What would you do?

Bicky

Last night i was out for my flatmate's graduation party. After the bar closed we were standing outside and i asked a passer by to take a picture with my camera. He took the camera and was about to the picture but the flash did not go off. One of my friends said "Just press the button on the top" to which the guy took considerable offence and threw the camera to the ground breaking the screen and walked off.
I ran after him and asked him why he had done it and he just started telling me to **** off. I could see he was shaking and very scared. I am not an aggressive person but the friends with me are rugby players and big lads and surely intimidating. They wanted to beat the crap out off him but i controlled the situation. He had a northern accent and was saying things like "you can take me down this alley and beat me but it will be a cold day in hell before i pay for your ****ing camers."
What should i have done?
Phone the cops at two o'clock on a Saturday morning or let them hit the guy.
In the end i just let him go. I had the feeling the cops would tell me to get lost because i had been drinking but does anybody know what would have happened in this situation?
Would i have gotten in trouble for trying to refrain him while waiting for them to arrive?

MrJoeSoap

Did they say "Just push the button" in a condescending tone? If it was my camera I would sure as hell have held the guy until the cops came, then made f*ckin sure he paid for it.

Btw - If the cops had told you to get lost because you had been drinking I'd report them. There is nothing illegal about drinking. If you were in a bit of a state and aggressive or a danger, then that's a different story, but by the sounds of it you weren't.

hussey

beating him up won't get your money back!

Held him till teh cops came .. if someone smashed my camera, I'd make them pay

Bicky

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Did they say "Just push the button" in a condescending tone?

I honestly dont think so but it is a condescending thing to say. Still, it is no excuse to break the camera.

hussey wrote:

Held him till teh cops came

If i had physically restrained him he would probably have hit me and a fight would have broken out. Sure he deserved a few slaps but what would that achieve. How would the gardai respond to such a situation?
I guess the only option would be to file a report with the gardai the next day, basically pissing in the wind though?

Dave!

Try and get his details, maybe he'd give you them. If not, call the Gardaí and tell them the story. They probably won't take a statement off you if you're pished, but they could at least get your man's details so that you could follow it up in the morning.

Sounds like a c*nt to me.

Caliden

Ask him which pocket his wallet was in...

squibs

You handed the guy the phone, thereby putting it in his care, while in his care it got broken. I'd say the cops wouldn't touch this scenario and you'd need to sue - even then it would be a tough case to win.

DublinEvents

That was a really weird incident. There must have been something wrong with your friend's tone that might have conveyed an insult to the perpetrator. Or maybe he was just mentally unstable. Your restraint in saving the guy from a definite beat-up is admirable. But yes, what he did was stupid and he needs to pay for damages. You should file a report with the police if you have his address or any other clue to his identification.

Darragh29

I'd have forcibly taken 100 Euro off him. I'd have put him on the ground, taken his wallet out of his pocket, taken the value of the camera out of his wallet and let him on his way. He'd then think twice about doing that again.

biko

He must have some balls breaking the camera right in front of you and the big friends. Perhaps a few taps would have taught him manners, not that I condone violence.

If you still have the camera you can try to get it on your house insurance, maybe that'll work. Say that you dropped it at home or summat.

Mrs_Doyle

I am fairly certain that if your intimidating friends had have grabbed him up a lane way he would have handed over some cash fairly fast..

Not that I am condoning violence, in reality, apart from losing the rag and shouting a lot, I doubt I would have done anything differently that would have led to me getting some money out of him, had it happened to me.

I would have wanted some sort of explanation though, because no matter what 'mood' he was in at the time, it is not OK to smash someone else's property like that.

connundrum

Darragh29 wrote:

I'd have forcibly taken 100 Euro off him. I'd have put him on the ground, taken his wallet out of his pocket, taken the value of the camera out of his wallet and let him on his way. He'd then think twice about doing that again.

TBH, then I'd do you for mugging. Besides, you'd be very lucky to find anything more than taxi fare on me at that time of night.

It was hard luck, and thats all it was. You gave your camera to a complete stranger and he damaged it, unlucky.

I remember perchin a camera on a bookcase once to take an auto snap of the family - and the camera fell and broke. It was my fault for putting the camera in a silly place in that instance.

I'm not suggesting that it was your fault that he threw it on the ground, but you did give the expensive camera to someone you've never seen before. A harsh lesson learned maybe

I know when we go out my gf never gives the camera to anyone, probably for fear of someone stealing it and/or dropping it.

exCrumlinBoyo

This is a tricky one. First of all, I never ask a male to take a picture of a group of friends because you’re likely to loose your camera either way. I always look for some little old dear or a decent looking female.

I am going to put my self in this guys shoes. He is walking along minding his own business and you ask him a favor, he obliges and gets stick for simply trying to help. You or no one but him knows whats going on in his head and he decided to not too take it and drop the camera. In this situation you placed your camera in his hands are your own risk. Who ever the big mouth was who shouted or said just press the button should pay for the camera in my opinion… This guy was doing you a favor and he got a smart comment thrown at him….

My 2 cents worth.

gerrycollins

ok what about this

did you know the person?
No, obviously, so you dont know his mental condition or how he will react etc what happened during the day, week, year to him

Take it sadly as one of lives little knocks and its only a camera not you face or leg or arm he broke learn from it

Didnt your parents tell you not to talk to strangers

Black Swan

Someone should not be allowed to destroy someone else's property. Sounds like a Garda issue?

vorbis

easiest solution would have been to restrain him and take the value of the camera off him in cash. If he didn't have it on him, take him to an atm. Going through the police for this could be awkward. (he could claim the camera just dropped, refuse to pay) and take a considerable amount of time to get your money.

Thrill

You shouldn't have handed over your camera to a complete stranger anyway.
Sometimes a guy will take the chance of running away with it, especially if it's worth a lot or looks expensive.

You should have had your rugby player friends hold the guy until the law arrived. You had plenty of witnesses to tell them what happened.

Victor

vorbis wrote:

easiest solution would have been to restrain him and take the value of the camera off him in cash. If he didn't have it on him, take him to an atm.

Ah yes, kidnap and robbery.

MrJoeSoap

Victor wrote:

Ah yes, kidnap and robbery.

It's not really robbery if he had broken your camera and was refusing to pay for it. Well maybe technically it is...

wow sierra

Gangs of big rugby players shouldn't beat up one guy on his own for anything - I mean ANYTHING. And certainly not for breaking a camera - good god no wonder there is so much violence on the street. A situation like that could get seriously out of hand and lead to serious injury even death. I am guessing that the guy who broke the camera was provoked by smart/condescending comments - its the most likely explanation for his behaviour, especially if he was scared afterwards. I don't in anyway condone his behaviour but I wouldn't like to hang around with people who would beat someone up, whatever the provocation. Cant ye just club together and replace the camera and put it down to experience.

Bicky

victor wrote:

Ah yes, kidnap and robbery..

Exactly why i didn't do anything about it.
In a perfect world nobody would make a smart comment and nobody would break another's property. But its not a perfect world is it?

thrill wrote:

You shouldn't have handed over your camera to a complete stranger anyway.

Lesson learned i guess. Should have learned it by now. Dont trust anyone under the influence of the ****tiest drug out there.

Edit:still intested in what the gardai would have done. Any garda reading with an opinion?

Don1

Tough break man, no pun intended.

Reckon the Guardaí would have been on your side. Okay you handed him the camera but it's still destruction of somebodies property. You can't be expected to hand out a legally binding contract :"I do solemly swear to give back this electronic equipment in exactly the same state it was handed to me" :rolleyes:

Reckon if it was in Carlow it'd have been some battering!!!! Scumbag.




Oh, and em, violence is not the answer! Yeah right!!! Hahahaha.



PS Any peace loving hippies, I'm joking.



PS Everyone else, I'm not!!