I come in biased for sure because in my experience, the athletes would get together to party and would always end up harming someone. Some were bouncers at a local bar on weekends and would come in to school on Monday to laugh and joke about how many people they had beaten up and thrown into dumpsters. Same thing happened when my sons were growing up. It was considered the football culture though no one called it that.
First of all, when the boys started taunting the defendant, he should have walked away. Perhaps he was too focused on finding the phone but with a bunch of drunk guys and a loudmouth at the camera, you're going to lose. Be adult and walk away.
But the defendant may just have waited too long and others joined the group of boys at the behest of a parent of all things. The parent of the group joining had to know that the increase in numbers would only serve to exacerbate the situation.
This began a melee that encircled the defendant. BTW, it looks as though the defendant was summoning his own group for help at one point. The defendant looks as though he's trying to figure out if the joining girls were helping him or the boys, and it was pretty clear with the tauntings of the boys that they were accusing the defendant of terrible things.
I do believe that it was at that point that the defendant feared for his safety, perhaps his life, as the boys were obviously escalating with the increase in numbers. I believe that the boys intended to post the video later for friends to show how macho they were humiliating a grown man. I do believe that when the blonde got into the defendant's space, he pushed her. I don't believe he punched. I think the boys are embellishing because it's better for their story. Once he pushed the blonde, he may have been trying to get away but it was too late.
That initial physical contact, especially upon a female, further enraged the boys and the melee began with the boys pushing, slapping and hitting him.
At that point, I believe it was self defense.
BTW, tubing in rivers is a big thing that we enjoyed as a family. We always carried a knife, or scissors because you have to initially cut the tubes off the roof of your vehicle, then sometimes we would tie our tubes together to float together and sometimes have to cut them again if our boys wanted to float separately for a time. Sometimes this would happen off and on, tying and cutting for the entire tube ride down the river as the kids became tired. So leaving the cutting instrument in the car would not work.
In conclusion, I wish the defendant had walked away, ignored the drunk kids and left. Perhaps he wanted to be the hero and find his friend's phone. He had also consumed alcohol. Additionally, the boys made a stupid decision to drink alcohol (beer and vodka) and smoke weed which may have empowered them and made them feel invincible. The boy's never should have taunted anyone and to me were like a pack of pit bulls (MOO) and things got out of hand, regrettably for all and a life was tragically lost. This is just my take on the situation and MO.
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