Like Iceman! Thousands of people show up for that event. Restaurants are full, the riders are eating their way through anything with protein the days and night before, yet a large part of ‘the locals’ are pissed at the bikers showing up. I feel it stems from the crap that drove people to savage cyclists in the comments of a locally owned ‘fish wrap community newspaper’. The vitriol was viewed as criminal by law enforcement, with them getting involved trying to identify some of the commenters. Many, FAR too many, urging people to run over cyclists and cut them off, etc. Throwing garbage on them (us), and other harassment. Having grown up there and been in the dirt bike crowd, I experienced that towards dirt bikers, finding barbed wire across trails, pits and trenches dug across trails, etc.
I think a large part of the anger is the ‘group think’ wrapped in anger and rage. I was confronted about ‘being gay’ because of the bibs I was wearing, and I was shocked (for some reason) and amazed at the ignorance and intolerance wrapped into the ‘need’ to confront people they feel are ‘abnormal’. (Admitting that cyclists don’t wear underwear under those outrageous bibs didn’t help) I’m sure the Barry-Roubaix freaks were not concerned about being prosecuted, they were more concerned about their neanderthal urge to embarrass or ‘punish’ cyclists. I’d hope that when confronted with the ‘event effect’, they might see that they are working against their towns betterment by being so obnoxious/criminal. ‘They’ fail to realize that their rights to be asses end the moment they cause someone damage/assault, etc
But neanderthals will be neanderthals. Why Amerkuh has a bumper crop of them is a huge question and exposes the true ‘deep state’…
I remember as a kid when I heard that every year the balloons used in the Macy’s New Year Parade are literally shot! They come back with holes blown in them!! What kind of person would shoot a balloon?!? That’s just insane I thought, but ‘Mean People Suck’. sigh
Sorry but don’t use whataboutism, the two things are totally unrelated, what is being debated is if the “fan” throwing the water bottle at MVDP intended to harm him, and if that could have accidentally caused death (attempted manslaughter), what happened in the hotel several years ago has no influence on this, and just for the record he didn’t shove them to the ground, he grabbed one by the arm and was charged with common assault, which he pleaded guilty to, but was cleared of because of the amount of provocation
A much more similar analogy is should kids who throw rocks of over passes be charged with attempted manslaughter, as they are intending to injure, and that injury causes death … but again, that is just whataboutism an has nothing to do with this conversation
Did the “fan” intend to injure MVDP and could that have caused death, then it’s attempted manslaughter (thats dumbing it down a lot, and I know there is more to it), and if the fan was charged with this, and found guilty, would set a president
It is not whataboutism, as I am not trying to deflect from the actions of the guy who threw the bottle. It is an analogy. If the justification for “attempted manslaughter” is that the actions of an individual could have led to the death of an individual, then applying that logic to other circumstances is a reasonable question.
Again, if the individual in this case wanted to harm MDVP, he would “thrown” the bottle with force at him and not tossed it underhand.
Again, there is almost zero correlation between what this guy did and kids tossing rocks off overhead passes. Simple physics demonstrates the difference.
And I’ll just repeat this again….i am not defending this a$$hole, I am simply rejecting the characterization of “attempted manslaughter”.
I never said he wanted to cause harm, but I don’t agree with that statement, if you throw a bottle at a stationary person, you are trying to cause harm, but toss one at a rider doing 40kph and you aren’t, the impact velocity would still be 40kph and that would cause harm (simple physics) and the harm doesn’t have to come from the impact, just dodging the bottle could have caused injury to MVDP or spectator or individual, and warrent attempted manslaughter
In your opinion, I would say there is, as the intent (most probably) is to scare, with the risk of injury, the individual (in most cases that I have experience with) doesn’t try and harm the person in the car bellow just scare them, and hasn’t thought that they might kill them (young minds)
Everyone can have an opinion, but logically there are several reasons there is no “attempted manslaughter” which is only even a thing in a few countries.
Nobody died
Nobody died
Nobody died
Furthermore;
4. There is no evidence of intent to kill or seriously harm
Merely throwing a half empty bidon is not enough for any reasonable person to seriously conclude this person was trying to kill someone
He wasn’t even mildly injured
This whole argument is absurd, we all agree fundamentally. But someone people are going overboard.
Ahhhhhh if he had died it would have been murder or manslaughter, we are talking attemted manslaughter
If there had been intent to kill, it would have been attempted murder
That HAS NOTHING to do with it, would not have been attempted
Totally agree, but posting “d absurdum fallacy.” and then not making expanation as to why my post was wildly exagerated or over the top, and posting 5 explanations that have nothing to do with the definition of attempted manslaughter isn’t helping
Reckless endangerment is not manslaughter, attempted or not. A bottle of water could do damage to the bones of the face, and the eyes, or teeth, but yeah, NOT likely to kill someone (unless it was fired by some kind of weapon)… It’s why concerts usually don’t give people bottles, or at least try to make sure you don’t have a cap, and no glass bottles at all.
That’s the part that seems unclear. I wasn’t able to find confirmation.
They say he grabbed and shoved them. He said he never touched them. I wasn’t able to find any article that said there was video of him touching them.
There was audio submitted that they recorded yelling at him they had video of him assaulting them and him yelling back something like good, I never touched you show the video.
And then all charges were dropped.
So, I don’t know. Did I miss something where the video
was released?
I think you are missing my point…I am not trying to re-litigate what happened that night. My point is that if the idea of “attempted manslaughter” can be used because some action take may have had the unforeseen consequences of causing someone’s death, then you could use that logic to accuse MDVP of it if he did shove one of the girls down. She could have hit her head on something in the way down and died.
It is a nonsense charge and accusation, designed to inflame the situation.
A cheesy attorney ploy: They could have KILLED MY CLIENT! They could have taken him/her from their families loving arms! (But what are the chances. 5%, 10%? Sure, falling on a city street could cause someones demise, but the chances, the probability of it happening is so insignificant, people actually RUN on city streets!!) Cycling could kill someone, but the numbers of deaths compared to the number that arrive uninjured makes cycling a pretty safe endeavor. The same with racing. Sure people have died in professional cycling events, but how many compared to the number that participated in those races?
But yes, the number of negative ‘fan’ interactions is becoming alarming.
Effectively this was what the spectator did. MDVP was going at least 40KPH so he hit the bottle at that speed, same as if he was standing still and the bottle was thrown at home at the speed he was riding
He didn’t thrown it head on so it wasn’t received at 40kph.
Honestly, all these hypotheticals just don’t matter. There are no charges as of yet and VDP wasn’t injured. The French court will give the guy some slap on the wrist fine and that will be it.
RUN