Comment by aquarium87 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aquarium87 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It's connected. But maybe not in the way you are strawmanning. The guy is clearly a deranged lunatic and a stalker that followed and intercepted Elons child near its mother's house.

As a driver, with a child of a famous rich person on board, getting out of the vehicle for an altercation is sheer madness. Not saying the guy deserves to get run over, but it's a pretty good outcome considering. I would bet that from a legal perspective blocking a vehicle with a body doesn't give consent to be run over, but that stalking and targeting someone AND detaining that persons vehicle with a body gives full license for bodily harm to escape. Probably not up to and including death without direct threats, a weapon, and threatening action, but certainly assault.

"The man said he was a delivery driver for UberEats, the Washington Post reported, and “made several bizarre and unsupported claims, including that he believed [Grimes] was sending him coded messages through her Instagram posts; that Musk was monitoring his real-time location; and that Musk could control Uber Eats to block him from receiving a delivery order.”

Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, lives in a house near the gas station where the altercation occurred, the Post reported."

> As a driver, with a child of a famous rich person on board, getting out of the vehicle for an altercation is sheer madness. Not saying the guy deserves to get run over, but it's a pretty good outcome considering.

I think I’ll wait for the police report before jumping to conclusions. But no one deserves to be assaulted.

To address the police report, it is meaningless at this point and media reporting is better to go off of. The police only take reports and investigate, but don't comment until charges are filed or the case is dropped. At this stage, regardless of what happened, the police took a report from a self-identified victim. I can report anyone for assault tomorrow, baselessly, and your answer would be to give no credence to the media who talked to the people involved, but rather accept as fact for now that I am a victim because I abused the machinations of power to my benefit.

As for the assault, which I have no doubt happened, we are arguing over the legality of it: People deserve to be assaulted all the time. The person that initiates violence, or otherwise legitimately violates or seriously threatens the physical security of another person deserves to be taught a quick lesson so they can ruminate about personal sovereignty and rights while they heal.

As a general rule, society calls on the strong to protect the weak. Violent people will seek to exploit weaker people. When a violent person errs and unknowingly seeks to exploit a stronger person, it is my opinion that it is the duty of the stronger person in a strong legal and moral position to take the opportunity to perform justice.

Said person doesn't need to know the crimes and transgressions of the aggressor in the past. That the person is now aggressing and violating others rights is enough. If it is the offenders first time, the lesson should hopefully suffice to make it the last. If the aggressor regularly violates the rights of others, it is karmedic justice at a minimum, and true justice if other victims hear about what happened.

TL:DR; it is a moral imperitive to dispense instant karma within the law for those who could not in the past, and cannot in the future.

> As a general rule, society calls on the strong to protect the weak. Violent people will seek to exploit weaker people. When a violent person errs and unknowingly seeks to exploit a stronger person, it is my opinion that it is the duty of the stronger person in a strong legal and moral position to take the opportunity to perform justice.

That's vigilanteism. What you are describing is not legal.

Why didn't Elon's security team call the police if they feared for their lives? It appears the guy from Elon's team got out and filmed the man in the car. He must have thought it wasn't serious enough to warrant a call to the police.

No. I am NOT describing vigilantism. I am describing enforcement of rights, at the time they are violated.

The distinction being that vigilantism happens after the fact, or by people who were not witnesses.

As an example, if someone steals from a business and returns later, its too late to arrest or hold them. But if you perform a citizens arrest at the time of the theft that is legal.

Another classic example is a use of force altercation. All participants should be present from start to finish to avoid legal jeopardy if they wish to intervene. Someone that sees a fight after it started has no idea whose side it is legally permissible to take. Even so, it's very risky to intervene because it's hard to know what's going on in the heat of the moment.

This is why rights must be enforced in the here and now, by those that have standing to do so.

Otherwise, as you say, it's vigilantism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com