Threatened what would you have done?

[Truckie]

Today I was at work and was threatened by a customer.
I was un loading one of our flat beds that had old truck axels with rims on them when a customer backed his 1ton flat bed next to our flat bed I was unloading. I told him not to park there and un load and asked him to please move as he was to close to our bed and I told him I did not want anything to fall and hit him or his truck or get splashed with mud as it is really muddy at out place. He got a bit huffy and moved about 8 feet away from where he was. I told him to just wait 5 minutes and let me finish and then I would pull the cast iron pipe off his truck. He said OK and I started to un load our flat bed again and low and behold a rim fell off one of the axels I was picking up and fell in the mud. It splashed him and his truck really good.
The guy picked up a piece of pipe and was swinging it and jumped up on my track and was headed for me.
I told him to stop and get off my machine before he got hurt. He proceeded to reach in to the cab and grabbed my arm and that is when I hit the peddles to jerk the machine Fwd and turn to the right to knock him off.
It worked and he was on the ground in a flash. One of the other operators saw what was going on and headed over to see what was all going on.
Some of the guys say I should have just left him grab my arm and beat the crap out of him, or just left it go and call for help. Well I don’t know about you but when someone climbs on my machine and has a piece of pipe and is out raged and grabbing my arm I’m not going to just sit there I’m going to react.
I’m stuck in a cab and have nowhere to go, and I sure am not in the position to fist fight in a machine. I had a flat bed and a tractor that could have been wiped out along with a pick up flat bed and damage my machine if someone got caught on a control.
I look at it like this some one was going to get hurt and pushed off a track and it sure was not going to be me. I warned the guy several times to move his vehicle and he did not. He threaten me came after me and grabbed me and invaded my space and I acted.
The guy was not hurt but was muddy.
So my question is what would you guys have done?

 

[Serv]

Too bad the shredder was down.

 

[biggixxerjim]

XXXX him, I would have kept tracking forward

Nah but he had it commin. What if he had started to wrestle you in the cab, machine lost control and hit and killed someone?? Or hit the truck that was being off loaded OR his own personal truck, which would have been poetic justice.

Id see about talking to a superior of his, and I prob. wouldnt be going back to that job.

 

[poulson01]

You gotta get the cops involved. If you call first, you're less likely to go away in cuffs. I've had a couple of run ins with guys off their nut. I had a bus driver climb into the bucket of the excavator I was running. He was mad that I closed the road with out a permit. I shut the machine off and waited him out. It was raining hard
I had a GC follow one of our guys to another job for a different company. He started yelling at everyone and when one of the guys tried to call the boss, he wrestled the phone away from him. The carpenter was going to knock him out and do the 10 days in jail but we called the state troopers instead. Good thing too. He would have sued otherwise. We could have gotten shut down. We had a building inspector blow his brains out last year.
We had another inspector that snapped and we had to ask to have him reassigned.

Whoever your customer is, I would make sure everyone knows his name and what happened. I wish someone had warned me about some of our customers. If I knew what I was getting into before hand, I'd have made provisions. Like not work for the guy unless I was starving!

 

[CM1995]

Truckie - this guy is a wacko.:crazy If I were in your shoes I would have done the same thing. Big Jim also has a point if you guys scuffled in your cab what could have happened (something probably alot worse). Obviously this guy knew the ground was muddy and what could have happened with him and his truck parked so close - he should count his lucky stars all he got was muddy!

Sometimes folks just go off the deep end for no apparent reason but that is not your or anyone else's fault or responsibility to deal with them in a civilized manner when they act this way.

I kinda like Serv's idea too.

 

[digger242j]

If he approached you with a weapon (the pipe) in his hand, you weren't threatened--you were assaulted. Had he managed to hit you, it would have been "assault and battery". As it was, you could have him arrested.

It sounds like you did the most expedient thing though. Nobody got hurt, especially you. The bad thing is, in this day and age, he might be getting set to sue you and the company right now. I honestly think I'd file a police report, just as a CYA measure. If you don't know his identity, he screws himself by coming back at you with a lawsuit, because then you do have him arrested.

 

[Countryboy]

The simple fact that he grabbed your arm is assault in itself. The fact he had a pipe in the other hand could be considered assault with a deadly weapon. On top of that there were terroristic threats made and several other smaller charges that could be nit picked out of the situation.

You acted in self defense and are in no way "in the wrong". A man made threats to you, approached you and then assaulted you. File a report and watch him squirm. You can even have him arrested if you like......would sure put a hurtin on his case if he decided to sue. Make sure you can contact all your witnesses.

The only way you could've had even the slightest bit of fault in the matter is if you acted in self defense, he became submissive and then you continued to beat the daylights outta him. Then you would have an assault charge but the story, as you told it, leaves you as the victim.

Is the company supporting you?

If they are then have them officially ban him from the property. If he were to come back he could be arrested for trespassing.

Just a couple thoughts from a legal stand point.

I commend you for handling that the way you did :drinkup .......The man would've probably been more than muddy if I had been in that situation.

 

[wrenchbender]

What happened to the good old days?

Back in the day well still now I would probly get trigger happy or at least wacked the guy with whatever was handy .....yes while he was in the mud and on his tail. I don't get upset easily but this guy may have not made it back out of the gate. You know accidents happen everyday.... but the best thing you can do now is call the cops and file a report. Also keep an eye out for his return cause these creeps always think they're in the right no matter what. BTW ya done GOOD!

 

[RT Engineering]

I agree with everyone else you were defending yourself from an assault. If you would have driven over the guy after he fell off the machine, well that might be a problem.

You should write down a few notes of exactly what happened, probably contact the police for an offical report. This is just to defend yourself from a possible legal assault from this guy.

I think you handled the situation well.

RT

 

[minimax]

Did you get the trick of nocking him in the the mudd from the movie "TANK"????

minimax

 

[Ford LT-9000]

The guy sounds like a fruit cake

I would have called the cops for sure you never know with these freaks out there nowwadays they can pull a gun or knife.

You did the right thing knocking him on the ground.

 

[Truckie]

Well after reading Diggers post I thought to my self he is right. I called the cops and left them know what happened and got a report #. This morning they came to the yard and took a report and talked to my witness who saw what happened. The best part is I was able to show the cop because it was videoed on our surveillances camera.
So we got his name, and got the incident on video.
I was going to beat the living crap out of him but I thought to my self why lower my self to his standards. He was a fool for doing what he did and he wind up in the mud.
Thanks guys.

 

[digger242j]

Good work!

Make sure that video tape doesn't get taped over!

 

[Wolf]

Truckie:

In fact, you should make sure that the video is made part of the police report. Speak to the cops about doing that. That way the video can be used to establish probable cause if you seek to have the police arrest him, or if you make a citizens arrest (if available in Pennsylvania, not sure about that). The video should also be preserved in the police report as evidence that you may need to defend a civil suit, should he be outrageous enough to bring one against you.

Good luck. I'm sure you resisted great temptation to really let him have it. But, you did the right thing to keep your hands off of him in that situation. That would have only made it worse.

 

[KSSS]

I thought I would take just a moment to straighten out some of the verbage.

simple Assault- conveying a threat- subject must have the means, ability, proximity, typically a misdomeanor.

Aggravated Assault- same as above only the threat is made with an object or item that can cause serious injury or death. Felony. IE baseball bat, knife, gun

simple Battery-the unlawful touching of one by another, simple as that. misd as well

Agg. battery an object is used as above in agg assualt and serious injury is involved. Felony

There is no such thing as assault and battery as a single charge typically.

Another charge that could be considered is disturbing the peace by challenging to fight.

I would find whatever witnesses are available and get written statements along with contact info. If the event was recorded than obtain a copy and the information of the persons who recorded it. Make a report for information only unless you are going to press charges than of course it would not be for information only.

If he swung the pipe and you were in close proximity to him then he likely could be charged with a felony. If the video or witnessess can varify that and are willing to testify. Certainly simple battery if he grabbed you.

I hate seeing assualt and battery used interchangably they are not the same thing.

I watch a lot of law and order.

 

[digger242j]

Thanks, KSSS, for the scholarly post. :notworthy

I may not have had the excat information correct, but I knew the incident that Truckie described was criminal at some level, rather than just a simple threat.

 

[LowBoy]

Today I was at work and was threatened by a customer.
I was un loading one of our flat beds that had old truck axels with rims on them when a customer backed his 1ton flat bed next to our flat bed I was unloading. I told him not to park there and un load and asked him to please move as he was to close to our bed and I told him I did not want anything to fall and hit him or his truck or get splashed with mud as it is really muddy at out place. He got a bit huffy and moved about 8 feet away from where he was. I told him to just wait 5 minutes and let me finish and then I would pull the cast iron pipe off his truck. He said OK and I started to un load our flat bed again and low and behold a rim fell off one of the axels I was picking up and fell in the mud. It splashed him and his truck really good.
The guy picked up a piece of pipe and was swinging it and jumped up on my track and was headed for me.
I told him to stop and get off my machine before he got hurt. He proceeded to reach in to the cab and grabbed my arm and that is when I hit the peddles to jerk the machine Fwd and turn to the right to knock him off.
It worked and he was on the ground in a flash. One of the other operators saw what was going on and headed over to see what was all going on.
Some of the guys say I should have just left him grab my arm and beat the crap out of him, or just left it go and call for help. Well I don’t know about you but when someone climbs on my machine and has a piece of pipe and is out raged and grabbing my arm I’m not going to just sit there I’m going to react.
I’m stuck in a cab and have nowhere to go, and I sure am not in the position to fist fight in a machine. I had a flat bed and a tractor that could have been wiped out along with a pick up flat bed and damage my machine if someone got caught on a control.
I look at it like this some one was going to get hurt and pushed off a track and it sure was not going to be me. I warned the guy several times to move his vehicle and he did not. He threaten me came after me and grabbed me and invaded my space and I acted.
The guy was not hurt but was muddy.
So my question is what would you guys have done?

You have it all under control, Truckie. DON'T let anything happen to that video footage, whatever you do.

It just erks me that we live in such an "I wanna sue" society.

My dad was a pretty tough old bird, and in his day back when I was an infant, he used to get drunk and Mom would call the cops periodically. One night they came to our house when he was a little,"violent", should we say...and when the 3 rookie coppers came to take him out of his own house, he piled all 3 of them up unconsciencely at the doorstep. The old timer sargeant was friends with dad and knew his character as a good man, but also had to respect his temper. He showed up that night to see how the rookies made out, and when he saw them picking themselves up and brushing themselves off, all the sarge said to dad was, "Les... you gotta lighten up a little bit, these guys are all I have left on the night shift...come on, get in the car, we'll go have coffee and I'll bring you back home after."

No charges were pressed, nothing ever was said about that night, except when dad and the sargent would bring it up later on in conversations over the next several years of their long, interesting lives. He even threw a guy bodily through the picture window of the local ginmill because the guy got smart and came up against the wrath of this 5'9" tree surgeon. All dad had to do was pay for the damage to the window.

Didn't mean to be a "threadjacker" like I usually find myself doing, but it brought back those memories of a day when men were men, and some wished they were...Including lawyers.:drinkup

Good luck, Truckie.:scool

 

[thejdman04]

Id have done waht you did, after all you cant fight back (your in a cab and he has a pipe) then called the cops. Hopefully your supervisor banned him or called his company and hes told never to come back?ointhead

 

[Truckie]

Low Boy don’t worry about the thread jacking you were just making a post and a comment. I’m not bothered by it at all. It was a nice read.
I have a copy of the tape and so do the cops, they filed it with there report.
The guy has been banned from the yard and his company has been called and told.
We do a good amount of business with this company the guy works for so I did not push the issue for arrest, but I told my company and his if he comes back and tries to start anything I will peruse the issue and can not guarantee the next out come.
Don’t worry I will use my head for the most part, I will not be dragged down to his level and leave my self open for a lawsuit.

 

[LowBoy]

Low Boy don’t worry about the thread jacking you were just making a post and a comment. I’m not bothered by it at all. It was a nice read.
I have a copy of the tape and so do the cops, they filed it with there report.
The guy has been banned from the yard and his company has been called and told.
We do a good amount of business with this company the guy works for so I did not push the issue for arrest, but I told my company and his if he comes back and tries to start anything I will peruse the issue and can not guarantee the next out come.
Don’t worry I will use my head for the most part, I will not be dragged down to his level and leave my self open for a lawsuit.

Glad to hear it all worked out for ya, Truckie. Now with all the bases covered and his character out in the open, next time he comes in and climbs up on your track and grabs your arm, you can kick him in the teeth and claim self-defense and kill two birds with one stone. (He get's canned for good...you get country justice. )

Only kidding of course...don't need any consequences and repercussions from work or HEF...:naughty