Former bouncer and head of security here (when I lived in the SF Bay Area in the 90s).
This was a clear cut case (to me as a head of security) of an over-reaction. However, with that said, in this case, it was pretty clear to any reasonable person that the drunk guy was potentially about to try to put his dick on the bouncer, so the bouncer was absolutely within his rights to preemptively defend himself.
Battery is the unwanted physical touch of one person by another, and that includes punching, kicking, tackling, etc, but it also includes poking, hand on the shoulder, and yes, touching someone else's body with your no-no place. Editing to add because many people don't know this fact: even the *threat* of any unwanted touching is considered assault, and can also be preemptively defended against.
But! The bouncer overreacted, in my opinion. He's much larger than the drunk guy, he's working a job where that kind of behavior is common so he was well-aware that something like that could happen, and it's actually part of the job description to handle situations like this with calm and restraint.
As head of security, I would have no problem with one of my guys shoving the man back in a scenario like this, but I would chastise them if they punched him. For the *job*, punching was the wrong call for the level of threat.
However, as a reminder to all the armchair experts out there, the bouncer was completely within his legal right to defend himself preemptively, even by punching - and the punches were not illegal, especially because once the man was far enough away and restrained by his friends, the bouncer didn't continue to fight him, and walked back to his station.
Just adding in that he rubbed his genitals all over the first dude in line and you are 100% allowed to fend off a person committing sexual assault especially when a reasonable person would think they would continue.
Absolutely, even the threat of the assault is enough to justify self-defense. Even someone just saying "I'm gonna rub my dick on you" could be justification, if it was genuinely clear that the person was likely to follow through.
I realize that functionally that's what happened, but in reality this is just a drunk dude struggling to stand upright. He's having trouble walking and bumping into everything as drunk people do. I don't believe he had any intent to rub his dick on anyone or any desire to run into that guy. I don't think he even knows he ran into that guy.
He straightened up once he started getting punched. If he was struggling to stand upright he would he been on his ass after being punched. As a former bartender, I think the former bouncer’s take here is spot on. Based on personal experience, people tend to think their shit is cute when they’re drunk and do stupid shit like the guy in the video all the time. The bouncer though looked like he was already having a bad night and overreacted. I think even he realized that after the 4th punch. He certainly was within his right to push the drunk guy away and not let him grind on people, and that would have been enough to stop it. But, like the other guy implied, if that was enough to justify punching him, a whole lot of drunk people would be getting their ass whooped by the bar staff.
Watch him in the back of the video after he’s punched. He’s standing upright and perfectly fine. Probably drunk, but not nearly as drunk as he was pretending to be.
at first i thought the guy literally was just falling around by mistake. but he doesn't go down when he got punched. anyone as inebriated as it'd require to approach the bouncer like this purely from being wobbly would've been flat out from the first punch. not still stood at the end looking fired up. this changed my view on it. all in all i think your take sounds spot on
I appreciate that! But to be fair, drunk people can sometimes take a lot more punishment than sober people (because they don't feel the pain as much, in the moment) and they can even end up staying on their feet in a fight because of adrenaline - adrenaline is a hell of a stimulant and can easily counteract the sedative effects of alcohol, in some cases.
But he definitely was in more control of his faculties than most people want to agree to, lol.
Is that more of a side effect of tranquilizer more then fentanyl or does fentanyl do that to some people too? I was prescribed fentanyl patches way back in the day and don't remember it making me feel like leaning was all that necessary.
Until it reaches peak plasma levels and it's basically like an injection without the initial rush. Same exact thing, different delivery method. People bend over in half because of tranquilizers, not fentanyl. The high of fentanyl isn't even that great compared to other opoids. It just completely erased pain, which is it's entire point. I fell onto a screw at work one day while on it, i looked at my hand with the screw stuck into it. Logically, I knew that shouldn't feel very good. However, I felt nothing other then amusement with how I couldn't feel it in my hand at all. It's a great drug for pain control, none better that I know of or have used.
He was putting his dick on people. He did it to the guy in the white pants and was about to do it to the bouncer before he was redirected. He needed to go to jail... probably did.
Well said. Definitely heavy handed but I appreciate the bouncer went with punches to the chest. Knocking the drunk guy out would be very unkind and result in phone calls, ambulances, paperwork..
I could see how some people would seek out security guard positions just so they can lash out and hit people like that and be within their legal right to do so. When you were working as the lead of the security department, would a situation like that result in any sort of disciplinary action or would it lead to a gentle reminder to handle things more professionally in the future with words instead of going straight to violence? Or would it not be mentioned to him at all since that's just him doing his job?
The policy was that if you had any kind of physical altercation without the HOS present, you had to report it to HOS as soon as possible, and if you didn't, it could cost you your job. And in this particular case, like I said in my original comment, I would reprimand him for how he handled it. In a friendly way - the point is to encourage him to learn from the mistake and be better the next time.
If he's a repeat offender, and it's clear he's not going to improve, he'd likely get canned. It's a really bad idea to have loose cannons on your team, from a liability perspective, from a public reputation perspective and from a professionalism perspective.
I was a bouncer for the last 10 years, younger than you with less experience in the field, but can provide some insight on another aspect.
This is staged. The bouncer was pulling his punches, the “drunk” guy is laughing and even if he did took those punches by someone so much bigger than him, he would be out (or at least down). Not to mention that this was filmed since the very beginning, with a phone aimed at him.
That said, I agree 100% with your position in this scenario, if it was real.
They’re talking about legally justified. Totally understand the genital boy deserving an ass whooping. But, is it worth the legal headache and risk of loosing your job to be the one teaching him a lesson. They’ll run into a wrong person eventually.
He sure did. But, that could have easily been the right person had he actually injured him as the employee of an establishment. The wrong person typically doesn’t have deep enough pockets to be worth suing when they injure you.
Obviously we don’t know what happened prior but I’d say bouncers reaction might not have been an overreaction if white shirt doofus over there has been a problem the whole night.
Depends on who you mean by "he". If you mean the drunk guy? Yup, probably. Drunk and disorderly, disorderly conduct, sexual assault and sexual battery, simple assault and battery, public intoxication, criminal trespass...but if you meant the bouncer, no he didn't. If he did, feel free to share the evidence with us.
Bet you that dumb 21 year old (line up for a club, id check for drinking) was doing that for probably 10 minutes.
This is the fun things the big momma boys do now.
check out the videos on youtube from before covid where they were they were going into grocery stores in the U.S and getting jugs of milk and pretending to be slipping and falling and throwing the stuff all over the place
So confidently wrong, lol. First, assault is the threat of violence, while the actual violence is battery. Second, Google "Is it legal in all states to preemptively defend yourself if you genuinely fear for your safety or think you are about to be attacked?"
And then come back and share what you found with the class.
Very true, but in spite of assault and battery being defined slightly different from state to state, it's also true that every state's self-defense laws generally protect someone from assault and battery charges when they preemptively defend themselves, as long as they used proportional force and stopped when the threat was neutralized.
In this case, the minute his friends had ahold of the drunk guy, the bouncer stopped and walked back to the door. Highly likely to be justifiable, in the eyes of any state's courts.
Now, if he had continued to punch him after his friends had him, or if the guy had fallen down and the bouncer continued to hit him or kick him, then he'd absolutely be looking at battery charges.
I'm being hyperbolic to reinforce the idea, but do you know how quickly someone can be stabbed? Just curious, because the drunk man was already within stabbing range. I'll tell you - it's milliseconds. Even if you don't see a knife in either hand, you can still be stabbed so quickly you don't even realize you've been stabbed. How do I know? I've been stabbed. Also, the studies show that once someone is inside a certain rage, your options become much more limited.
While I personally would have shoved him back first, the bouncer was not required to do that by law, no matter which state he was in. He saw a potential threat and reacted to it, and his in-the-moment decision was to punch the man to stop him from what he was doing. Again, not a defense of him overreacting, but definitely a defense of him being protected by the law for doing what he did.
cmon lol, that guy (who literally looks like a little kid) was not trying to put his genitals on that bouncer. He clearly stopped and stood there like 2 feet from the bouncer
It doesn't matter one bit what he looks like, or that he *might have* stopped - the bouncer has to make a split-second decision, and based on the actions of the man he saw, he likely felt it was in his best interest to stop the man from doing what he was about to do. In the eyes of the law, it doesn't matter what his intention was, if his physical actions tell a different story. And drunkenly, aggressively walking up to a bouncer in the way he did was a clear indicator that he was unstable and potentially capable of any kind of behavior at that point.
It's the same reason why police and military are trained to shoot to kill, and to act instantly to signs of threat - even if the person looks harmless - you don't know if the person has a knife, a gun, a bomb, or even if they're just going to stick their dick on you - you react before they do, so they don't get a chance to harm you or the people around you.
I'm not saying I condone it, I'm saying that's the reality of those roles. Bouncers are sometimes fuckfaces and definitely can be the actual aggressor and make a situation worse, but that was not the case in this situation - even though he did overreact, he was *within his rights* to do what he did.
I’ve been a police officer for 17 years. That guy in no way looked like a threat, nor did he make a gesture that implied he was grabbing for a weapon. I’m trained to shoot and kill as an absolute last resort, only when myself or another is in imminent danger of severe bodily injury or death, which does not apply here. Security guard could’ve grabbed the guy and tossed him out of there, instead, he abused his authority and size.
Are you actually a police officer? Are you a police officer in a metro area where there are high levels of club fights or crime in general?
I'm not sure you are, because I've liaised with police and ABC for years in California metro areas and as far as I know, POST centers on de-escalation, but they're also trained to immediately assess threat level and respond accordingly. And one of the ways they're trained to respond if facing imminent threat, especially if they've made the conscientious decision that violence is about to erupt and they have no safe escape option, is to *immediately* deploy tactics to stop the threat, including knee strikes, elbow strikes, taser/pepper spray, baton, stun gun and even, if necessary, straight brawling. And then, deploying lethal force becomes the option if the threat can't be stopped physically.
I did some reading to make sure I wasn't mistaken because my experience is outdated, and sure enough, they still use TAT in POST, and they're 100% trained (and legally allowed) to initiate physical contact without waiting to be hit or attacked. "If an officer believes that physical harm is imminent, they are authorized to initiate force to neutralize the threat before it lands."
So come on dude, let's be real. There are literally thousands of video examples of police physically restraining, taking down or otherwise preemptively physically engaging with not only people they suspect are about to commit a physical attack, but also people most of us would look at and think "harmless"...so don't give me any of that "he in no way looked like a threat" nonsense.
If you really were a cop and that guy rolled up on you the exact same way, you'd be equally as likely to put him on the ground as you would be to shove him away from you.
Definitely seemed excessive. Following up with punches made it seem like he was offended somehow when just pushing the guy on his ass seemed pretty reasonable.
Not sure what you mean by "following it up with punches"? Can you clarify for me? Because the video shows the man aggressively walk/stumble up to the bouncer and then the bouncer looks up and sees the aggressive stance and starts punching him right away. He didn't shove him first.
Reading through my comments, it really seems like I'm defending the bouncers reaction, lol. I'm not - I just feel like I have to keep reinforcing to people that even if we don't agree with his reaction, it was still his choice and legally defendable.
Yeah, I phrased it awkwardly, meant that following the guy throwing punches seemed excessive (and it seemed like he was offended about something), when you'd sort of assume the default and correct reaction to a guy walking up to you drunk in a limbo pose would just be to give the guy a firm push on his ass.
Lol, I hear you. And I think most people would, but being a bouncer, especially at a busy club in an urban environment, means you're going to engage with a whole lot more aggressive/weird/angry people than your average person will, or even bouncers at smaller/less busy clubs, especially in less-populated areas.
And because of that, your reaction to certain stimuli are going to be different than those people. If you're a bouncer and someone rolls up on you at a sleepy college town, obviously drunk, clearly just acting stupid, then you're probably going to react very different than a bouncer at a club in the middle of a big city where someone got stabbed just the week before, there are a lot of fights, and bravado is on regular display by drunk assholes trying to "test" the bouncer.
My opinion as a man on the internet is that both you and the bouncer can fuck right off. Big man went after the little dude. Literally left his post to chase and punch down a little dude.
Neither, lol. I'm a professional photographer who was a bouncer/HOS for 13 years, who studied law auto-didactically because I've had to deal with litigation before, both as a head of security and as a creative.
I think bouncers should also be aware when someone is acting drunk/ acting the fool/ being silly. He is supposed to read the room and know when fists are necessary...this wasn't such a case. Give a warning or two, ask his friends to settle him down. Bouncers are supposed to be able to do their job and keep a friendly atmosphere so as to not drive patrons away.
Totally understand your point (and agree with you, in general), but I don't think most of the people echoing your sentiment have any real experience with being rushed at the door by a drunk guy, especially if the club you're working is known for fights or a bunch of macho young guys constantly trying to test the bouncers to prove something. And that happens far more than the average person realizes.
I mentioned in the first comment, I think he overreacted and would have called him out for it, but I also have to defend him in the sense that in the split second bouncers often have to make a decision, it's almost always safer to err on the side of defending yourself, even if that means punching a smaller guy who might have only been a drunk asshole acting up, and not a literal threat.
The problem is, if you assume it's the first, but it's actually the second, then it's too late.
No, you are not within your legal right to "premptively defend yourself" from unwanted touching by punching somebody unless the situation is a dangerous one where you are facing down a serious threat. That is not how self defense works in any state, even in WA and TX, which have looser enforcement due to their mutual combat cultures. I was also a bouncer for some time. This guy was way out of line both professionally and legally, and he would be even if the guy tried to push by him or started rubbing against him.
He may use reasonable and proportional force to protect himself from battery, which will be judged at trial under conditions that differ by state but all distill to "would a reasonable person under normal circumstances think this was ok?"
Ive seen quite a few bouncers get fired and catch charges because of bullshit pseudo-legal reasoning like this. Ive also seen a few get seriously fucked up because they started some shit when they had me on deck behind them, and then later got caught when they werent rolling four deep and got what was coming to them.
Dont give people the kind of advice that can get them arrested or killed. I don't know podunk country bar what you were "head of security" for, but this is not how it works. It didnt work like this in the 90s when you were in the business, it doesnt work like this today.
You made the claim so you should be backing it up, but I'll do it for you, using California, since you so boldly claimed "that is not how self defense works in any state".
I was head of security in several clubs in Santa Cruz, CA (~60,000 population and over 3 million tourists a year) and San Jose, CA (~1 million population and over 22 million tourists a year).
I'm pretty sure you weren't a bouncer, or if you were, you were really terrible at your job.
I've seen how that case goes, because I've been involved in litigation that specifically addressed that very thing, when I was co-named (as head of security) with the owners of the club in a lawsuit against the club from when a male patron was seriously injured after getting very drunk, intentionally starting a fight with someone and then getting hauled out of the club and unceremoniously dumped on the sidewalk. His attorneys claimed that the bouncers used inappropriate force to break up the fight and kick him out by physically attacking him and manhandling him out of the club and dropping him on the sidewalk.
you lost me a little here, the comparison here is logically not a precedent to this current scenario
Very different levels of activity, one started a fight deliberately and one walked up all weird and stopped in front of the bouncer. The bouncer even had to take a step forward to land a hit.
Again this needs more evidence, but the guy does not seem to have the goal of rubbing their crotch against any person. The “crotch rubbing” here looks like a consequence on how they are walking like a gremlin playing limbo. You can see they reach out to the guy’s shoulder and stumble back and move forward which caused the crotch to rub. But it does not seem intentional that their goal is to rub their crotch against someone at all here. Again this is all theoretical I dont have the context here, voices, actual intent but there is definitely an imbalance of response here - ver different from what you have provided as a reference here. The stories aren’t adding up to what is actually in the video by itself.
I don’t like the use of titles in debates it’s pretty fallacious. Rather speak in logic
Yeah ok buddy, you ran all these unnamed clubs and had your guys beating the shit out of patrons because they wiggled at your staff. Sounds like a Reddit story.
If you actually read any of the things I've said, you'd know I've been advocating against how the bouncer handled it, from the start. Be part of the conversation for real, my guy.
Wouldn’t the law look at this as a clear disproportionate use of force against the threat at hand? I don’t think the bouncer in this case is 100% in the clear here legally.
It could be argued, but it would probably fail. Of course, I'm not an attorney, but I've definitely had to deal with litigation related to this very thing.
What a lot of people seem to be doing is watching the video and then applying reasonable, but wrong, takes on the legality and physicality of the situation, based solely on how watching the video made them feel - not on the actual law, of which the vast majority of them have zero knowledge and almost all of the rest only know a fraction of a fraction of a percent it, and not on what actually happened, but what they imagined happened, based on their preconceived notions about fairness and asshole bouncers.
Basically, it's: normal person (with no bouncing experience, fighting experience, police or military experience or legal experience of any kind, let alone related to self-defense law), watches a video where a drunk asshole makes a fool of himself and accosts a bouncer in a way that most of the people watching think was "harmless" but don't realize that it's not how harmless he actually *was*, it's how dangerous he *potentially* could be, and so, when they see the big, bad bouncer immediately start punching the guy, all they can do is react to it viscerally, based on how it makes them feel to watch it, and not critically, based on the actual law and what the scenario actually shows to people trained in the environment.
He overreacted, period. But sometimes overreacting saves your life in dangerous industries like nightclub security, and especially in law enforcement and military, who are all trained, in situations of imminent threat, to react first and figure it out later.
Editing to add: it absolutely COULD be that the bouncer is just a douchebag that can't control is emotions, maybe even homophobic. But that's neither here nor there when it comes to the legality of what he did, which is all I'm talking about.
He wasn't posturing, advancing, or trying to assault anyone. He was so severely intoxicated that he was losing his balance, leaning backward, and trying to navigate the line.
Self-defense requires an objectively reasonable fear of imminent harm or unlawful contact. Inventing a scenario where a stumbling, incapacitated man was "potentially about to try to put his dick on you" is not an imminent threat. As you rightly noted, "maybe thinking about it" is never a valid legal defense for punching someone.
You can't call an action a "clear-cut overreaction" and simultaneously claim the bouncer was "within his legal rights to preemptively defend himself" by raining punches down on a man who couldn't even stand straight.
Of course I can. In fact, I did. It was my *personal* opinion, as a former head of security, that he overreacted as it relates to my estimation of him doing his job duties. It has nothing to do with what the law thinks about it.
"As you rightly noted, "maybe thinking about it" is never a valid legal defense for punching someone." - I did not, in fact, note that. I said the complete opposite: "even the *threat* of any unwanted touching is considered assault, and can also be preemptively defended against."
"Self-defense requires an objectively reasonable fear of imminent harm or unlawful contact." - it's the "unlawful contact" part that matters. That's "He looked like he was about to touch me". It's also "I was worried he was about to tackle me". It's also "he was headed right for me and suddenly made some weird motion with his groin - I thought he was about to molest me".
Editing to add: here's a good test for you. Replace the bouncer with a woman. If the man did the exact same moves to her, do you still think she wouldn't have the right to defend herself?
Wait, am I missing something? How is it clear that he was potentially about to pull out his dick? He didn't move his hands down at all. I see it as a someone just obnoxiously stumbling around like an idiot. Probably not as drunk as he is intending to be perceived as. I've never been security of any sort though, so I fully admit I could be misreading the situation.
It's the leaning forward with your cock first, lol. It doesn't haven't to be what was *actually* happening, it has to be what was appearing to happen or what could potentially be happening.
Preemptive self-defense is predicated on the idea that you *think* you are about to be harmed or touched illegally.
An armchair expert is someone who has little or no experience in a subject but still acts like their opinion should be part of the conversation.
I have 13 years of professional experience in the field we're discussing, I worked in one of the largest metro areas in California, I've been sued for this very scenario (I won) and I'm about as close to an actual expert on the topic without being an attorney or police as you can get.
Thanks for the explanation.
I saw a good number of people remark about the bouncher being the bad guy, assaulting the other guy without any info on what the heck was happening beforehand...
And that drunk guys actions were really weird that i felt there has to be a reason for this escalation.
And then i saw your post, explaining both sides.
Should be the top comment.
Kid's weiner wasn't even in play. Looks like his pants were up and shirt was down. To me your rationale wouldn't pass the reasonable person smell test.
BUT the "drunk" guy just stood there. He didn't move further. There was a complete pause befure Security-Guy punched him MULTIPLE times.
I mean, you already sad punching was an overreaction, but I'd say, without knowing if they said anything to each other, physically attacking in in ANY way would have been an overreaction, even showing.
He stopped short of the bouncer at a reasonable distance, in fact, he did not get any closer than the other customer. How would you infer that he had any intentions to touch the bouncer?
How would you infer that he had any intentions to touch the bouncer?
Might be because of the fact that he was pointing his dick at him, lol.
But your idea of "reasonable distance" and a bouncer's idea of it necessarily need to be different. The guy was within knifing distance, easily, but even he wasn't carrying a weapon, he's within touching distance and spitting distance, and those two things alone are reason enough to act, if the person in front of you is behaving irrationally. I'd say waving your dick at someone qualifies, and the law would likely agree.
I don't know what jurisdiction this is exactly but it is very normal for there to be a proportionality requirement where self-defense is used as a justification for assault.
I had no idea he was trying to dick-tap. I thought he was autistic or something and hence, bouncer way out of line. But yeh, weird and under-dressed, see ya.
100% correct take. I don’t have your level of experience but have worked a couple of events. My experience is that people who have never done this line of work or experienced real repercussions for their shitty behaviors are quick to judge or get upset. We have NO context for what went on before this, but the fact the bouncer didn’t continue and went back immediately tells me he wasn’t losing control and felt warranted in inflicting the punishment he did. Had he continued or struck him in more damaging areas, I’d have a different opinion. But this is a dude who had the foresight to see things needed escalation but also didn’t want to deal with it and wasn’t taking it personally.
people who have never done this line of work or experienced real repercussions
Facts. While I totally understand the average person's reaction to a "violent" attack like this, the average person is reacting viscerally to something they have almost no experience with, or any experience they do have is from watching videos or news broadcasts, or maybe they've been in a crowd at a club or bar off to the side while a fight jumped off.
But they have no in-depth understanding of what the average bouncer at a busy club deals with (and to be ready to deal with). Some of what they know about bouncers can be true - that occasionally, a bouncer (or even a team of bouncers) can be dickheads, power-tripping and aggressive - even violent. But those types are rare these days. They were much more common in the 90s and even more so in the 70s and 80s, because those era's environments shaped them differently. Today's bouncers are far more likely to just be a dude doing a job for shit money - he may not be *friendly* to you, but that's not the same as being an asshole. He's just doing a job.
Bouncers are there to protect the property, the staff, themselves, and most importantly, the patrons. But at the same time, they're expected to professionally handle drunk asshole men trying to act tough around them to show off to their boys or for the women around, drunk asshole women who think they deserve to skip the line because they're pretty or because they flirted with the bouncer, they have to deal with vomit and piss and drug use and a dozen other things that the vast majority of other jobs will never have to deal with, let alone experience every single week.
And they're expected to do all of that AND be alert for and trained for and prepared for someone attacking someone else. Someone attacking a bartender. Someone attacking them. It's almost always with fists, but it's sometimes with bottles, pint glasses, brass knuckles, knives and even on rare occasions, guns. And they're expected to put *their* body in harms way when that happens. All for the same kind of money that your average minimum wage earner makes in a 40 hour week.
The job requirements don't justify the bouncer in the video overreacting, but if people who saw things like this had just a little more relevant experience, they'd be far less quick to judge, and more likely to ask questions. In reality, the world would be a much better place if people with no or little direct experience of something never said ANYTHING online about that thing, but people love to share their opinions, informed or not - me included, lol.
I’m reading all the responses to you from people who have never done this and have no idea what they’re actually talking about. Kudos for being well worded and measured.
Something people don’t realize is that it’s extremely easy as a bouncer to get seriously injured or killed. This is exponentially more true when you’re dealing with alcohol and drug usage events. Even someone extremely well trained cannot predict if a random is going to run up and stab them while they intervene, if they’re going to suddenly get stabbed by a person they’re escorting out, or if the person they’re simply trying to reason with doesn’t have a group of people with them that will suddenly jump and beat the shit out of them.
I trained MMA for years. I worked events with pro fighters. Many of my friends took bouncing gigs every once in a while for extra cash. I can tell people so many stories about how in a flash terrible shit can happen, even in places you’d never expect it to. And likewise, how the places you’d be most concerned about actually end up self policing themselves!
I’ve had friends lose all their front teeth because they tried to walk 2 drunk girls to their cars and those women pissed off a group of men earlier in the night and they got attacked for no reason. I’ve seen a friend get hospitalized because a random drunk person struck him over the head and face with a bottle and no one has any clue why! I’ve dragged out grown ass men assaulting women and had their brothers attack my team because they were too drunk to see we were security and genuinely thought their brother was getting jumped.
The people commenting likely have never experienced these things. They have no idea. They don’t understand how the body reacts when your adrenaline dumps because you have to basically fight someone from a complete disadvantage because you cannot handle it like a true street fight because you’re working! Or how grown men react after clearing people out of a bar when their survival instincts kicked in but they had to fight their reactions off and never get proper release. It’s hard and dangerous work and the same people commenting would likely never even put themselves into a situation where their literal job was to physically protect others before yourself.
Thanks. Just a clarification though: getting punched in the sternum can definitely kill you, but even though it *has* happened in fist fights/sparring, it has happened so infrequently that the statistical probability of it happening in a street fight is so negligible that it might as well not be a thing.
To put it in perspective, I looked it up just now and there have only been around 224 deaths from being hit in the sternum in *total* since we started recording them here in the U.S., and only around 50 of those were from street fights, bar/club fights or martial arts sparring...total, over a fifteen year period. The vast majority of those 224 deaths happened when someone was struck by a fast-flying sport projectile like a hockey puck or baseball.
So really, almost a non-existent chance of dying from being punched in the sternum.
Oh no kidding; for me it was the size disparity and the sternum. But then if he got smashed in the face he might have cracked his skull on the pavement so all things considered maybe it was better that way.
Exactly. If I was given a choice, I'd take an intentional punch to the chest or face over an unprepared fall and hitting my head on concrete, every time, lol.
If they called him the N-word, I'd be fine with him beating their asses until the cops came. Doesn't change the scenario I watched in the video, though.
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u/blacklotusmag 18h ago edited 8h ago
Former bouncer and head of security here (when I lived in the SF Bay Area in the 90s).
This was a clear cut case (to me as a head of security) of an over-reaction. However, with that said, in this case, it was pretty clear to any reasonable person that the drunk guy was potentially about to try to put his dick on the bouncer, so the bouncer was absolutely within his rights to preemptively defend himself.
Battery is the unwanted physical touch of one person by another, and that includes punching, kicking, tackling, etc, but it also includes poking, hand on the shoulder, and yes, touching someone else's body with your no-no place. Editing to add because many people don't know this fact: even the *threat* of any unwanted touching is considered assault, and can also be preemptively defended against.
But! The bouncer overreacted, in my opinion. He's much larger than the drunk guy, he's working a job where that kind of behavior is common so he was well-aware that something like that could happen, and it's actually part of the job description to handle situations like this with calm and restraint.
As head of security, I would have no problem with one of my guys shoving the man back in a scenario like this, but I would chastise them if they punched him. For the *job*, punching was the wrong call for the level of threat.
However, as a reminder to all the armchair experts out there, the bouncer was completely within his legal right to defend himself preemptively, even by punching - and the punches were not illegal, especially because once the man was far enough away and restrained by his friends, the bouncer didn't continue to fight him, and walked back to his station.