By Carlos Miller
The mainstream media finally got around to reporting on the incident in which a Chicago House of Blues security guard struck a woman after ripping her camera from her hands.
The security guard, Darrell Gibson II, 31, was arrested on a misdemeanor battery charge, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Chicago police should have charged Gibson with felony robbery considering he tackled the woman before snatching the camera from her.
But this is the same police force that accepted an off-duty cop’s claims of self-defense after he shot his ex-wife’s husband 24 times.
That cop went on to attack a 15-year-old student for having an untucked shirt and was later accused of raping a woman while holding a pillow over her face.
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Fernandez, as I mentioned in a 
Good. I hope this rageaholic learns something from the experience.
This is good, but why no charge for attempted robbery?
The woman was angry because her camera was confiscated. stolen
does the “s” tag not work on here? Would “del” have worked? I was attempting to strikeout the misuse of the word confiscated, as that implies someone had some sort of authority over the victim.
To do a strike through, you need to do the following:
sample
< span style="text-decoration: line-through;" >sample < /span >
Just be sure to close the brackets.
I’m no expert but it would seem that the thug should have been charged with some kind of theft charge. Anything from strong arm robbery to simple theft. Also when she was being held on the ground and he wouldn’t let her up isn’t that false imprisonment. Legally you cannot physically hold someone on the ground until the police come. The other guard that took the flip cam that was filming the event should be charged with… theft? also. or something.
HOB and both guards should be sued back into the stone age……..
I just clicked the “felony robbery” above. The definition fits. Both guards should be charged with felonies.
One can only hope the charges will be upgraded by the prosecutor.
@anooon: There is one situation where you can legally restrain someone until police arrive, and that’s during a “citizen’s arrest.” Generally, citizen’s arrests are only lawful if the citizen making the arrest directly observes the offender commit a felony.
So, while it would be unlawful for the thug security guard in that video to detain the girl, it would have been completely lawful for someone to subdue and restrain him for police.
@Michaelk42 I’m a little worried that the reason the charges weren’t higher was that the State’s Attorney didn’t approve felony charges. Hopfully all the media attention this story is getting (it’s on the HuffPo now, and CNN is going to run it) will cause the State’s Attorney’s office to upgrade the charges.
The thug got out of jail on a $1,000 bond.
Do you know how much my bond was for my arrest?
$3,000.
Which is why I didn’t post it. I just waited to be released the following day.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/darrell-gibson-house-of-b_n_321023.html
@Carlos
Clearly, angering the police is a much worse crime than assaulting a mere person.
That is true for I was charged with nine misdemeanors for taking their photo.
Goldfish we should be careful about letting emotions/public outrage dictate the charges.
I’ve looked at the statutes here in Florida, and while Robbery seems to fit technically, the facts here probably wouldn’t get a guilty verdict (imo).
@EdinMiami: The facts here are enough to sustain an aggravated battery conviction (a battery, committed in a public way). Robbery may be trickier, but the video goes a long way to making that stick.
I’d prefer not to have public reaction drive the criminal case, but then I’d also prefer the people in charge of the criminal case to treat it with due seriousness. Carols’ anecdote about his arrest illustrates just how absurdly light this guy is getting off so far.
What bothers me about the simple battery charge is that it insinuates if he would done all that he had done all that he did except knock her down, then he would have not been jailed.
And he has absolutely no right to “confiscate” this woman’s camera. And much less right to physically assault her as he did.
So you’re on CSS on this site? I’ll keep that in mind. I will reiterate that there is no way you can convince me that “confiscating” is not the same thing as theft, especially when the thief is not an LEO or a teacher in a school full of children.
The main thing that bothers me about this video is… nobody stopped the security guard.
The guard was clearly out of line, and everybody is just standing around doing nothing.
Kurt: no one screws with a guard that’s slamming someone down. They’ll do it to a cop, because that’s railing against authority. but to try and step to what might be a completely unhinged sociopath security guard is just asking for trouble.
The police usually stop at tasing. who knows where a guard will stop.
Seeing how this happened in Chicago I wonder if Obama will have the black security guard and the white woman over for a beer.