Brickbat: Canadian Humor

Sister72 / photo on flickr

Three police officers in Peterborough, Ontario, have been charged with neglect of duty and discreditable conduct after mocking and failing to help a man with a broken leg. William Lomoro says he approached the officers seeking help after he was beaten by bouncers at a local pub. Instead, Const. Isaac Teeple, Const. Eric Easterbrook and Sgt. Michael Jackson told him to walk off the broken leg and called him various names.

Comments

[invisible furry hand]

i strongly urge you to click through and read the comments. They're like H&R without the tits and spelling mistakes

[db]

Iget "subscription required." Do you actually subscribe to the Sun or is that a secret benefit of being in the Commonwealth?

[invisible furry hand]

I'd like to think it's a perk of sharing a monarch, but actually it gave me a message to the effect of "first of 20 freebies".

Basically the comments are all anti-cop. My fave is the one that said at least they hadn't beaten the guy himself, because then no charges would have been laid. It's like they're all drinking sloopyinca kool-aid

[JW]

Who's getting laid?

[Ted S.]

Ahem. "Favour" is the spelling mistake, not "favor".

[Suthenboy]

"...without the tits and spelling mistakes"

Where is the fun in that?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Canadian humour, eh? Canadian femur, I say. If Lomoro isn't tough enough to walk off a broken leg then he's no Canuck. He's a can't-uck.

[invisible furry hand]

He's a can't-uck.

Careful, Ken Schultz might complain

[Ted S.]

The funny Canadians all go to Hollywood to make their mark in entertainment; the rest stay behind and bitch about how awful the US is.

[Virginian]

You forgot the blonde with the big tits who's name escapes me.

[LTC(ret) John]

That alt-text is positively Bok-ian.

[db]

I've always wondered at the ability of bouncers to get away with so much violence. How is it they can do what they do without assault charges? Are they extremely well educated in the law regarding use of force or are they simply given a pass by authorities? I imagine most people on the receiving end of a bouncer-administered beating choose not to sue for various reasons including not wanting to air their own misbehavior.

[invisible furry hand]

i suspect it has something to do with the complainants' usually being drunk men. Without eyewitnesses / security footage, it turns into two or three sober guys all saying this drunk guy resisted being bounced / hit back. So the complainant's case isn't easy to show civilly, let alone criminally, unless the injuries are really over the top.

[Drake]

Not just drunk men - loud, obnoxious drunk men everyone else is happy to see beaten.

[PS]

Am I the only one who's witnessed the loud obnoxious guys starting the fights were often pals with the bouncers?

[sarcasmic]

Are they extremely well educated in the law regarding use of force or are they simply given a pass by authorities?

Bouncers are often on a first name basis with the cops, so the cops just look the other way.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

A lot of times, what the bouncers do is self-defense. Some of the time, they are violent authoritarian pricks, but not all business owners want the liability that goes along with employing violent authoritarian pricks.

[sarcasmic]

From what I've seen, what bouncers do is take advantage of the fact that the other person is intoxicated. They'll throw the guy down some stairs or into a brick wall and claim he fell. Without video it's the word of a sober person vs a drunk person.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Yeah, some definitely do.

I was friends/acquaintances with probably over 100 bouncers back when I went out all the time. In my experience -- and I don't claim this is universal or some kind of scientific study -- the violence the bouncers used (with the exception of the violent authoritarian pricks) was almost always commensurate with the clientele. That is, once the behavior required bouncer intervention, the client was much more likely to get the stuffing beaten out of him at a biker bar than some random club.

The guys I knew who worked at more than one place could be like different guys depending on where they were working.

For the most part, they were intimidating guys who got paid to be intimidating and who didn't seek out a chance to crack heads.

[generic Brand]

I've been on the receiving end of a violent authoritarian prick bouncer. Some (one of my friends) are just big guys who are doing a job. He works in Key West at strip clubs occasionally, so things can get out of hand. Then there are the ones with small-dick syndrome who think anyone looking at them funny (funny means looking in their general direction) is trying to start something and needs to be made an example of. Unfortunately I was in a club with the latter one time.

[generic Brand]

That was a confusing paragraph... the first "he" is my friend who lives and works in Key West. Then the second half of the paragraph is the douchebag in ORLANDOOOO!!! (fuck Lake Eola) who put me in a chokehold for asking him why he had to cut directly between me and the girl I was dancing with.

[Gray Ghost]

Sometimes they're on a first name basis because they're actually off-duty cops. Evidently this is common for venues in Houston, particularly if they also have live music and enjoy not running afoul of the city's noise ordinance.

[williamh]

When I was a teenager I wanted to go to a concert at a very safe venue in Chinatown in Philadelphia. My Dad kept saying no, until he finally relented.

Turns out the reason why he didn't want me to go was that my Uncle had gone to same venue in the early-80s, gotten drunk, and then got beat up by the bouncer. Pretty sure he sued and got a nice settlement.

When I was interning in federal court I saw a settlement conference where a bar's insurance company and a shore town agreed to split a $100k settlement to some drunk guy who managed to get beat up by both bouncers and cops.

So aside from the personal relationship betweeen cops and bouncers, there may also be that, "Ehh, let the courts handle it" that stop bouncers from being held criminally responsible.

[PS]

Instead, Const. Isaac Teeple, Const. Eric Easterbrook and Sgt. Michael Jackson told him to walk off the broken leg and called him various names.

Actually the sergeant told him to moonwalk it off.

[Fist of Etiquette]

He's bad.

[db]

God dammit!

[Fist of Etiquette]

You wanna be startin somethin, get here earlier.

[db]

Your arrogance reeks of the funk of forty thousand years.

[db]

That's Bad.

[H. Reardon]

You know it.

[invisible furry hand]

they thought he was a smooth criminal

[Almanian!]

Sgt. Jackson's sister Janet (Miss Jackson, if you please) is the real talent in the family.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Oh, is THAT what those are called?

[Almanian!]

You know who else laughed at certain injured people rather than assist them...

[PS]

Roman centurians?

[db]

Romanes eunt domum!

[Ted S.]

Tommy Udo?

[John Galt]

Then Sgt Michael Jackson pulled a glove on his hand, grabbed himself by the crotch, and said "So beat it, just beat it, you better run walk ...it off..." Looking a little puzzled William Lomoro replied "You making fun of me?"

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Why does this story make me think of a 'Kids in the Hall' skit? I can just see McKinney, McCullough and Foley acting as the cops while McDonald is the guy with the broken leg.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"Take off, hoser!"

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Bob and Doug McKenzie.

Nice.

[SugarFree]

Whatever. In America the cops would have shot his little punk ass. Canadian Mounted Sissy Police let the little bastard off easy.

[sarcasmic]

This won't go far in court. It's not like the guy has a leg to stand on.

*rim shot*

[Ted S.]

You're several days late with the Oscar Pistorius jokes. :-p

[anarch]

An Independent Police Review Commission investigation also heard that the officers referred to him as a "douche," a "pussy," and a "drunk idiot."

None of those allegations have been proven in court.

What is the standard of proof for certifying as "a douche," a "pussy," and a "drunk idiot"?