People are talking ejections and banning from Boston sport sites, etc.. How about criminal prosecution. Let's start with assault, attempted batttery, reckless endangerment...there must be some other crimes committed here.
Some pukey coward heaves something in the general direction of people, he puts those people in harms way....and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because of it.
I'm not condoning throwing stuff on the floor, but what exactly was thrown? You make it sound like it was a grenade.
No, it wasn't a hand grenade, knife, sword or any other implement traditionally used as a weapon hurled from the crowd.
Allegedly, it was a vodka nip or something of that sort. Irrespective of what was thrown, however, fan behavior of this kind cannot be trivialized. It sets a tremendously bad precedent and a slippery slope with potentially escalating behavior. Anything (except insults, verbal barbs, etc) thrown from the crowdat a player or onto the floor cannot be, in the slightest, perceived to be acceptable and should be dealt with with the full force of the law. Implicit in your statement is that should the object in question rise to a certain level, then it's not OK. What is that level? Is a hamburger OK? How about a hot dog? Piece of pizza? Full bottle of beer?
An assault is the intentional act of placing someone in fear of imminent bodily harm. A battery is an intentional non-consensual touching. The latter definitely took place here. The former is likely and both are actionable in both criminal and civil court. If Odom or any athlete did either to that pukey fan, you'd have a civil suit/settlement at a minimum and perhaps criminal prosecution. But for the fan, if it's not a "hand grenade" or something that rises to that level, then it's OK, because he paid his 100 bucks, huh?
Nope. Not condoning. The guy should be booted. Arrested. Fined. Season tickets revoked etc...But the "full penalty of the law" certainly depends on what exactly was thrown. There's a definite difference between throwing a hot dog, and throwing a glass bottle (I was using a grenade as hyperbole).
If the object thrown can cause bodily harm then it needs to be a harsher penalty than a foam finger or something...UNLESS, and this is a big unless, the person throwing the object was outwardly inciting (and successfully inciting) more objects being thrown on the floor...different can of worms there.
TP, Redz, I'm with ya. You are one of the reasons why I like occasionally posting on this board. Civil, mutually respectful discourse (almost all our regular posters, especially) with shades of gray dissected and analyzed thoughtfully.
