Unreasonable force, in Canada?

[Felix The Assassin]

I suppose the world is changing faster than I can comprehend!

Baines, who represented himself, said employees of the supermarket in a Vancouver suburb used unreasonable force when he struggled during his capture.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddly...9?feedType=RSS

[johnny]

We had a couple of similar incidents here, and right now a man is detained for beating up a burglar who was attempting to force his way into the man's house with a crowbar. The man reacted quickly, gave him a few hits with a baseballbat, called the police.....and got arrested because he roughed the burglar up a bit too much according to the police. Apparently we're not allowed to defend ourselves or our property.

[Havock]

Originally posted by johnny: We had a couple of similar incidents here, and right now a man is detained for beating up a burglar who was attempting to force his way into the man's house with a crowbar. The man reacted quickly, gave him a few hits with a baseballbat, called the police.....and got arrested because he roughed the burglar up a bit too much according to the police. Apparently we're not allowed to defend ourselves or our property.

Can you rough up a burglar too much?? I would rather deal with the fall out afterwards than allow an criminal into my home. I mean, if he can explain why he was in my house, I can explain why he has broken bones.

[johnny]

Originally posted by Havock: quote: Originally posted by johnny: We had a couple of similar incidents here, and right now a man is detained for beating up a burglar who was attempting to force his way into the man's house with a crowbar. The man reacted quickly, gave him a few hits with a baseballbat, called the police.....and got arrested because he roughed the burglar up a bit too much according to the police. Apparently we're not allowed to defend ourselves or our property.

Can you rough up a burglar too much?? I would rather deal with the fall out afterwards than allow an criminal into my home. I mean, if he can explain why he was in my house, I can explain why he has broken bones. [/QUOTE]I understand the burglar hadn't yet entered his home, he just caught him redhanded trying to force his way in. The burglar took off, but the guy caught up with him and roughed him up with a baseballbat. According to the police that's where he took a wrong turn, it's illegal to take the law into your own hands, at least that's what they're trying to teach us here. as far as i'm concerned, that man deserves a medal. You know what's really funny? Should the burglar file a complaint, he may actually spent some time in prison too. Same goes for the burglar of course, but jailing a man for roughing up a guy who just tried to break inyo his house is wrong in so many ways, it's almost good enough material for a sitcom.

[robertthebard]

The guy with the bat made one mistake, he called the cops. I caught a guy trying to break into my truck once, and just left him for dead on the street. That guy could have called the cops, but I don't see him wanting to explain that he was trying to break into my truck, and got assaulted.

[pritchke]

Yip, dumb but guess what that is the law. As I told my wife the other day "just because something is the law does't make it morally/traditionaly right".

[ 04-23-2007, 12:45 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[robertthebard]

It's been my experience that the "Law" won't take any action to prevent a crime, only to act after the fact. I'm not waiting around to be dead to have the cops look into what happened. My life may suck, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to lay down and die because the law says I have to. I own far too many sharp pointy things to let somebody come into my home, or any of my property because the cops won't act until after a crime has been committed.

[Lord of Alcohol]

I hate thieves, having been hit several times. Once for over $3000 of tools,my livelyhood. If I ever catch one I'll quote Robertthebard and "leave them for dead on the street".

A few years back a buddy of mine caught a guy breaking into his vehicle at Home Depot (a notorious place to get shit stolen). He ran at the guy and slammed him, then kicked him a couple times while he sqirmed on the ground. The cops came and were going to arrest my buddy for assault. Thankfully a bystander who saw the whole thing helped out by saying the thief attacked first (yes he lied). And off to jail the wannabe tool-thief went. With a nice beating [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Felix The Assassin]

That's what 'buds' are for!

[wellard]

I am not going into the gory details but similar to RTB I caught a man breaking into my car, with a brand new computer on the front seat, I took 'unreasonable actions' in defending my property according to the police and spent some time in jail because of it.

I tell you now I was bitter and twisted about this whole episode for many years. Of course if I had bothered to get a lawyer and lie saying he attacked me first I could have easily gotten away with it.

As far as I am concerned anyone caught 'in the act' should be prevented from claiming any compensation either due to excessive force or accident. like in a famous case down here a burglar fell through a factory roof while attempting to break in and sued the factory owner!

I would draw the line at being able to kill (or to loose the full use of a limb) the wrongdoer unless in mortal danger but make the onus upon the wrongdoer to prove that the force was excessive.

[ 04-24-2007, 01:16 AM: Message edited by: wellard ]