Moderator: Van Canna
The most important thing to develop is a reflexive action to not answer any questions or make any statements at all. That is, not until an attorney is present.
If you don't agree to be interviewed at that moment, chances are that you are going to jail.
Van Canna wrote:I think some of us reading this might have experienced what you write here, and possibly in retrospect will tend to deny it.
I think one of the biggest misrepresentations that works against someone who's just been successful in a self-defense situation is the verbalization of that "euphoria" at surviving that is then presented in court as "witnesses heard the defendant say, 'I got them! they didn't get me! I'm still here!' ..." <fill in other verbiage that works...> In reality the comments come from the survival "euphoria", but the "perception" based on lack of understanding isn't a good one. Thoughts?
Ayoob turns to a subject not specifically related to the physio-psychological aspects of violent encounters, but certainly related to "surviving the aftermath," and that is preconditional bias and prejudice.
He points out that, if one in the habit of using terms such as nigger, wop, spic, etc., and if -- to defend innocent life -- one has to kill a African-American, Italian, or Hispanic, such verbal habits will come back to haunt you in the courtroom.
[another good example of operant conditioning...you keep doing/saying the same thing over and over...and it will come out of you without your realizing it.]
Ayoob advises his students to lose such verbal habits, and to learn verbal crisis de-escalation instead. Being able to demonstrate that one attempted to verbally de-escalate a situation goes a long way towards defeating the other side's allegations of malice.
Scatological language is less of a problem, but is still not a good idea. In your self-defense case, you want to be able to present yourself as the innocent victim, not as a foul-mouthed roughneck who enraged the deceased by verbal abuse.
Van Canna wrote:It is here that I ask the question to Roy:
Van Canna wrote:
Can the argument be used by the person now in police custody or his lawyer, as soon as he can get involved, that he has been hurt by a traumatic injury, mentally and possibly physically because of the physical manifestations as outlined above [shortness of breath, dizziness, headache, chest pain, irregular heartbeat, nausea and fatigue]...
...that should reasonably require the person to be taken to the hospital overnight under observation, lest something serious develops health wise...
... thus removing him quickly from under the 'hammers' and placing him in a restful safe place where he can be looked after and calm down under medical care.
Van Canna wrote:
Is it possible for someone to suffer continuing chest pains without any of it registering under examination?
I suppose it would be difficult to pull such an act to begin with and further antagonize the police. Surely they must see this in their work.
For the strong young buck, they'd be looking for "zebras" or unusual conditions. These days they might play it safe and hold for observation (sometimes in the ER) if the chest pain doesn't go away. But they'd have the person on constant EKG monitoring. A fellow wouldn't be able to fake things for too long.
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