Apparently some lady in Texas is pressing charges for assault because another lady tapped her on the shoulder when asking her to hang up the phone during the movie. Apparently she could use some advice. On the plus side, apparently the cops weren't so thrilled and told her if she made the complaint they'd charge her with disorderly conduct and profanity. Probably the first time in a while they actually charged someone with that, especially for the offense occurring during a movie rated R for language. Apparently not being asked to not talk on the phone in theaters is too important to her and now it'll be a matter of public record that she's a pompous jerk.
The thing I find interesting about this is that only the Australian media seem to be covering it. <a href = "http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2005-09,GGGL:en&tab=wn&ncl=http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm%3Fstoryid%3D3672277%26thesection%3Dlocalnews%26thesubsection%3D%26thesecondsubsection%3D&hl=en&filter=0
">Google news</a> currently give 7 hits. All Australian papers:
Is this sort of ludicrous common assault charge an everyday event and no longer newsworthy in the US?
It hit some US news, although for some reason Google isn't considering them "related" for some reason. I wouldn't say it's common, but it's not something that's normally considered national news either (although maybe should be). I think the .au coverage is probably so prevalent due to it's a stupid USian being a jerk to an Aussie (which is too common with USians toward anyone else).
I really hope someone does an interview with the woman who started all this. I want to know why in the world she thought it was OK to talk on the phone in the first place, and then to react in the way she did as well.
I like Aleish's approach personally :)
I think we need to adopt some kind of a system like Briton has where if someone is sued and they person doing the accusing is found to have no valid case they have to pay the court costs of the defendant. I think that'd cut down on a lot of this ridiculous litigation. Like the lady that was convinced that David Letterman was sending her "signals" through his show that she was supposed to come to the east coast and marry him. Yeah, that lady needs less court, more happy pills.
The "American Way" is to countersue for wasting time/money. :) The topic of tort reform is a huge can of worms though.
Copyright ©2000-2008 Jeremy Mooney (jeremy-at-qux-dot-net)
She's lucky. Aleisha would have kicked her in the head.