ran@bentley.UUCP (RA Novo) (07/22/85)
All this talk about the protection of personal property with booby- traps brings up a hypothetical situatuion and question. Let's say that you approach your parked car in the street only to find someone trying to forcibly break into it. You approach him as he is smashing your windshield, but he just ignores you. What can you do? It seems to me that you have two possible alternatives: 1) You can try to physically stop him using force. However, he can be larger than you or armed, which can -- Robert A. Novo "Captain! They put creatures AT&T Bell Labs in our ears! They made us say Piscataway, NJ things that weren't true!" ...bentley!ran
ran@bentley.UUCP (RA Novo) (07/22/85)
Suppose the following situation happens: You approach your parked car, and you find a stranger trying to break-in. When you approach him, he just ignores you and continues to cause damage to your car. As I see it, you have two possible alternatives being bad and worse: 1) Physically try to stop him. Now if he is larger than you or armed you can be in a lot of trouble. But if he is smaller or if you are armed, since he actually did not physically try to harm you, you can be charged with assault, and sued for physical damages to the theif. There can be many interesting variations of this scenario, and I am not completely sure of the outcomes depending on the circumstances. I heard of a similar case to this. As it turned the person entering the car had legal reason to (he was a cop or a reposessor or something similar) but he did not identify himself properly. I don't know what the case ended in though. 2) You can quickly run and try and find an officer of the law, but by the time you find one, chances are the perpetrator has left with your property and/or damage to your car. What can you do in a case like this? -- Robert A. Novo "Captain! They put creatures AT&T Bell Labs in our ears! They made us say Piscataway, NJ things that weren't true!" ...bentley!ran
ugdomino@sunybcs.UUCP (Michael Domino) (07/29/85)
> >What can you do in a case like this? > How about giving him the keys and preventing any further damage? You might embarrass the guy by opening up the car and just standing there and watching. If he requests privacy, well, leave and have a cup of coffee. At least your window won't get broken. ;-) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael A. Domino uucp:[bbncca,decvax,dual,rocksanne,watmath]!sunybcs!ugdomino SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science csnet:ugdomino@buffalo arpanet:ugdomino.buffalo@csnet-relay voice:(716)881-6420 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------