Publisher Charged with Murder for Just Videotaping a Fight

Man I am so thankful I don't live in America.
Hardly a day goes by without me hearing about some new injustice from this supposedly great nation. American people are lovely but your government must rank as one of the most power hungry, ruthless and downright dangerous Governments in the entire world.

Anyway... here is todays latest horror story from the good ol' US of A. This one is hard to believe. I had a search on ATS and can't find the story... here goes.

Jason Fyk, owner of WTF magazine, happened to record a drunken street fight between two parties on his cell phone... what happened next is very scary.

Fyk had no idea on that night he would eventually be charged with conspiracy to commit murder and imprisoned for simply videotaping a fight with his cell phone.

Here is Jason Fyk explaining what happened.



For innocently videotaping the fight he was charged with numerous felonies including attempted murder and thrown in jail for 50 days and denied bail even though he'd never been in trouble before. It really is quite unbelievable.

This last quote from Jason himself adds an extra dimension of mystery...

There is more to the story that I couldn't cover. Some is at the link below. The rest will be covered in the book. this is not simple nor is it cut and dry, but the lack of evidence is because there was no conspiracy here. It was a bunch of drunk idiots fighting that I got blamed for it. 3 life sentences totally equals video taping it with a cell phone! The FBI is currently investigating everyone all the way up to the Attorney Generals office, so the feds see something wrong here too.

SOURCE
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Wrong place, wrong time?

That's all I can say about it.

People in the video should be charged, but he's also complicit in videotaping and not doing nothing about the murder to stopping the situation before it escalated to that point.

I don't know.

Mixed feelings.

The female needs to be bi**ched slapped herself.

He is an asshole, sorry to say that -IF he kept filming while the fight got life threatening. When you standby someone killing another without doing anything in the open, you were helping the killer. If you got time to grab the phone and start taping, you probably could have helped the victim and safe his life.

So yes, he´s guilty in my eyes.

You could edit the headline from "just videotaping a fight" to "just watching someone probably get killed while having $ in the eyes filming it (he´s a publisher, remember that)".

These days, I too would not step in to break up a drunken fight, where the participants may well turn on me also for stepping in. I am NOT going to put myself in danger, without having some means of protecting myself, which we are not allowed to do here in the UK. You then also have to take into account the litigation culture, where for simply stepping in a laying a hand on someone, you could then be charged with assault as well.

Sorry, this guy did the right thing by NOT stepping in.... that is what we pay the police to do, isn't it?

He got charged with attempted murder, not murder and the charges were dropped. He shouldn't have been charged because all he did was observe it.

Getting kicked full force in the head can kill you so.....I could see where they got the AM charge from.

I think the camera guy is an ass though. Those were his friends, he could have attempted to stop the two males beating up on a girl. He just wanted content for his "magazine/website" that hosts stupid videos.

reply to post by manmental


Maybe instead of filming it so he could get hits on a youtube channel, he should have called 911.

Ive seen so many videos of people that were hurt in a car wreck or a fight or whatever and I see nobody offering assistence.
Instead of putting down their stupid phone-cam and helping they sit their video taping some poor guys suffering.
I think its BS myself.

He did what one can best do in the situation unless they choose to risk their own health. He took the video evidence of the incident. In this particular case it exposes complete and total lies by the females involved. Without this the men might be sitting 30 years for assault and battery. A true friend I'd say.

Its shouldn´t be a problem at all to stop a fight if someone gets it really hard and can´t defend himself.
The idiots standing around the fighters that cheer and growl are the problems.

Originally posted by verschickter
Its shouldn´t be a problem at all to stop a fight if someone gets it really hard and can´t defend himself.
The idiots standing around the fighters that cheer and growl are the problems.

While I agree that cheering violence is morally reprehensible, and those who were doing so were being terrible people at the moment, but that's a completely separate issue from whether someone is morally obligated to intervene.

You act as though physical courage and a facility with violence were baseline virtues. They are not. 150 years ago, you'd be right, but it is no longer the case in our society. Our polity strongly emphasizes the complete delegation of the application of force to designated actors -- LEOs and similar. One can argue whether that is a right or proper value to enshrine, but it is a fact that as we have become more civilized, violent crime and street violence has diminished exponentially. The fact that people didn't intervene is perfectly inline with the values our society holds dear. That is, intervening may be ethically praiseworthy but it is not ethically obligated. The obligation was for someone in the crowd to call 911.

But to get back on topic, watching historically casually corrupt institutions (like the police) cope with the panopticon society is quite interesting. As soon as someone holds a mirror up to the camera, they freak the frak out. I remember when Washington, D.C. spazzed through "Ooo! Red light cameras! That way we can track people!" "Wait.... hackers could hack it." "Wait... that means that they could track _US_! THAT'S NOT RIGHT!" "Let's put a pin in the whole 'cameras' thing...."

Or likewise, all the broohaha in India over the past couple of years from some of their investigative journalists secretly taped government officials doing business as usual -- demanding bribes to do what they were hired to do.

i think its a good message to those who think they should be filming # like this and posting it on the internet.
i can understand if people dont want to intervene. but turning it into their entertainment is quite low.

Originally posted by RealSpoke
Those were his friends, he could have attempted to stop the two males beating up on a girl.

edit on 27-6-2012 by RealSpoke because: (no reason given)

Those were not his friends, as he states in the youtube comments.

I cannot believe how many people here think he was in the wrong.

If I saw a street fight and had a camera I might think to record it as evidence for either party, or evidence of the fight etc... Why risk one's life splitting up street fights? But then to be charged with attempted murder for filming...??? Has the world really gone that mad.

Its incredibly obvious that the cameraman is neither stirring up the fight or involved in any way.

This isn't like one of those 'World Star Hip Hop' video of fights taken by one of the assailants for chrissake.

Originally posted by lacrimosa
i think its a good message to those who think they should be filming # like this and posting it on the internet.
i can understand if people dont want to intervene. but turning it into their entertainment is quite low.

edit on 27-6-2012 by lacrimosa because: (no reason given)

Filming like 'what'? Filming a crime taking place? You don't think any member of the public should film a crime taking place?

I just don't get it????

reply to post by Stunspot

That is, intervening may be ethically praiseworthy but it is not ethically obligated. The obligation was for someone in the crowd to call 911.

See it? Thats the problem. "Lets call the parents to help" This seems to be one of the biggest problems in USA when a mother calls police because his son won´t come out of his room. They kick his door and drag him out with violence. German police would laugh and say educate your son, its your problem, not the problem of the public police. We investigate real crimes, not kindergarten crap. This is also a reason why you can trust the Polizei. Do you trust US police?

Originally posted by verschickter
reply to post by Stunspot

 

German police would laugh and say educate your son, its your problem, not the problem of the public police. We investigate real crimes, not kindergarten crap. This is also a reason why you can trust the Polizei. Do you trust US police?

Nope, I don't trust the police much at all. And I probably would have intervened. But NOT intervening is perfectly ethical. It isn't "Call the parents to look after me", it's "Call the police because they are the only ones with the right to use force in most situations". While vigilantism may be justified in some cases, it's not an ethical requirement.

And this wasn't a kid disobeying his mother, it was a violent altercation where any attempt to intervene would likely result in injury.