The Guardian Angels vs CTA Graffiti: Detain or Assault?

Uh, I believe if someone breaks the law, GA or otherwise, you call the police. Just because they're helping enforce the law doesn't mean they're above it.

The commenting on this site is truly atrocious... sorry Spook, that wasn't directed at you.

"I am a liberal, but I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for this guy. "

In the socialist totalitarian sense of the word, yes, you might be a liberal.

^ +1 Astute for Matty.

yep, i'm at that station on occasion as well. it's not a good situation. be safe out there, people!

And if you go to their website it says "WHO WE ARE: The Guardian Angels are volunteers who provide public safety and education in our neighborhood streets our schools and cyberspace. "

So it's not like they HAVE to limit themselves to the subways. When I see them helping to straighten out the mess on Howard Street, THEN I'll be impressed and applaud. Ain't no guy with a marker or spray can ever posed a threat to me.

Guardian Angels

Well, only in the sense that the GA's aren't official anythings so basically what we have are a bunch of regular schmoes detaining and applying painful pressure to another regular schmoe for no apparent reason. The GA's own words above never say anything about the tagger threatening them, attacking them, etc. Even if he threatened them AFTER they confronted him, he could claim he lashed out at them in self-defense, that he felt threatened.

Bottom line: no, we don't know exactly how this went down, but other than a direct threat made to them or someone else by the tagger, they had no right to wrestle him to the ground (based on their own words). I'm no lawyer either, but unless the GA's change their story ("We told him to stop and he approached up in a menacing way with a knife/gun/his fists.") they could be in a bit of trouble.

No apparent reason?

If you're not trained to give legal opinions, don't. It's that simple.

It's irresponsible for Marcus (and the Tattler for that matter) to publish comments as such, and it's ignorant for commenters to pass off assertions that it's "assault," "battery," or whatever else they picked up from law & order.

First of all, Marcus explained the use of the terms at the top of the article. It was a cut and paste from the Tattler. As it stands now, "detain" and "assult" are relevant terms in this case. The use of the word "or" means they're not making a judgement. As for "ignorant" comments, 1) that's an opinion (yours) and 2) people are allowed to make ignorant comments.

So how would you have people comment on this article, without venturing into legal territory? Perhaps it shouldn't have bene posted at all, in your opinion.

It could of course just be presented without opinion, like the pieces covering the cps kids that shoot each other.

There's nothing wrong with commenting on whether you agree or disagree with what the GA's did, kids putting their "artwork" on taxpayer property, or whether the GA's should be spending their time doing better things.

Unless you're trained to give a legal opinion, your legal opinion is in fact ignorant.

There's nothing wrong with commenting on whether you agree or disagree with what the GA's did, kids putting their "artwork" on taxpayer property, or whether the GA's should be spending their time doing better things.

According to you there is something wrong, because to do so would involve a legal discussion among non-legal people.

"I think it's wrong what the GA's did"

"Why do you think it's wrong?"

And here we go into legal territory...

"I'm glad the GA's did what they did. They were in their right to detain him."

"No they weren't, they had no right."

And once again, into legal territory...

Unless you're trained to give a legal opinion, your legal opinion is in fact ignorant.

You're veering off course. No one said the comments couldn't be or weren't "ignorant". The point was that people are free to offer them here. Even if they're not the legal experts you'd prefer to hear from.

Stealth, it's easy to come up with a hypo that could support your desire to live out some kind of Matlock fantasy.

It's really unnecessary and ignorant to play judge and jury with the GA's in this case without the training to do so. I don't know enough about the GA's (see how it's alright to admit that you're uneducated on something?), so I don't know what their mission/reason for being on the cta/etc. (and really, nor do I care) - but I know that there's a slew of defenses and justifications that are applicable in assault/battery/false imprisonment situations. I'm not going to play judge and jury with the GA's here though.

It's really unnecessary and ignorant to play judge and jury with the GA's in this case without the training to do so.

We'll stop playing judge and jury when they stop playing pretend police officer, ok?

Three grown men in berets holding down some kid with a spray can. They're a bad joke.

Did Matlock even have a high speed connection?

For the record, my unfounded assessment is assault.

Have you ever considered that they guy might be innocent? TRAINED police get the wrong guy all the time. What makes these guys any better and catching real criminals? Oh that's right, nothing/

There is absolutely no suggestion in this story that the guy in question was NOT a tagger. So, no. If the guy was not a tagger, I'm certain the story would have been reported quite differently (GA's attack subway rider). Of course, I do not know for sure, I wasn't there. But, I don't think the GA's go around harassing riders.

I, for one, do care that he was a tagger. I'm not happy about the GA's response -- there are a dozen ways they could have reacted to this situation that don't involve harming the man. But, I'm not willing to give taggers a pass on this either.

But, your point is well raised -- where do we draw the line. If we tolerate such mob action, where does it stop? Of course, the City could outlaw the GA's. On the other hand, if the GA's decide to enforce the law, then they must be prepared for the consequences, namely a civil lawsuit. The tagger is entitled to his day in court and can sue.

Nicholas,
My point is that however distasteful we might find taggers it's not anything approaching a violent crime. Unfortunately because he was a tagger this brings out peoples *emotions* about *that* rather than the unecessary actions of this group of people.

Nice of you to paint all mall cops and security guards with the brush. They all like "hurting people"? Really? You 100% sure about this?

Call me crazy, but I bet there are some security guards/mall cops out there who try to do a decent job and are not motivated by wanted to appear tough.

A person who makes such sweeping statements does not deserve to be taken seriously on this issue.

As for accountability, the legal system provides various avenues, civil and criminal, for those GAs who have overstepped the law. Certainly you don't think the fine citizens of Chicago are not willing to sue if they think they have been abused, do you?

Are you serious? From what I've read on here this is your game, which I'm not going to play. You're extrapolating offense and insult and demanding evidence for an individual opinions. That's ridiculous. You're a troll on a message board, I could care less if you take me seriously. Grow up.

Are there mall cops who are professional and act in strict accordance with the law? Assuredly. But the profession tends to attract wanna be cops who can't make the force. That's an assessment I made from working in retail and seeing the pretty low bar set for that gig.

Funny: You insult me, yet you don't know the stupidity of making broad-brush statements about people, which you then you use to make some BS broadbrush statement about the GAs. Do you have any, you know, specific examples that don't involve your personal biases? No? Then you should drop it.

"But the profession tends to attract wanna be cops who can't make the force. That's an assessment I made from working in retail and seeing the pretty low bar set for that gig."

I worked in a retail for a while, too. And believe it or not, I've known some good people who work security, which is about as value-less as your own observations. Get over yourself. You have nothing on this issue beyond your own narrow experience/memory. Drop it and move on.

Matilda, I gather from this and other comments on here you enjoy taking umbrage for yourself and others. Protecting the Paul Blart's of the world from insult? I'm not interested in participating in your pathology.

And "making broad brush statements" is slaughtering a perfectly good idiom in an attempt at being clever.

Spav should know....

Sorry. I don't want to fight with people online. That's just a waste of time and energy. But dissembling and attempts to change the topic by feigning insult are just ridiculous. Don't we get enough of that on cable news and talk radio?

Let's review, shall we:

You make an insanely general statement that you feel (notice the word, "feel," not "know") to be true based on your own limited personal experience. You have no outside facts or insight or analysis to back up a rather superficial and intellectually sloppy attack on a large class of workers. You use this "reasoning" to advance an argument on an issue of the day. You use stupidity in an attempt to be insightful.

Then you defend yourself by saying, in effect, that I simply like to argue, rather than deal with your own shortcomings in logic and factual reality (or lack thereof).

Then, just because, the site's resident mascot of action-less revolution and hip behavior, Spook, chimes in with some outdated political/marketing label whose meaning he/she probably doesn't even know.

Jess: Try better next time.

Yeah, that's about it.

Oh my god. You're a crazy person! I love it.

You're actually offended by me mentioning the name of a fictional character. Are you like this with people offline? Three posts here on this thread and you've been nothing but insufferable. Did you really just pick every word I posted over? What are you, the Hannibal Lecter of Craigslist. That's a character from a book and a movie since you apparently live in a cave. With internet access. And have worked in retail.

No one cares as much as you're pretending to. In fact, no one cares what you have to say at all.

This is what I get for feeding the troll. Sorry everyone.

Did you ever play Frogger as a kid? Cause your leaps in logic are fantastic.

If we let taggers "get away with it" it's as good as letting rapists run wild. If someone compares the Guardian Angels to a gang (a group of young men and women who act beyond the law?) they're accusing them of drug-dealing.

You're trying very hard to defend a group of vigilantes. This is not the wild west. Petty vandalism is not best answered with physical force.

The fact you can't seem to differentiate between crimes against property and crimes against people doesn't speak well for your argument.