Hacker News Reader

Comment by woodrow | Hacker News Reader

In case you're (like me) wondering what "attempted lynching" means in the context of the article, consider yourself enlightened by the California Penal Code:

  405a.  The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful
  custody of any peace officer is a lynching.
  
  405b.  Every person who participates in any lynching is punishable
  by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three or four years.

I can't imagine this is what the law was written to be used for, given the usual connotation of lynching.

View on HN

The original (pre-racist) definition of "lynching" was populist punishment before a proper trial. Crowds would break into jail, remove a suspect that had yet to be given a proper trial, and hang (or otherwise punish) him.

Now companies and countries do that for us! coughWikiLeakscough

The part about "attempted lynching" results from an accusation that the student yelled "Kick her (the police officer's) ass!" during the confrontation. At least that makes the charge make sense, though of course who knows if it's true or not.

Details were linked off the linked page-

http://www.laweekly.com/2010-12-09/news/jeremy-marks-attempt...

New goal in life: if I ever have children, don't send them to LAUSD schools. Schools with armed police at the door are undesirable -- borderline tolerable if they're there to protect from outsiders, but if they're needed to control the students, something is seriously wrong.

You're lucky that you have the choice to send your kids to a different school (as do I, and most HN readers). The people who don't have this choice, also disproportionately have children who need to be controlled by police (leaving the families without a choice, but with non-feral children, as unfortunately bystanders).

This seems pretty weak to me.

So say you are having the shit beaten out of you. You're being beaten, and shit is coming out. Will the shout, "kick her ass" yelled by some random onlooker change your strategy for dealing with the situation? You were going to just lay there, but because of that onlooker's suggestion, now the thought to fight back occurs to you?

I kind of doubt that.

Maybe we should arrest the adrenaline that your body produces for "attempted lynching".

Presumably the "kick her ass" comment was directed at the other bystanders, not the guy in custody. I could see how that could be considered inciting a riot in some cases, but among a bunch of teenagers who ultimately did not act on it it seems excessive. Not to mention they don't seem to have any evidence it was Marks who yelled it, and in fact I believe the officer even said in her report it wasn't him, yet they charged him anyway.

It seems like they're just looking for someone to make an example of.

There is a condition called 'Contempt of Cop' which is probably what fueled this. While it was happening, I can only imagine the police officer thinking, "Oh no you don't", at which point her focus changed.

One hopes logic prevails in this case. Kudos to Neil Fraser.

The point is that doesn't make sense. He wasn't trying to get the person who the police officer was holding to administer his own justice. That's what lynching means...

Do you think it would still be "attempted lynching" if the students were white?

Back in the 90's my son got arrested for getting in the way of a campus cop trying to arrest a Berkeley protester. He was charged with Lynching. So, yes, it's real and used. He was let go because there was no provable case.

“For my friends anything, for my enemies, the Law”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com