I am glad he was cleared, sounded like he had to do a lot of apologizing to do to keep his pitch!

I was surprised how little of a reaction the punch got from the spectators.

Violence was not the first response. The busker "turned the other cheek" several times.

Wow.. this guy has a lot of patience... I think I would have punched him as soon as I saw him licking his finger.

Manal, yes he tried ignoring the guy but when that clearly wasn't working he chose to lash out instead of speaking to him first. Personally I'd have told him to f\/ck off and if that didn't work I'd have probably had him by the throat, but punching someone would be a last resort in my book, not the first.

Saw this on youtube. It's an interesting case. As someone between their law degree and the license, here's my take:

In civil law, battery is the intentional contact with another's person that is harmful or OFFENSIVE. Courts regard blowing smoke on someone as a battery. Also, smacking someone's cane or horse have also been found to count as battery (the cane and horse are regarded as extensions of the person's body). Here, there's a classic battery by the heckler.

The statue obviously commited a battery, too. BUT, the legal excuse of self-defense is available to him and depends on whether the statue reasonably believed that he was still under threat, that is, whether the battery was still happening.

He would be unquestionably wrong and civilly liable to have run after the guy and then hit him. But here I think there is a reasonable expectation/belief that the heckler was going to continue, i.e., that the guy was still in the act of the battery.

That just leaves the issue of proportionality. In self-defense, your response has to be proportional to the battery or threat (for assault). For example, you can't gun down someone who is tickling your ear with a feather against your will.

Here, I don't really know, but I don't think punching someone is disproportionate to sticking your finger in their ear. Indeed, the later might be worse.

Criminal law is a little different, but would likely turn out the same.

Of course, whether it's good business or not is another issue.

Break character, not break his nose. Had a heckler grab a costume piece off me. I broke character so fast he was speechless. No violence involved, but he understood there was more of me than him. He went his way...

But, I do like the staged theory also, as mentioned earlier.

Bob

Yes, telling him to feck off my have worked or it may have escalated the drunks behavior. We will never know.
Everything seemed to work out alright in the end though.

I stick to my statement and feelings on this, but just for sake of discussion from someone who has only traveled the US and Canada (and that was driving a truck). What would one of the Queens Guard have done in the same situation. I see people testing them on YouTube and such and they show unreal restraint. Just wondering?

Queen's guard hitting tourist!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDPK1kPWj1E

What a pity that a&sole didn't turn the other cheek and got smacked on that as well ! Good on the statue - wasn't before time !

Now you see, in that case, while the tourist was disrespectful, there was no threat or assault against the guard whatsoever.

I wonder what the ramifications of that one was.

BTW, it doesn't look like he hits the tourist so much as grabs her from behind.

The point has been made though that it would have been easier if he had just dropped character for that moment (which, technically he did anyway) and just yell at the guy to go away!

Then, if that was ineffective, and he had punched him, he could have shown that it was a "last resort" sort of thing.

I did not agree with the policeman that he should have "just moved." One, he shouldn't have to be moved, Two, who's to say the moron wouldn't have followed him?