grandma claims hooters guard beat her

[niyad]

(according to what I heard on msnbc this morning, this attack occurred AFTER the woman agreed to pay the disputed charges. the lawyer who was being interviewed went on and on about how wrong the woman was, how many charges should have been filed against HER, but nothing about the way the off-duty cop was beating her)

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Grandma claims Hooters guard beat her
Brawl caught on tape

OAK LAWN, Ill. —
A controversial video showing an alleged beating of a Chicago grandmother at an Oak Lawn Hooters restaurant has led to a civil lawsuit.

The woman was sentenced to 100 days in jail for her part in the incident.

The video, caught on a security camera last January, shows a dispute getting overheated between a customer and a restaurant security officer, identified in the lawsuit as Joseph Schmidt, an Oak Lawn police officer who was working at Hooters as private security guard. The woman, 47-year old Livier Torres, had just finished eating lunch at the restaurant with her daughter and a family friend.

The video shows Torres talking to two waitresses for a couple minutes and then a manager until she throws her credit card and bill on the counter. Moments later a security guard, an off-duty Oak Lawn police officer, appears to approach and bump the woman with his arms crossed.

At that point, the woman's daughter tries to separate the two, first facing her mother, then Schmidt. After obvious pushing and shoving with words exchanged, Schmidt appears to grab or slap Torres by her neck or side of the face. He then appears to subdue Torres after putting her in a headlock and bringing her to the floor, just out of the security camera's range.
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http://www.wgntv.com/news/wgntv-hooters-sued-after-grandmother-alleges-beating-nov18,0,6533239.story

[DeschutesRiver]

1. I did see on the tape that she shoved the cop

She now claims that he called her an ethnic slur, that she spit on him in return, and that is what lead to her being thrown into a head lock - not her decision to shove a person she knew to be a cop.

She is a paralegal, and yeah, I think she should have known that shoving a cop is an assault that is gonna land you in trouble. I couldn't figure out, though, why she was sentenced to so many days, but on msnbc this am they said she had convictions for a DUI and theft (retail shoplifting??), and so this sentence was more of a third time offender deal.

ETA: That said, I can't believe that the cop needed to use the kind of force he used to place her under arrest. I guess once she's shoved him, then whether I think it is too much force or not is irrelevant - it is up to the cop.

[seabeyond]

3. i think it is such BS when a man twice the size faces off and intimidates, and gets body to body

to a woman using his size in that manner and then whines.... she pushed, when she is trying to get him off her. such total bullshit. such crappy excuse for his behavior. he did exactly what he knew he was going to get. he threatened her in body language and doing what he did. it is human nature when against a counter and a body twice your size, get that space.

your comment, she pushed, sicken me.

[hobbit709]

4. Size has nothing to do with it.

I think there was overreaction by both parties.

If I had tried to get physical with Donna I would have had my ass handed to me in small pieces, even though I outweighed her 2 to 1 and was 7 inches taller. A long time ago Donna actually went after somebody, it took five of us to pull her off the other person and I wasn't the biggest one there.

[seabeyond]

6. what it has to do, is the cop moving in on the woman, cornering her and twice her size in effort

to intimidate to make her submit. it absolutely has something to do with it as most all men recognize the move the cop did. arms crossed, not touching her, he says... see how innocent, look she pushed me first... what fuckin bullshit. a person cant hardly not move the person to give herself space. and every woman that has had a man use his size to try to control and intimidate know wtf i am talking about.

[hobbit709]

8. And the woman is completely blameless in this situation?

Two wrongs don't make a right but who started the argument?

[seabeyond]

9. HE made the first move. that is the point. HE does not get to whine about, she pushed...

at that point the push (to get him the fuck OFF her) is irrelevant.

at no point in all her bitchin did it warrant that bouncer to interfer. at not a single point should he have injected himself into the customer bitchin at manager about service.

her blame, .... sure. she had that fuckin human urge to get him off her. she should have zenned it and took it. her fault? she didnt bitch and let it go. but then, it is not a crime to bitch all the way to the door and beyond

[hobbit709]

10. Obvioudly you never worked in a place where a customer got loud and abusive over the tab.

What happens at that point is that security shows up.

Evidently in your view the woman is always the oppressed irregardless of anything else.

[seabeyond]

11. having been a waitress and bartender thru my teens and all twenties, you are wrong.

and never once did we have security or cops ready to pounce. often we had unhappy customers and dealt with their complaints. without the need of a bouncer/cop getting into customers face. after waitressing/bartending i had other customer service jobs. and in those jobs we had customers that were angry. and never once did i need a bouncer/cop to get into the customers face.

your last sentence is crap. what it is a mans right to use his size to control and intimidate. that is what you seem to dismiss so readily. i gotta wonder why. no, really, there is no wonder since i have seen it used so often. being raised in a house with three males, all older, all significantly bigger i well understand this little game men play. it dos not intimidate me. i dont put up with the shit. i call it what it is.

[niyad]

15. in case you didn't notice, the woman had already agreed to pay the disputed charge. she had, in

fact, already thrown her credit card down.

[DeschutesRiver]

12. Not about man vs. woman, at least not my post

It was about cop vs. person, and in that situation, if you lay a hand on a cop, that is what they are likely to do.

In a cop vs. you situation, I'd advise not to shove or touch the cop. If the arrest is unjust, fucking sue their asses off. End of story. All I stated were the facts - she assaulted a cop, and the cop reacted. It has zero to do with male/female. Stories like this are all over the internet - person touches cop while in the middle of a situation, and things instantly get far worse as the person is taken down with force. You've never heard of such a thing?

If you want to react physically to a police officer who you feel has "threatened you in body language", be my guest. Nope, there is absolutely no requirement that an angry person must zen out their feelings - her son mentioned how angry she was, and how she isn't one to "hold back her feelings". So she didn't hold back, shoved/pushed a cop, and was subsequently convicted of the assault charge arising from her behavior and sentenced to 100 days in jail. Guess either the judge or the jury didn't buy any kind of "big man" vs. "little woman" theory either.

You might be able to win this kind of thing later, if the facts are on your side. But you act like this is a domestic abuse case, or a couple of customers going at it in an establishment, and it was no such encounter. It was cop/law enforcement vs. non-cop, and that has its own set of rules which don't take into account what personally "sickens" you about size or gender differences.

I took this to be a law enforcement situation, unless you have some facts that point to something other than that?

[seabeyond]

13. he was not a cop at the time this happened. how easy it is for some to excuse bad behavior

and rationalize it.

he was off duty. he was playing another role. if they were allowing an off duty cop = cop then he should have gotten ass fired as cop for getting in her face and making a bigoted comment. but he didnt have to follow cop rule, because he was not a cop at the time. you dont get it both ways

[DeschutesRiver]

14. But neither the judge nor the jury bought the "bigoted comment" defense, b/c she stands convicted

The msnbc story I saw today only mentioned the civil suit, but I just read the article linked here and it mentions that the criminal charge against this woman is a done deal for her, complete with the 100 day sentence. So I'm guessing her claim of bigoted comments sending her off the handle weren't deemed credible or true. Made up stuff by pissed off offenders doesn't get anyone fired, neither cop nor security guard.

According to the article, the guy is currently an Oak Lawn cop, who was working as a security guard for Hooters. If you want to substitute the word "security guard" wherever I said "cop", you can do so and everything I said and meant would still apply.

This isn't a domestic abuse situtation, and there is nothing to rationalize as far as behavior - the facts are pretty simple, and the conviction speaks volumes. As far as my personal opinion on this, I'm sure you overlooked by accident the part of my post where I mentioned that the cop went too far (and I'll add so did the woman customer). I still mean that; and I still would advise that if you assault a cop, or a security guard, who is acting in his or her capacity as law enforcement, things may take an ugly turn - no matter whether the LEO is a man or a woman, and without regard to whether the suspect is a man or woman.

[HopeHoops]

2. Hooters security guard?

:shrug:

[senseandsensibility]

5. He was not acting in his official police officer capacity

nor wearing his police uniform,from what I can understand about this bizarre incident. He was working a side job as a security guard. She probably didn't even know he was a cop. I have never been to a Hooters, and didn't know that things get so rowdy there that they need security guards.

[seabeyond]

7. it is a place where it is all about booze, disrespect, using another

of course they need security.

he had a cop tshirt on. he was off duty cop as security guard. best of both worlds.... get to act like bouncer without police rules cause he is off dity and gets to use the whine.... she touched me, ergo i get to kick her ass, cause i am a cop