but that person was technically arrested while the officer was filling out the paperwork...

[John Bishop]

Yea it was great hanging out with the Kajukenbo Ohana saturday.  It's great when you can take time and just sit around the bon fire talking stories.  Lot of times at tournaments your running around judging, watching your students, etc. and you really don't get time to spend with friends.  That's why I like luaus.  
I wasn't aware of the latest California law change about the citizens arrest.  It's good to see law changes that actually make sense.  We don't see enough of that in Calif. I don't even want to get started on gun control laws and enviromental laws.  Thank God for the NRA.
But anyway, it was great to meet you saturday. Good food, good drink, and good people.