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Comment by floren | Hacker News Reader

> The jury's verdict comes after Customs and Border Patrol agent Gregory Lairmore testified that the snack "exploded all over him" and he "could smell the onions and mustard" on his uniform. [...] "I could feel it through my ballistic vest," he said of the sandwich's impact, adding that an onion string hung from his police radio and mustard stained his shirt.

God, how horrifying. Maybe with time and intensive therapy he'll eventually be able to heal.

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People shouldn't be throwing sandwiches at people but it's wild in the US that the most minor stuff against the police and they try to charge you with a felony but police can commit pretty much any form of assault (even on camera) and often don't even lose their job unless there's a big outcry.

Even with an outcry, the blue wall often protects them only until it's politically untenable.

Law enforcement officer committed perjury on the stand since the defense presented a picture of the sandwich after the throw and it was still wrapped up. It never exploded.

Lying under oath about a sandwich should be treated as a substantial offense. At the very least it should carry a fine hefty enough to render him a po’ boy

Show me a cop that doesn’t belong on the Brady list and I’ll eat a ham and cheese bomb on italian bread

An attack on a cop is an attack on the state. You sure have a right to revolution but you better succeed, cause state has the right to imprison you.

I hardly think throwing a sandwich at someone is an attempted revolution

It's still an infringement against the state, not just a random man, and strictly punishment is in order. You can't allow anything getting thrown at cops on duty without repercussions.

Not according to a Jury of peers. The entire reason we have trial by jury is to dull the power of the state when it acts like this ICE officer and prosecutor did.

This "attack" was about as close to non-violent protest as you can get. Taking someone to court was only done because the ICE kidnapper had his fee fees hurt.

It was in court because the White House wants to demonstrate extreme aggression. I wonder how the officer felt about testifying - did they have a choice? (They are still responsible for their actions, of course.)

The jury decided there was no attack, not that attacking cops is fair game.

> It's still an infringement against the state, not just a random man, and strictly punishment is in order.

Why is the state so special? The USA's foundational value is individual liberty, not state authority.

The state is the individuals' collective will to, among other things, put criminals in prison. You sure can campaign, protest and what not, but if you're going to interfere with said collective will you better go all out and win, or else you'll be behind bars or in the ground.

Tell me, on this specific night, what specific crimes were this specific state agent, prevented from arresting by having a sandwich thrown at them?

I'll do you a favor, let's broaden the search criteria. Can you provide a single example of a cop anywhere being unable to arrest a criminal because a bystander threw a sandwich at them?

Illegal immigration. Whether the cops should be tolerating carrying out their duties under a sandwich shower is left as an exerciser to the reader.

Again, that's backward. In the US and in free societies generally, it is the individual, not the collective will that is the priority and is supreme. Specifically, the individual is free to do as the think best regardless of the collective will - almost the definition of 'freedom' - unless they are causing significant harm to other individuals.

Each person is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and governments exist (not to exercise the collective will but) to protect those rights.

In a functional country, the police and law enforcement are there to serve the people, not that the people are to serve them. That means holding law enforcement up to a higher standard than your average person and understanding that throwing a sandwich at them does not constitute assault or bodily harm.

People don't get to choose how they are served outside elections, you can't tell the cops you don't want this or that crime to slide and expect him to go away.

Cops absolutely should be held to higher standards (I find cops transgressing being done for common assault, rather than like abuse of office, appalling).

At the same time, a cop on duty is inviolable, unless you're really sure he's transgressing (which this one was not).

> It's still an infringement against the state

Infringement of what?

> You can't allow anything getting thrown at cops on duty without repercussions.

You absolutely can, and of the thing involved was neither intended to—nor raised reasonable fear of, nor did, nor had any meaningful likelihood to—cause injury to the officer, I can’t see any overwhelming reason you shouldn’t, either.

I suppose I could see a case for civil liability for reasonable and necessary cleaning costs directly attributable to the sandwich, but beyond that...

The state is made of the people. When ICE tear gasses two year olds, that seems like a much more worrisome attack on the state.

I mean you don't get 25% of the world's total prison population by having a fair and just law enforcement system.

Police in the US as they're trained are a cancer on society as a whole. Prosecutors are afraid of prosecuting them as they are -- normal citizens. They deserve nor have any special rights under the law (there are two classes of people, civilians and military -- they're not military).

When an officer attempts to murder a civilian, they should face attempted murder charges. When an officer kills a pet, he should face a destruction of property charge.

Unfortunately this rarely happens.

Anyone should be able to exercise their human rights and resists so-called officers of the law where possible up to and including deadly force.

> Police in the US as they're trained are a cancer on society as a whole.

I think you are way overstating it. It's hard to imagine society without police, and I've encountered many good, effective police.

> there are two classes of people, civilians and military -- they're not military

???!!!! Do you think people in the military have different or special rights?

> It's hard to imagine society without police, and I've encountered many good, effective police.

Agreed, and that's not what we have. We have an overly aggressive, fearful, and self-protective/self-interested police force. Not one for the 'good of the people'.

> Do you think people in the military have different or special rights?

Yes, there are two classes of people in the US -- civilians and military. You're one of two, not that individuals in the military can violate civilian law, but they're beholden to their own laws (UCMJ) separate from civilians. Along with limits on their rights that they would otherwise have under the US Constitution.

> there are two classes of people in the US

Where do you get that?

> they're beholden to their own laws (UCMJ) separate from civilians

People in the US military have the same obligations as everyone else to the laws of the federal, state, and local governments where they are.

Stockbrokers are subject to SEC regulations; lawyers are subject to legal rules, such as attorney-client privelege, etc. That doesn't make them separate classes of people.

You should have read the rest of my comment -- whoo boy it would have cut your comment down to zero words.

UCMJ doesn't apply to any civilian. SEC rules, etc. apply to all civilians whether or not you're engaged in SEC-related activity.

> UCMJ doesn't apply to any civilian.

False. It applies “In time of declared war or a contingency operation” to civilians “serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field”, 10 USC § 802(a)(10). This was one of several “gap-filling” changes to US federal law adopted to address problems with effectively holding contractors and others associated with the military accountable for crimes overseas in the '00s (among the others was the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, which extended federal civilian criminal jurisdiction over certain offenses committed outside the United States that did not previously have extraterritorial application, when the offender was either a civilian accompanying the US military in certain capacities or a former military member subject to the UCMJ at the time of the act but not at the time of prosecution.)

See, related, this DoD memo (hosted at DoJ) on the subject: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-hrsp/le...

> SEC rules, etc. apply to all civilians whether or not you're engaged in SEC-related activity.

There are professional rules that do not apply to non-professionals, including SEC rules. For example, lawyers can't give advice in many situations - their free speech is curtailed. Doctors and other healthcare professionals, in some places, are excluded from the 'good Samaritan' exception to injuring someone (i.e., if you find someone injured and try to help, and accidentally cause more harm, you can't be prosecuted).

> There are professional rules that do not apply to non-professionals, including SEC rules. For example, lawyers can't give advice in many situations

For giving legal advice, that's mostly backwards (in most US jurisdictions); its generally illegal for anyone other than a licensed lawyer to do what is legally considered giving legal advice (this is one of many things that constitutes unauthorized practice of law), whereas for a lawyer they are allowed to within certain ethical bounds.

> its generally illegal for anyone other than a licensed lawyer to do what is legally considered giving legal advice

People give legal advice on HN all the time, for example; lawyers on HN have to say 'but none of this should be construed as legal advice', etc.

Non-lawyers can't charge for legal advice, but they love to give it!

You have observed a pattern of behavior on HN, and conjectured a plausible legal framework that explains that behavior.

That's great. But, as is going to be the case probably more than 99% of the time that you try to infer the law from how people behave on HN, the rule you seemed to have inferred ("anyone except a lawyer is free to give legal advice in any situation, but lawyers are more restricted") is very much not the actual legal rule.

i suspect part of the error is that your conjecture about the rule implicitly assumed that both lawyer's and non-lawyer's behaviors reflected the same degree of knowledge of, and concern for adhering to, the applicable legal rules.

Whatever your theory, non-lawyers are free to give legal, medical, etc. advice as long as they don't present themselves as qualified professionals or, in many cases, charge for it.

Professionals in the field are restricted in the advice they give.

> I think you are way overstating it

I recommend this excerpt from an excellent book (which I also recommend if you find the article interesting)

https://www.vice.com/en/article/end-of-policing-book-extract...

Throwing sandwiches at people is a valid act of protest in my books.

They never took photo evidence of the scene and the only captured content was from a 3rd party showing the Subway sandwich wrapped up, lying on the street.

I would say Gregory Lairmore is a po' boy full of shit.

> a po' boy full of shit

Now that's a sandwich-in-the-face worthy of getting worked up about!

"The Perjury": 10lbs of shit on a 5lb bun tossed with onions and mustard.

edit: one too many words

Wow. So they even lied about the details of how the sandwich hit them.

If ICE are willing to lie over a sandwich in an attempt to ruin someone's life, what else will they lie about when the stakes are higher?

He views like as a shit sandwich and the more bread he has, the less shit he needs to taste. This was embarrassing.

I was in a grand jury recently and a cop/attorney came to the supreme court of our state with a terroristic threat from a homeless person in a park who made a gun sign and said pow pow, and they wanted us to indict them....

By this standard most of the sports player in the nation should be indicted.

Good news we unanimously rejected it

These people will literally claim that just bumping into them is "assault". Where do you think they're getting the "1000 percent increase" stats from? (For those who aren't aware, what the DHS is really trying to say is "well ,before all this started, there were just 10 assaults per year on ICE officers and now there's 100".)

I've read / watched a few different stories now, where what happens is the police / ICE assault a protestor, then charge the protestor with assaulting the officer and resisting arrest.

You don't bump them, you attack their fists and clubs with the softer parts of your body.

This reads so much like The Onion, it's uncanny.

I commented on the prior article posted that The Onion writers don’t even need to conjure a story anymore, just report the facts.

It's a veritable smorgasbord of trauma!

He must have had very sensitive skin to feel a sandwich through a ballistic vest.

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