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leomac08

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 12, 2009
2,096
0
Los Angeles, CA
According to TMZ.com, Former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Mike Tyson could face some serious charges for fighting with a paparazzi at the Los Angeles International Airport on 11/11/09.

According to some reports on TMZ.com, Mike Tyson's punch to that paparazzi is considered to be an assault with a deadly weapon!, since Tyson has a powerful KO punch....it's considered to be a deadly weapon to the LAPD.:eek:

In my opinion, that kind of sucks!:eek:

Imagine you were a Former Heavyweight Boxer, and punch somebody, and police could charge you with "assault with a deadly weapon" for having a powerful KO punch!:p:D

If Tyson is prosecuted, given that he's a former boxing champ, the charge could end up being assault with a deadly weapon.

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2009/11/12/mike-tyson-detained-at-lax/#ixzz0WhhiOcQJ
 

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
Maricopa County attorney is already looking at yanking his probation for all the earlier stupidity.
 

Mousse

macrumors 68040
Apr 7, 2008
3,465
6,667
Flea Bottom, King's Landing
The paparazzo got up and walk away after the little jab Iron Mike gave him. He had it coming anyways. Witnesses said he was very close before getting decked. So Iron Mike didn't chase the sack of *beep* from across the terminal to open a can of whoop-@$$. I think Mike was in the right here.
 

Scooterman1

macrumors 6502a
May 15, 2008
939
12
Houston, Tx
I also read where he pushed the baby carriage of Mike's son. That Tyson was just acting in defense, as anybody else would if you had a baby that someone was putting in danger.

Maybe some of the paparazzi should start getting hit with Stalking Charges.
 

Darth.Titan

macrumors 68030
Oct 31, 2007
2,905
753
Austin, TX
According to some reports on TMZ.com, Mike Tyson's punch to that paparazzi is considered to be an assault with a deadly weapon!, since Tyson has a powerful KO punch....it's considered to be a deadly weapon to the LAPD.:eek:

In my opinion, that kind of sucks!:eek:

That's actually not surprising. People with hand-to-hand combat training are held to a different standard when it comes to physical violence. I know military special forces members' hands and feet are generally considered "lethal weapons" by the courts. I don't see why a boxer with the kind of punch Tyson has wouldn't be held to the same standard.
 

Heilage

macrumors 68030
May 1, 2009
2,592
0
That's actually not surprising. People with hand-to-hand combat training are held to a different standard when it comes to physical violence. I know military special forces members' hands and feet are generally considered "lethal weapons" by the courts. I don't see why a boxer with the kind of punch Tyson has wouldn't be held to the same standard.

The man can crack a skull if he wants to. I think "lethal weapon" is a pretty accurate description.
 

Surely

Guest
Oct 27, 2007
15,042
11
Los Angeles, CA
Exactly...... I feel for both in this case. The paparazzi have a job and the celebs are the job....... :)

....and usually the celebs (or their managers) call the paps in advance to tell them where they'll be so that their picture will be taken.

The celebs need the paps, and the paps need the celebs.
 

Lord Blackadder

macrumors P6
May 7, 2004
15,662
5,496
Sod off
Most of these paparazzi deserve to get punched in the face by Mike Tyson as far as I'm concerned. Not sorry for them at all.

On the other hand, Mike Tyson has always come across as breathtakingly stupid...we overuse the term "stupid" in general conversation but in this case it's appropriate. He just is simply a very unintelligent man.
 

Signal-11

macrumors 65816
Mar 23, 2008
1,474
2
2nd Star to the Right
That's actually not surprising. People with hand-to-hand combat training are held to a different standard when it comes to physical violence. I know military special forces members' hands and feet are generally considered "lethal weapons" by the courts. I don't see why a boxer with the kind of punch Tyson has wouldn't be held to the same standard.

The "lethal weapon" in court is a very common myth/urban legend perpetuated by TV/films and a gullible public. No such law or precedence exists.

A lawyer might argue that a person knew what he exactly was doing when he inflicted some serious bodily injury on another person, but that's up to jury to decide.

Anyway, the lesson here is don't get your legal info from TMZ.
 

Abstract

macrumors Penryn
Dec 27, 2002
24,835
847
Location Location Location
Wirelessly posted (Nokia 5800 Tube XpressMusic : Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; U; Series60/5.0 Nokia5800d-1/21.0.101; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

william sire said:
Tyson was just recently in tears on the Oprah show regretting his violence. I guess those tears didn’t mean anything.

I'm sorry, but it really depends on the circumstances. He may have meant what he said, but papparazzi aren't well-known for knowing where to draw the line. Yes, they have a job to do, but they can't just do whatever they want. Just take the photos and go away. Any more in-your-face then that, and I can't blame a celeb.
 

iBlue

macrumors Core
Mar 17, 2005
19,180
15
London, England
The "lethal weapon" in court is a very common myth/urban legend perpetuated by TV/films and a gullible public. No such law or precedence exists.

A lawyer might argue that a person knew what he exactly was doing when he inflicted some serious bodily injury on another person, but that's up to jury to decide.

Anyway, the lesson here is don't get your legal info from TMZ.
I think it is highly dramatized, yes, I don't think writing it off as just a myth is strictly true either. When I earned my first dan in taekwondo I was warned by my instructor that having this means a much greater responsibility and the possibility of much heavier assault charges (such as an assault with a deadly weapons charge) should I ever get into a fight. I don't know from experience if that's true or not but I trust his word on this. He never said things just for the hell of it.


Tyson is a fool to punch someone but a small part of me can sympathize. Paparazzi are so frickin out of hand and will purposely instigate trouble purely FOR the reaction and subsequent photo. They're scum and although I don't condone assaulting them for it, I can still understand the urge.
 

MattSepeta

macrumors 65816
Jul 9, 2009
1,255
0
375th St. Y
If

If there were swarms of guys following me around flashing their cameras at me whenever I went outside, I would probably punch one too.

Celebrities suck, but 'razzi sucks more, and contributes largely to the celebrities sucking so much.

Just think: Without paparazzi, where would all the 15-25 y/o girls be? No ******** magazines to live vicariously through anymore? GOD FORBID!!!
I can hear the meltdown now: "OhMY GOD WHAT DID KATE WEAR TO HER TRIAL?"
"WHAT DO THE "REAL" HOUSEWIVES DO ON THE WEEKENDS???"

I can not stand those magazines and how they have largely sullied or entertainment business.

I long for a day when nobody cares about Brad Pitts twitter updates, or any of the other trash 10+ national magazines perpetuate.

So after this rant I have a new position on the matter. ALL paparazzi could do with a good face-punch from Mike T.:eek:
 

Surely

Guest
Oct 27, 2007
15,042
11
Los Angeles, CA
Anyway, the lesson here is don't get your legal info from TMZ.

Harvey Levin is a lawyer.

Tyson is a fool to punch someone but a small part of me can sympathize. Paparazzi are so frickin out of hand and will purposely instigate trouble purely FOR the reaction and subsequent photo. They're scum and although I don't condone assaulting them for it, I can still understand the urge.

I think the paparazzi are more out of control in the UK than they are here in the US. I can understand your feelings toward them.

If there were swarms of guys following me around flashing their cameras at me whenever I went outside, I would probably punch one too.

Celebrities suck, but 'razzi sucks more, and contributes largely to the celebrities sucking so much.

Just think: Without paparazzi, where would all the 15-25 y/o girls be? No ******** magazines to live vicariously through anymore? GOD FORBID!!!
I can hear the meltdown now: "OhMY GOD WHAT DID KATE WEAR TO HER TRIAL?"
"WHAT DO THE "REAL" HOUSEWIVES DO ON THE WEEKENDS???"

I can not stand those magazines and how they have largely sullied or entertainment business.

I long for a day when nobody cares about Brad Pitts twitter updates, or any of the other trash 10+ national magazines perpetuate.

So after this rant I have a new position on the matter. ALL paparazzi could do with a good face-punch from Mike T.:eek:

As I said before, the paparazzi need the celebrities, and the celebrities need the paparazzi. It's a symbiotic relationship. Things are really not as they seem. The celebs publicly complain about how annoying the paps are, but it fact, most of the time it is the celebs (or their publicists/agents/etc) who call the paps to tell them where they'll be and when. And then, when the paps start shooting photos, they act all annoyed that their privacy is being violated.

For example, do you think that Jennifer Aniston didn't know that there was going to be a ton of paps at The Ivy when she went there for lunch last year? They practically live outside of that restaurant. When celebs want their pictures taken, they go there for lunch. Why is she acting all shy and not smiling? Because it's an act. She had a movie or something coming out, and wanted some free publicity.

There are a ton of places to go for lunch, dinner, shopping, etc. in Los Angeles. The celebs that go to Robertson to shop, or to anywhere in Beverly Hills for a meal want their photo taken.

The celebs that live in the Valley or that don't go to popular restaurants (eg Mr. Chow) or clubs (Hyde) on the weekend are the ones that don't have their photos taken by the paps.

All news, whether positive or negative, is good news, because it helps the celebrity to remind the public that the celebrity still exists.

I'm not saying that every single pap/celeb interaction is a set-up, but, at least here in Los Angeles, more of them are than you think. Obviously, the Tyson at LAX incident was most likely the real deal.

Also, I'm not trying to defend paparazzi either. I'm just saying that some of the blame for the ridiculous tabloid industry falls on the celebrities as well. It's not accurate to think that the paparazzi are merely parasites in this.

As an aside.... I was once shopping on Robertson, and there was a huge crowd of paps outside of a store called Kitson trying to take photos. I asked one of them who they were shooting..... and he told me he didn't know- he just didn't want to miss the shot and let one of the other 20 guys get it. I thought that was kind of funny. What if they were all wrong, and no one was in there? It turns out it was Hilary Duff *yawn*
 
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