Yeah the speaker. Look up fighting words doctrine. Words meant to incite violence or cause a breach of peace when uttered directly at an individual with intent to provoke, are not protected by the first amendment. The man made a death threat. What comes next is what his words asked for.
Interesting. The death treat was clearly not what provoked the attack so I would like to see how this plays out in court. Probably depends on the state.
“Your honor, the death threat definitely was the trigger. I was actively leaving the aggressive situation, but this person’s threats made me concerned to turn my back on him. It took me a moment to register the threat to my life. I knew that the only way to prevent my untimely demise at the hands of this aggressor was to ensure that this person thought twice about following through on his threat to my person. When he made the very clear statement that I would be “6 feet under” it can only be interpretted that there was a clear, present, and persistent threat to my person. His later utterance of the racial slur only pointed to the motive for his threats on my life, of which I can only presume to be hatred and bigotry.”
“So you’re saying that you were afraid that this drunk person sitting in a chair and not making any attempts to approach you will actually kill you right then and there even though you were in a place you can only access through metal detectors and scanners so he was clearly unarmed, you were surrounded by other people and with security nearby? And even though you felt there’s clear and present danger you wanted to leave until you realize what his motives were? Ok, noted…”.
I mean, it might work, who knows. Would be interesting to see how this plays out.
So, do they both get put on the no fly list now or what?
I think only one of them actually broke the law.
Yeah the speaker. Look up fighting words doctrine. Words meant to incite violence or cause a breach of peace when uttered directly at an individual with intent to provoke, are not protected by the first amendment. The man made a death threat. What comes next is what his words asked for.
Interesting. The death treat was clearly not what provoked the attack so I would like to see how this plays out in court. Probably depends on the state.
“Your honor, the death threat definitely was the trigger. I was actively leaving the aggressive situation, but this person’s threats made me concerned to turn my back on him. It took me a moment to register the threat to my life. I knew that the only way to prevent my untimely demise at the hands of this aggressor was to ensure that this person thought twice about following through on his threat to my person. When he made the very clear statement that I would be “6 feet under” it can only be interpretted that there was a clear, present, and persistent threat to my person. His later utterance of the racial slur only pointed to the motive for his threats on my life, of which I can only presume to be hatred and bigotry.”
“So you’re saying that you were afraid that this drunk person sitting in a chair and not making any attempts to approach you will actually kill you right then and there even though you were in a place you can only access through metal detectors and scanners so he was clearly unarmed, you were surrounded by other people and with security nearby? And even though you felt there’s clear and present danger you wanted to leave until you realize what his motives were? Ok, noted…”.
I mean, it might work, who knows. Would be interesting to see how this plays out.
Maybe, but you might be surprised which one. These were clearly “fighting words.” The speaker is pretty clearly in the wrong legally.
TIL death threats are protected speech