Stern talking to, sure. But I'd never physically assault any 13/14 year old. Ever

And "knock and run" is soooo lightweight on the scale of teen mischief. Not even flaming poo bag level

I want to preface this by saying we know each other outside the context of LR and I often find your takes on many issues to be cogent and fair

Having said that, I think you are downplaying the actions of the teenagers. Yeah, the alleged nuisance is seemingly trivial, but assuming the teenagers did indeed repeatedly rang doorbell at that hour, it's still battery, albeit a low level one.

I don't think it's fair to characterize what MvdP as alleged common assault without applying the same level of scrutiny on the teenagers. The age is irrelevant in determining whether the act is battery (age's only relevance being the level of punishment would be less than what an adult would receive), but it does not negate the fact that the nuisance (if true) is low level battery.

I believe battery involves some sort of bodily contact? Which could have happened after the door opened. But I think the charges for "knock and leave" would, at the most, be "misdemeanor mischief" (or variant depending on the legal definitions of the area)...at the very extreme end "harassment."

I imagine it's rare for that to ever be charged in situations like this. I think normal practice would be to hold and then release to parents.

I'm not sure a 13/14 y.o. would fully understand how important this night is for MdVP.

If the kids have the last name "Matthews" we could be in for some drama. ;)

i'm not sure that's relevant. Knocking repeatedly on a hotel door at 10:30 and later is a blatant invasion of privacy.

why he didn't call security immediately (or security didn't flag it in action) I don't get, his mistake.

to the original question, i wonder if the kids did catch hell once the whole story unfolded.

Opps, my bad. I (NAL) somehow recall reading that bodily contact is not necessary for battery to have occurred.

In any case, I think the issue I wanted to make is that the mischief of the teenagers may very well rise above the level of simple harassment, for it was more than just a mere property-related and concerns causing intentional distress upon others.

Yeah l, didn't mean to overly downplay it. I had the exact same thing happen to me as a coach before a far less serious competition, and it absolutely sucks.

I believe the battery is the inflection of physical harm. Assault is the possibility of physical harm.

You can assault without battery but you can’t battery without assault. Battery is completed assault.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Assault is the apprehension or fear of contact

And you can batter someone without assaulting them

Is that still true in Australia??? Remember we're talking their rules/laws.

That's common law definition of which their laws are derived .... so in principle I'd imagine yesish

Screaming at a kid and shoving them is common assault, absent some defense (which is not obvious here).

https://www.acfl.com.au/common-assault/

If it were my kids doing this, I'd file it under "fucked around and found out", and tell them they were lucky they got off with just a skinned elbow or whatever it was, and call it a teaching moment.

Is anyone else finding the whole saga a little bizarre?
I am keeping in mind there are two sides to every story, and the truth is somewhere amongst that.
I have read some nasty stuff on twitter about this, which is hard to know whether what we are hearing from MvDP is the most accurate representation of the events, or it’s just a troll making stuff up. I won’t repeat it on here but it did make me question the events as they unfolded.
My kids would be severely punished if I found out they were doing something like this. Seems like an absolutely feral thing to be doing at that time of night in a hotel. They were guests. Where were the parents?
Was a great week of racing. A shame it’s stories like this that get more coverage.

Yes bizarre, I haven't even read a proper story on it since cyclingnews puts most things behind a paywall now.

https://www.velonews.com/...ercation-and-arrest/
After CyclingNews put up their paywall I moved to VeloNews

There was a thread on twitter, with a new user chiming in saying they were there, have it on film etc. Hard to know if it was just a troll etc or for real. There has been a reasonable amount of coverage over here about it, non paywall stuff.

Why were the girls knocking on his door?

And what's going on over there, 14 year old boys are often enough shitheads, but girls doing this?

Was the hotel notified? If that happened to me, the first thing I would do is complain to the hotel. The hotel should be able to handle something so simple, after all there are much worse things that could happen. It could have been a thief or a rapist. They should be able to get on top of it very quickly.

Aren't there usually cameras in hotel hallways? There shouldn't be random people walking around the hallways causing mischief.

And how stupid is it to have kids running around at night, especially girls, banging on people's doors. Anything could happen. A lot worse than being pushed or yelled at.

Honestly just seems like a prank taken too far, kids being annoying. Knocking/ringing the bell then running. He said they did it 3 times, they said once. Not sure if its a thing elsewhere, but is a pretty "common" stupid prank. Happened to us at our house for a while until we found the little shi$t head doing it and told his parents.

Yes, common enough, just seems like it would be far more likely to be boys than girls doing it.

That seems to be the great mystery, Moerenhout the Dutch team director seems baffled as to why he didn't call them or the hotel.

For those of you who don't want to pay $8.01/month for Cycling News, the following comment, query, and reply from yesterday's report gave me a chuckle.

I had the same problem in college every Saturday night trying to sleep early in my fraternity house before a big Sunday race. . , cherry bombs going off in the hallways, floors flooded from fights with opposing fraternity, music blasting , people puking


And what happened?


I would turn off my music and stop throwing cherry bombs.....
;)

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

I don't know that I can assume anyone was actually knocking on his door as a prank. It sounds more like random noise pissed him off. And his comments don't really seem to be claiming he was at all justified. There is more to this story.

I find it interesting that everyone is assuming these two girls were banging on his door to make him mad and that he just couldn't take it any more and made a last ditch effort to defend his room against the barbarian invaders.

That just doesn't make sense.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

The Velonews story says they were knocking on his door throughout the night. I suppose it could be incorrect but that's what the story says.

They are reporting what he has said. And "throughout the night" is not exactly how I would put it since this happened at 10:40.

I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of noise or that I wouldn't be irritated. But I'm not sure shoving 7th grade girls is ever going to be the right way to handle it.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.