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Reply to "Parents call cops on coach, coach arrested"

57special posted:
Dominik85 posted:
57special posted:

The coach must've really grabbed him hard by the neck to justify an assault charge. I'm having a hard time picturing the scene, myself. It's hard to do any damage with one hand on the back of the neck, unless the person doing it is out of control. Was the 17yo(I refuse to call him a kid) hurt? Was he shoved to the ground?

 

  As someone who coaches at younger ages myself I have had to educate myself on certain things like spotting concussions, and how not to do certain things that can be taken the wrong way such as having private meetings with a player, or driving them home after practice. Laying hands on them would be right up there as a no-no...hard to believe this guy was ignorant of that, especially seeing as he was a teacher, also. 

 I have some sympathy for the coach, but he handled this wrong. Neither side covered themselves in glory on this one, but again, without seeing it I hate to give to much of an opinion. I do know that arguing with umpires is unacceptable at our HS. It still happens(rarely), but the player is VERY conscious that he is on thin ice the longer he questions a call. Players can and do get benched for this.

Assault doesn't start with real injury. A hard slap in the face usually won't do any damage but it definitely is assault.

I was not there to judge the situation and this very well might have been blown out of proportion but if the coach really grabbed the neck he did cross a line even if his intentions were good.

Does touching, at all, constitute assault? Not trying to be argumentative, but am curious. And what constitutes verbal assault?

As i said in my post, I've had to re-educate myself later in life as to what is, and isn't, OK when you coach. Sometimes it seems like the goalposts are moving pretty fast. 

So in my layman's understanding...

Verbal assault can be assault as well.  Just yelling at someone and telling them off does not constitute verbal assault.  In general you have to physically threaten to harm someone in an aggressive manner for it to be considered verbal assault, in addition you have to have the means to carryout the assault.  There are some exceptions to the physical harm rule dealing with aggressively using language that offends someone due to racial, gender, etc.  But in general you need to threaten actual physical harm.  For instance if you say "I'm going to shoot a missile up your a$$ and kill you" you're probably not guilty of verbal assault.  But if you aggressively threaten "to come over this fence and kick you a$$". you are probably guilty.

Again, assault does not have to include touching.  It's the act of implying physical violence against someone.  For instance acting like you are going to punch someone in anger and then pulling the punch at the last minute is assault.  

In general, any unwanted physical contact can be constituted as assault.  Even a friendly tap to the arm of a friend.  

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