Joe Schilling, Pro Kickboxer/MMA Fighter knocked out bar patron, claims self defense

[Anarax]

Joe Schiling video down below. What are your thoughts? Do you think it was justified or not? Schiling claimed he was in fear for his life and acted in self defense.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

It is hard to say what the bar patron could have done to cause the MMA guy to 'defend himself', but from what can be seen, it looks a lot more like aggravated assault than self-defense. I'm not a cop or an attorney, that's simply my opinion.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Come on man. Really? Some guy flexed on him and he was afraid? ha ha ha ha yeah that won't ride. Feared for his life? Feared that he would be attacked? Definitely. Fear for his life? Nah dude.

I understand this

But I'm more of the mindset of did. Dude tried to make him flinch and he KOed him simply because he was already irritated with this guy. He was at that level where "You wish someone give you a reason to punch them." So you spend that entire night ready to go. All you need is for that dude to make the wrong move and you'll give it to him. This is how I think

If you really fear for your life then, that usually comes in on the front end of a situation where you want to avoid it. You aren't going to turn around and confront it.

This is what fear for your life looks like. Nothing about this photo makes you think that you aren't in harms way. Do you think Joe Schiling would have made the same decision with one of these guys? And then just finish his meal? I already know how I would react. As a teen playing basketball, this old guy beat the socks off a younger guy in Basketball. Trashed talked and all. The younger guy (20's ) had his Ego hurt, got clowned, and said he was going to fix this. Someone heard him mumble about getting his gun and he warned the older guy.. Everyone cleared the courts that day. I don't know if he came back to the courts or not. Didn't care as long as I wasn't there. lol. I wasn't even afraid about him trying to shoot me, But I feared that I would catch that stray bullet.

People use "I fear for my life" very losely. You know who probably feared for his life. That dude that ate those punches. But after the 2nd one, that fear was probably gone and he probably just felt sleepy and decided to just take a nap. lol.

Joe Schiling fearing that he was going to get attacked. Yeah I give him that, even though I know he was waiting for that moment. Fear for his life. Yeah that's why Godzilla stomps Tokyo all the time lol.

 

[Dirty Dog]

I don't buy his claim that he feared for his life, but I also don't think that you have to fear for your life to defend yourself. The clown acted like he was going to punch, and got decked for it. There is no requirement (that I am aware of) to actually be hit before your defend yourself.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Interesting. The legal aspect. All of your MMA guys. Kung Fu guys you don't have to worry about being seen as dangerous.

 

[Buka]

This is a piece taken out of whatever the whole story is. And I have no idea what that might be.

So I can only speculate as a person who's worked in bars, as a Martial fighter and as a police officer.

So I speculate only. Maybe the guy deserved a good slap upside the head. But we don't know that, because, again, we don't know the whole story.

But, if you're that guy Joe, c'mon, "fear for his life"...we all pretty much know he's using that as a legal term. And look at his approach when he first walks past the guy. Predatory, not casual, not in fear.

And if you're his size and his skill? C'mon. You could have just doped slapped that guy open handed then just rag dolled him without really hurting him.

I know some Civil Attorneys who would love to take that case for the guy who got kayoed.

But again, we don't know what really led up to what we saw. Bottom line....I dunno.

 

[JowGaWolf]

This is a piece taken out of whatever the whole story is. And I have no idea what that might be.

So I can only speculate as a person who's worked in bars, as a Martial fighter and as a police officer.

So I speculate only. Maybe the guy deserved a good slap upside the head. But we don't know that, because, again, we don't know the whole story.

But, if you're that guy Joe, c'mon, "fear for his life"...we all pretty much know he's using that as a legal term. And look at his approach when he first walks past the guy. Predatory, not casual, not in fear.

And if you're his size and his skill? C'mon. You could have just doped slapped that guy open handed then just rag dolled him without really hurting him.

I know some Civil Attorneys who would love to take that case for the guy who got kayoed.

But again, we don't know what really led up to what we saw. Bottom line....I dunno.

They will probably clear up the "Fear for his life" statement. Especially when they only need to show that it was reasonable to think that someone who jumps at you like that had an intent of actually attacking.

Most people know the deal. People in their 40's and and over couldn't get away with this stuff as a kid. Or maybe it was just in my home lol.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Look, people are focusing on the wrong things here. Things that do not matter to a court or the law in general. The fact that the guy who got hit was acting like an ***, or being obnoxious, or giving people 'the eye' or whatever, don't matter. They have no legal effect on the incident itself. Precipitating factors, maybe. Goes to motive, maybe. But nothing to do with whether or not it was self-defense. Only in Texas does the 'he needed killing' legal defense come into play. The dude could have been the world's stupidest drunk, he could have been singing Kingston Trio lyrics to rap songs, it doesn't matter.

What matters is this. When the MMA guy went by the guy who got smacked, he stopped. He turned around to face the guy.

THAT is the moment the court and potentially jury would focus on. WHY did he do that, why did he not just keep going?

He might argue that he turned around because the drunk guy said something to him and he turned around to find out what it was. OK, I'll buy that.

Then the drunk dude took an aggressive posture. MAYBE.

His hands dropped, he took a stance, and he made a slight lunging movement. That's what I saw in the video. Tell me if you saw him ball up a fist or raise his hands, because I didn't.

Now, was he lunging or was he drunk like everyone describes and trying to get his balance back? We saw him staggering around, looking like your typical happy drunk, moments before. He clearly did not have his balance under control very well.

So what will matter to a court or to a potential jury is what that 'lunge' movement means to a mythical 'reasonable and prudent person'. Was it a threat? If so, then yes, the MMA dude had every reason to stop the assault by striking first. There is no duty to wait to be hit or even swung on before you can legally defend yourself. Others have said that here, and they are correct, IMO.

If it was instead a drunk dude staggering around, then the 'reasonable and prudent person' would NOT have considered it a threat, making it not an assault.

And in any case, the MMA dude could have kept walking, couldn't he? He did not have to turn around, did he?

My interpretation of the video I saw, which is my opinion only, without the context others have been providing about the previous bad behavior of the drunk, is this. Drunk guy is being happy stupid at a bar. Typical scene. He accidently gets in the way of one patron, and moves back to give him space, clearly not being an aggressive drunk but a happy one. He accidentally backs into the path of the MMA guy behind him, whom he does not see. The MMA guy looks clearly pissed off and gives him a shove, not hard but not gently either. The MMA guy pushes past the drunk and the drunk maybe says something. The MMA guy, pissed off now, turns to confront the drunk, who staggers back and forth. The MMA guy knocks out a guy who is beyond the ability to defend himself and is half the size of the MMA dude anyway.

I see it as aggravated assault on the MMA guy, if anything.

It's also one of the many reasons I do not go to bars. Stupid people go to bars and play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This is a piece taken out of whatever the whole story is. And I have no idea what that might be.

So I can only speculate as a person who's worked in bars, as a Martial fighter and as a police officer.

So I speculate only. Maybe the guy deserved a good slap upside the head. But we don't know that, because, again, we don't know the whole story.

But, if you're that guy Joe, c'mon, "fear for his life"...we all pretty much know he's using that as a legal term. And look at his approach when he first walks past the guy. Predatory, not casual, not in fear.

And if you're his size and his skill? C'mon. You could have just doped slapped that guy open handed then just rag dolled him without really hurting him.

I know some Civil Attorneys who would love to take that case for the guy who got kayoed.

But again, we don't know what really led up to what we saw. Bottom line....I dunno.

Yeah, from what we see in that clip, the MMA guy is being aggressive. He purposely steps into that space, and maybe purposely bumps the guy as he walks past. He turns to confront words (maybe the guy said something about him bumping him?) and steps into his space. That all looks bad. But, as you say, we don't know what led to that. The guy may have richly deserved it, though I think a claim of self-defense seems.....difficult, based on what we see here.

 

[Flying Crane]

So I speculate only. Maybe the guy deserved a good slap upside the head.

And if you're his size and his skill? C'mon. You could have just doped slapped that guy open handed then just rag dolled him without really hurting him.

My opinion, based only on comments here and NOT having watched the video.

some people are jerks and deserve a beating but are not an actual threat to anyone. I am sure we are all that guy at some point in our life. But even if it is deserved, that doesn’t give another fellow the authority or the right to give that beating.

Some other people are just looking for an excuse to give a beating.

I think people need to grow the f**k up and let little meaningless slights and insults roll off their back. Maybe one fellow deserved a beating for being a jerk. Maybe the other fellow deserves a criminal prosecution for being a predator pretending to be scared and righteous.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

My opinion, based only on comments here and NOT having watched the video.

some people are jerks and deserve a beating but are not an actual threat to anyone. I am sure we are all that guy at some point in our life. But even if it is deserved, that doesn’t give another fellow the authority or the right to give that beating.

Some other people are just looking for an excuse to give a beating.

I think people need to grow the f**k up and let little meaningless slights and insults roll off their back. Maybe one fellow deserved a beating for being a jerk. Maybe the other fellow deserves a criminal prosecution for being a predator pretending to be scared and righteous.

I think you have the right of it. People tend to confuse self-defense with dealing out retribution to people who 'deserve it'. They guy could have been a class-A number one *#&@ but that doesn't really matter. Even those guys have the right not to be beaten up. Maybe it's sad, but either everyone has rights or no one does.

I have certainly run into people who enjoy hurting other people, and some of them were good at it. Some even figured out how to make the other person do something first that they could point to and claim self-defense later.

The opposite is also true. Just because the MMA dude is well-equipped to handle himself, it doesn't mean he has to stand there and be anyone else's punching bag either. He's also allowed to defend himself.

I'm just not sure that what we saw was self-defense. A tad iffy in my eyes.

Back before the days of cell phone videos everywhere, it would have been a case of one person's word against another, and very unlikely anything in the way of criminal charges would have come from it.

Now, on the other hand, if the drunk who got punched gets a few witnessed together and sues MMA dude, his management and insurance company are going to settle and it's going to cost them big. That's also the way of the world these days.

 

[Flying Crane]

I think you have the right of it. People tend to confuse self-defense with dealing out retribution to people who 'deserve it'. They guy could have been a class-A number one *#&@ but that doesn't really matter. Even those guys have the right not to be beaten up. Maybe it's sad, but either everyone has rights or no one does.

I have certainly run into people who enjoy hurting other people, and some of them were good at it. Some even figured out how to make the other person do something first that they could point to and claim self-defense later.

The opposite is also true. Just because the MMA dude is well-equipped to handle himself, it doesn't mean he has to stand there and be anyone else's punching bag either. He's also allowed to defend himself.

I'm just not sure that what we saw was self-defense. A tad iffy in my eyes.

Back before the days of cell phone videos everywhere, it would have been a case of one person's word against another, and very unlikely anything in the way of criminal charges would have come from it.

Now, on the other hand, if the drunk who got punched gets a few witnessed together and sues MMA dude, his management and insurance company are going to settle and it's going to cost them big. That's also the way of the world these days.

I suspect that a whole lot of unnecessary and stoopid violence in our society stems from an inability to walk away from a situation that does not need an answer. People feel that their masculinity is threatened and think that they need to save face and so escalate something idiotic into something tragic. I could never understand that mentality.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I suspect that a whole lot of unnecessary and stoopid violence in our society stems from an inability to walk away from a situation that does not need an answer. People feel that their masculinity is threatened and think that they need to save face and so escalate something idiotic into something tragic. I could never understand that mentality.

As I said earlier in this thread (and tend to say a lot in RL), I stay out of bars because that is where stupid people go to do stupid things and win stupid prizes.

 

[Flying Crane]

As I said earlier in this thread (and tend to say a lot in RL), I stay out of bars because that is where stupid people go to do stupid things and win stupid prizes.

Yeah, I never did spend time in bars, never understood the attraction. Couldn’t understand what anyone would want to be in them. That goes for the neighborhood corner bar and the big sports bar and grill establishments.

 

[Buka]

As I said earlier in this thread (and tend to say a lot in RL), I stay out of bars because that is where stupid people go to do stupid things and win stupid prizes.

Me too. Think of the three main components of any bar....glass, liquor and people seeking to alter their consciousness.

Sprinkle in your occasional aggressive ashhat...what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I certainly did my share of hanging around in bars and getting stupid when I was younger, but fortunately for me, by my 30s, that desire had fled from me. I'm glad it did.

I have mentioned before that one of our older dojo mates speaks sometimes of his brother, a karate student in the 60s and 70s who sought to prove his style in local bars by picking fights. He speaks of him with wistfulness, because his brother picked a fight with a man who shot him in the face and killed him many decades ago. I would urge others not to be that guy.

 

[drop bear]

Look, people are focusing on the wrong things here. Things that do not matter to a court or the law in general. The fact that the guy who got hit was acting like an ***, or being obnoxious, or giving people 'the eye' or whatever, don't matter. They have no legal effect on the incident itself. Precipitating factors, maybe. Goes to motive, maybe. But nothing to do with whether or not it was self-defense. Only in Texas does the 'he needed killing' legal defense come into play. The dude could have been the world's stupidest drunk, he could have been singing Kingston Trio lyrics to rap songs, it doesn't matter.

What matters is this. When the MMA guy went by the guy who got smacked, he stopped. He turned around to face the guy.

THAT is the moment the court and potentially jury would focus on. WHY did he do that, why did he not just keep going?

He might argue that he turned around because the drunk guy said something to him and he turned around to find out what it was. OK, I'll buy that.

Then the drunk dude took an aggressive posture. MAYBE.

His hands dropped, he took a stance, and he made a slight lunging movement. That's what I saw in the video. Tell me if you saw him ball up a fist or raise his hands, because I didn't.

Now, was he lunging or was he drunk like everyone describes and trying to get his balance back? We saw him staggering around, looking like your typical happy drunk, moments before. He clearly did not have his balance under control very well.

So what will matter to a court or to a potential jury is what that 'lunge' movement means to a mythical 'reasonable and prudent person'. Was it a threat? If so, then yes, the MMA dude had every reason to stop the assault by striking first. There is no duty to wait to be hit or even swung on before you can legally defend yourself. Others have said that here, and they are correct, IMO.

If it was instead a drunk dude staggering around, then the 'reasonable and prudent person' would NOT have considered it a threat, making it not an assault.

And in any case, the MMA dude could have kept walking, couldn't he? He did not have to turn around, did he?

My interpretation of the video I saw, which is my opinion only, without the context others have been providing about the previous bad behavior of the drunk, is this. Drunk guy is being happy stupid at a bar. Typical scene. He accidently gets in the way of one patron, and moves back to give him space, clearly not being an aggressive drunk but a happy one. He accidentally backs into the path of the MMA guy behind him, whom he does not see. The MMA guy looks clearly pissed off and gives him a shove, not hard but not gently either. The MMA guy pushes past the drunk and the drunk maybe says something. The MMA guy, pissed off now, turns to confront the drunk, who staggers back and forth. The MMA guy knocks out a guy who is beyond the ability to defend himself and is half the size of the MMA dude anyway.

I see it as aggravated assault on the MMA guy, if anything.

It's also one of the many reasons I do not go to bars. Stupid people go to bars and play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

The innocent party is the guy with the best lawyer.

 

[Anarax]

The innocent party is the guy with the best lawyer.

No such thing as innocent, just not guilty. Better call Saul

 

[Anarax]

Look, people are focusing on the wrong things here. Things that do not matter to a court or the law in general. The fact that the guy who got hit was acting like an ***, or being obnoxious, or giving people 'the eye' or whatever, don't matter. They have no legal effect on the incident itself. Precipitating factors, maybe. Goes to motive, maybe. But nothing to do with whether or not it was self-defense. Only in Texas does the 'he needed killing' legal defense come into play. The dude could have been the world's stupidest drunk, he could have been singing Kingston Trio lyrics to rap songs, it doesn't matter.

What matters is this. When the MMA guy went by the guy who got smacked, he stopped. He turned around to face the guy.

THAT is the moment the court and potentially jury would focus on. WHY did he do that, why did he not just keep going?

He might argue that he turned around because the drunk guy said something to him and he turned around to find out what it was. OK, I'll buy that.

Then the drunk dude took an aggressive posture. MAYBE.

His hands dropped, he took a stance, and he made a slight lunging movement. That's what I saw in the video. Tell me if you saw him ball up a fist or raise his hands, because I didn't.

Now, was he lunging or was he drunk like everyone describes and trying to get his balance back? We saw him staggering around, looking like your typical happy drunk, moments before. He clearly did not have his balance under control very well.

So what will matter to a court or to a potential jury is what that 'lunge' movement means to a mythical 'reasonable and prudent person'. Was it a threat? If so, then yes, the MMA dude had every reason to stop the assault by striking first. There is no duty to wait to be hit or even swung on before you can legally defend yourself. Others have said that here, and they are correct, IMO.

If it was instead a drunk dude staggering around, then the 'reasonable and prudent person' would NOT have considered it a threat, making it not an assault.

And in any case, the MMA dude could have kept walking, couldn't he? He did not have to turn around, did he?

My interpretation of the video I saw, which is my opinion only, without the context others have been providing about the previous bad behavior of the drunk, is this. Drunk guy is being happy stupid at a bar. Typical scene. He accidently gets in the way of one patron, and moves back to give him space, clearly not being an aggressive drunk but a happy one. He accidentally backs into the path of the MMA guy behind him, whom he does not see. The MMA guy looks clearly pissed off and gives him a shove, not hard but not gently either. The MMA guy pushes past the drunk and the drunk maybe says something. The MMA guy, pissed off now, turns to confront the drunk, who staggers back and forth. The MMA guy knocks out a guy who is beyond the ability to defend himself and is half the size of the MMA dude anyway.

I see it as aggravated assault on the MMA guy, if anything.

It's also one of the many reasons I do not go to bars. Stupid people go to bars and play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

Well said. The story Joe is putting out is the guy was singing along with a rap song and gestured toward Africans Americans when he said the racial slur that was in the lyrics. Meaning, it's then okay for Joe to put hands on the man first, turn around when verbally confronted, step in closer to the patron, then strike him when he lunges forward. Seems legit to me. I've never been a fan of bars either.

 

[MetalBoar]

I suspect that a whole lot of unnecessary and stoopid violence in our society stems from an inability to walk away from a situation that does not need an answer. People feel that their masculinity is threatened and think that they need to save face and so escalate something idiotic into something tragic. I could never understand that mentality.

I completely agree with this post but I do understand the face saving mentality or at least one subset of it. I grew up in a violent time and place when there was a major power shift taking place between various gang/organized crime elements in the region. I was lucky enough to be leaving high school just as this was heating up. I was never directly part of that scene but I knew people who were and I went to parties and things that had some or a lot of that element and it was prevalent enough that you were likely to have some exposure unless you were pretty sheltered.

If you let yourself get stepped on in that environment lots of people were going to try to step on you to elevate themselves. If you didn't want to be everyone's (following terms of service) doormat you couldn't let anyone treat you that way or at least not just anyone. This was so common that it became pervasive in a large subset of the culture, criminal or not, and I really feel it is a form of trauma induced mental illness. I learned how to navigate it without having to give out or take regular beat downs and then I got smart enough to move but a lot of people didn't. I've seen people who weren't really bad guys, just trapped in this mentality and unable to escape, destroy their lives over minor or imagined slights because they'd so internalized the fear of being disrespected. Police: "Why'd you hit that guy 36 times with that framing hammer?" - "He was mad doggin' me and I don't take that from no one!"

It's a strange thing and it's hard to shake. Even though I've always thought of myself as a nice guy who had this sort of thing all figured out and knew how to avoid trouble I still had to process through it in my early 20's and learn how to let that sort of thing go. I had a huge culture shock when I relocated to a new city that didn't have these sorts of problems. I remember going out to a club to see a band when I first moved to Seattle and these guys kept bumping into me. The guy who drove us there was off somewhere else, in the toilet or at the bar and I didn't know anyone and they just kept bumping into me and not apologizing or acknowledging their mistake. I had no way to get home and I didn't know anyone and I remember just getting spun up and irrational, thinking man! these guys are testing me and I'm gonna get worked over if I don't do something! I was trying to figure out whether to preemptively just lay into the next guy to bump me or to figure out how to leave and take a bus when I realized that these guys were just drunk and happy and stupid and that the idea of violence was so far from their minds and foreign to them that they had no idea what they were signalling in another culture. It really spun my head and I realized that I'd brought a lot more baggage with me than I'd thought.