Army officer attacked by nutjob in Albany
Paul sends us a link from Albany, NY about a nutty crank who began verbally abusing an Army captain in line at Walmart and then took it up a notch;
NEWS10 ABC: Albany, New York News, Weather, Sports
The victim, who was wearing his Army uniform, told officers that a man standing directly behind him in line began to yell derogatory statements towards him about the United States of America and his service to the country. The suspect then struck him several times in the face.
The victim sustained bruising to his face and a laceration over his eye. He was treated at the scene by Albany Fire Department personnel.
“It looks like he displayed a great deal of restraint which is consistent with the armed forces, law enforcement and public service. We are held at a higher standard and you have to commend him for being able to have that restraint,” said Smith.
The suspect, 47-year-old Yiqiang Wu, of Schenectady, was arrested at the scene and charged Assault 3rd-degree as a Hate Crime. He was arraigned this morning in the Albany City Criminal Court.
I’m not sure about New York’s hate crime laws, but I know the hippies in Vermont were forced to accept that discrimination against service members and veterans to get their hate crime law passed when I lived there, so I’m guessing that the New York law is the same way.
On edit: I went through the New York “Hate Crime Act of 2000” and I don’t see anything in it that makes an assault of a member of the military a “hate crime” in New York. I guess it will be interesting to see how this turns out.
Category: Crime
Not to expose my bias, but it isn’t a hate crime unless it’s an attack upon one of the aforementioned protected classes. If this guy was gay and someone shouting homophobic slurs at him assaulted him, it would be pasted on every newspaper in the country. The same would go if it were a racial minority. Therein lies the big problem with hate crime laws in my opinion….Punch an Army officer while shouting about how you hate the US Armed forces=Assault. Punch a minority/gay while shouting offensive things=Hate crimes.
I’m no legal expert, but isn’t the statue of Lady Justice supposed to be blindfolded?
Good on the CPT for maintaining his composure. I don’t think I could have. Verbal abuse is one thing…But when someone raises his/her hands to strike me, it’s a completely new ball game.
Any and all “Hate Crime” and/or “Hate Speech” legislation, and/or enforcement, prosecution, and penalizing of such legislation are violations of our divinely inspired Constitution of the United States of America and our unalienable rights as individual citizens.
Criminals should be prosecuted ONLY for their illegal actions, NOT for what they think or the offensive opinions they express.
Wu needs some quality time w/ Bubba in the slammer.
@3- You are correct sir.
Mr. Wu obviously has deep-seated personal issues with things like standing in line and people in uniform. Send him to my house. I’ll teach him some manners.
But seriously, the Army guy demonstrated properly how to respond to being bullied. Good guy.
[…] This ain’t Hell… notes a nutjob attacking an Army officer […]
Using a little Google-fu, was able to find that Mr. Wu is a cytotechnologist. Guess nobody ever examined the disparities in cell structures of his brain.
@1.
Good point.
Rubbish! Verbal abuse OK. Physical abuse? Never. A Marine officer would have disabled him immediately.
I would have hoped the Captain would have left an unconcious, toothless, bleeding suspect for the cops to pick up. This gives the government more ammunition to try to tell people not to defend themselves, just cover up, curl in the fetal postion and wait for the cops.
how stupid is it to attack someone TRAINED to kill?
The CPT should have lit him up, but our PC culture would have crucified him for it.
A classic example of not being able to draw, fold, or get out of the game. Hosed, no matter what he did.
Typical of an oriental to have an inferiority complex towards an occidental. They don’t belong here.
Even the Republic of Calif passed a law that says folks can’t harass military folks. A few years before I retired, I observed a full fledged hippie yelling out a window at a college harassing a Marine recruiter. Of course the hippie was hiding in the shadows, but I was in the next room so I went over and kept watching the hippie.
Then I explained 2 important things to the hippie
1.)It was against the law to do what he was doing
2.) If that Marine wasn’t professional and cool, he could rip off the hippies head and shit down the hole.
He shut up after that.
@13 I agree. I’d have donated a lot to his court fees just to see it on tape. I say send the shit back to China.
#14. Nice…
The guy puts his hand in his pocket just prior to lunging at the CPT. That would be enough for me to assume he had a weapon and proceed to punch him until his head fell off. Blame it on PTSD or whatever.
JRM (3): “…our divinely inspired Constitution of the United States of America … “?
I love the Constitution as much as the next guy, but how do you figure it is “divinely inspired” i.e., God-breathed? Are you also prepared to argue that James Madison was God?
Divinely ordained, certainly. Just like everything that comes to pass in human history.
But the Constitution is not on par with Scripture. Not even close.
Not certain that I could have shown the same amount of restraint. He certainly would have gotten the knife hand.
@14–fat bag of dicks. You. Start eating.