Galway man, 23, critical after assault in Northbridge, Perth

catbear

Thomas Keaney, a member of staff at The Cure Irish Bar on Francis Street, was at Euro Kebab on Aberdeen Street during the early hours of December 17 when an altercation broke out between several patrons.

Defence lawyer Ken Bates told the court it was anticipated that the 23-year-old's life support would be switched off later today.

Sad news

Zambia

catbear wrote: »

Sad news

Sad news indeed, fupping king hit heroes.

catbear

Zambia wrote: »

Sad news indeed, fupping king hit heroes.

I hear it mentioned a lot in news items but what exactly is a "king hit/punch"?

Batgurl

catbear wrote: »

I hear it mentioned a lot in news items but what exactly is a "king hit/punch"?

Headbutt AFAIK. Generally random and with a lot of force

Zambia

Batgurl wrote: »

Headbutt AFAIK. Generally random and with a lot of force

Not really batgurl but close enough it's basically a heavy punch that knocks the victim over. Sadly the damage is caused when then victim lands on concrete.

It's a bit of a buzz word in the oz media.

catbear

Zambia wrote: »

It's a bit of a buzz word in the oz media.

They love their buzz words. Anyways thoughts are with his family today.

jackbhoy

Zambia wrote: »

Not really batgurl but close enough it's basically a heavy punch that knocks the victim over. Sadly the damage is caused when then victim lands on concrete.

It's a bit of a buzz word in the oz media.

Yep, and the key thing is that the recipient is not expecting it/defending themselves, which makes it so dangerous. I hate the term "king hit", the term itself even stinks of bravado, such a cowardly act.

astonaidan

He passed away today, a quiet lad if ever Ive met one

STIG83

RIP, another reason why Northbridge should be bulldozed to the ground.
I hated that place when I lived in Perth.

jackbhoy

Awful, senseless death, really feel for his family & friends.

To every other guy in Aus reading this, just walk away from any trouble that comes your way over New Year's, or ever for that matter! There are enough pathetic, ice/booze/coke/etc fuelled idiots out there that have much less to lose than you.

hussey

A king hit is usually an unsuspected punch either from behind or side etc, though generally the media use it for any punch.

RIP - very sad news

Xavi6

Very sad to hear, R.I.P.

STIG83 wrote: »

RIP, another reason why Northbridge should be bulldozed to the ground.
I hated that place when I lived in Perth.

To be fair, every city has a dodgy spot like that. If Northbridge is levelled the scum will just move somewhere else.

I used to go out there back in the day but wouldn't even consider it these days, I stick to the bars around Murray St. which seems to attract a much nicer class of people. For now anyway.

catbear

Xavi6 wrote: »

I used to go out there back in the day but wouldn't even consider it these days, I stick to the bars around Murray St. which seems to attract a much nicer class of people. For now anyway.

A bystander lost an eye in Carnegies last week.
Too many young pumped up Perth guys think a social drink is a prelude for violence.

Xavi6

catbear wrote: »

A bystander lost an eye in Carnegies last week.
Too many young pumped up Perth guys think a social drink is a prelude for violence.

I'm not saying that part of the city is trouble free, far from it, but the clientele is very different for the most part. Older mainly, and more work folk on a Friday when I tend to go out as opposed to backpackers (Northbridge's proximity to the hostels is the obvious reason there).

Agree re: the Perth lads, the young fellas are over aggressive and react to the slightest thing.

seachto7

You keep hearing of these types of attacks in Aus.. Time and time again....

catbear

Latest news.

NBTD

Two very opposing stories in that link. The fact that there is CCTV and taxi video footage would make you think the truth will win out in the end.

Here's hoping

Mellor

NBTD wrote: »

Two very opposing stories in that link. The fact that there is CCTV and taxi video footage would make you think the truth will win out in the end.

Here's hoping

Most situations have opposing stories initially. But once the trial approaches and prosecution hands over their evidence to to the defence lawyers. He plea/story might suddenly change.

Zambia

Mellor wrote: »

Most situations have opposing stories initially. But once the trial approaches and prosecution hands over their evidence to to the defence lawyers. He plea/story might suddenly change.

This is correct, his story sounds ridiculous. Quite frankly made up on the night to justify a rash decision

lavelle72

I see there's some campaigning going on over there at the moment to change the media's term 'king hit' to 'coward punch'

Mellor

lavelle72 wrote: »

I see there's some campaigning going on over there at the moment to change the media's term 'king hit' to 'coward punch'

I don't know why "sucker punch" was never used.

catbear

Common assault is a far more accurate term. Whenever the victim is a woman or elderly the media call it assault but when the victim is a young male it becomes "king hit" or other such headline grabbing euphemisms. As the old media motto goes, "if it bleeds, it leads".

hussey

I thought it was pretty sick, that when a NRL player (who are generally huge) punched someone then continually punched him, whilst on the ground, actually told the judge 'this is not a king hit' as it seems to be the buzz about time

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/russell-packer-of-the-newcastle-knights-sentenced-to-two-years-jail-20140106-30crw.html

about time a judge actually did something.

hussey

hussey wrote: »

I thought it was pretty sick, that when a NRL player (who are generally huge) punched someone then continually punched him, whilst on the ground, actually told the judge 'this is not a king hit' as it seems to be the buzz about time

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/russell-packer-of-the-newcastle-knights-sentenced-to-two-years-jail-20140106-30crw.html

about time a judge actually did something.

Stamping on someone's head only gets 2 years? FFS.

Cyber Ghost

What the hell is going on over there?

You seem to hear of a new savage assault on an Irish person every week.

Guys, be careful, it's not like here where the only people that would throw you a dig are decrepit scangers and junkies.

Fiery mutant

People just need to be careful. I know we can't tar everyone with the same brush, but there does seem to be a tendency to lose the head a bit quicker with some of these guys.

I had an incident when at the Lions tour in New Zealand. Walking back to our apartment with a mate from a bar, got surrounded by 4 guys, one of who challenged me to a fight. When I said no, he asked where I was from, then said "ah ok, I thought you were English".

Cue some light relief mixed with confusion.

Xavi6

Good read here

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/david-penberthy-a-new-generation-of-gutless-thugs/story-fni6unxq-1226805167994

David Penberthy: A new generation of gutless thugs


THE bloke accused of the coward punch murder of Daniel Christie appears to be the pin-up boy for a new ugliness in our culture which didn't exist when I was young.

Shaun McNeil is an inked-up, pumped-up, mixed martial arts-loving gym junkie.

He is a lover of social media, and has turned his dopey little corner of the internet into his personal shrine. He's posted an endless series of snaps and selfies flexing his pecs, showing off his tatts in a ripped muscle shirt, triumphantly holding an empty bottle of Bundy, apparently consumed in its entirety, in what may be the crowning achievement of his life to date.

He's a bloke who didn't go to my high school. None of us who went on to university acted like him. Not one of my friends who left school in Year 10 and Year 11 to become a tradie or work at the local car factory acted like him either.

He is a new Australian man. He is also a man, to borrow a crude but evocative phrase from the youngsters, who I really wish would just f*** off and die.

It appears to be mandatory to describe the random, mindless violence we have seen in pubs and on footpaths around the nation as "alcohol-fuelled" violence.I hate this term.

A more appropriate term would be scumbag-fuelled violence, as the focus on alcohol lets the scumbags off the hook.

There are tens of thousands of Australians who frequently engage in what those abstemious folks in the health lobby describe as "dangerous" drinking.

They do so without sending anyone to hospital, or to an early grave. I am one of them. So is almost everyone I know.

For me, "dangerous" drinking brings with it the risk of winding up in a karaoke bar and singing a woeful version of Air Supply's "All Out Of Love" or having a savage argument with my mate Darien about the result of the 1978 SANFL grand final.

This is the kind of thing which happens to the overwhelming majority of Australians when they drink to what the experts call "dangerous" levels. They end up having a dangerously good time, where the only real danger is that somebody might die laughing.

The current emphasis on the availability of alcohol, on alcohol advertising and sports sponsorships, and the mindless persecution of publicans who have a vested (and demonstrated) interest in preventing violence on their premises....it's largely a load of exculpatory nonsense which elevates the role of external factors and lets flawed individuals off the hook.

Excessive drinking has always been with us. The nation was founded by some of the world's most accomplished pissheads. The die was cast that night in or around 1788 when they decided to let the female convicts ashore and the blokes broke into the rum supplies, and Sydney's first street party erupted down by the Tank Stream.

The statistics suggest that something has changed in the past decade, with 91 deaths from coward punches since the year 2000.

Blaming alcohol is a cop-out. The people who deserve the blame hail from that moronic new breed of man described above. For what it's worth, my rat fur-lined theory is that three things have changed since I was at high school and starting out with grog.

One involves the vain and vacuous world of social media. Another goes to the increasing use of steroids and methamphetamine. The third is the influence of bikie culture on the cultural mainstream.

For all its upsides, one of the defining features of social media is its absurd level of self-absorption. The he-men of the past had only a mirror in which to admire themselves, a bit like Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.

Nowadays they can find equally feeble-minded narcissists in cyberspace where they can boast about their physical prowess, be it their ability to cut their heads open by crushing a beer can and withstand the pain, to put the gloves on and lay into the heavy bag at the local gym, or in the worst cases, to chronicle their own acts of violence or vandalism towards people and property with stills and video.

I can't comment about McNeil, but many of these blokes also fit into the second category of being both pumped up on steroids and jacked up on speed. This week I interviewed a drug and alcohol researcher who said one of the emerging (and urgent) areas of research went to the interplay between booze, speed and steroids, and the subsequently aberrant behaviour of those who were taking this insane cocktail, perhaps on account of sporting a pair of ossified testicles though their habitual steroid use.

Give me two stubbies of Cascade, four glasses of shiraz and a Beam and Coke any day.

The third point can best be illustrated through the way in which a lot of these blokes carry themselves and choose to dress. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that having a tatt or wearing a certain outfit makes you a violent person. If you want to get a tatt, good luck to you. But if you look at these blokes, they can often be found aping (an apt word) the sort of "hard-casual" look affected by the bikie gangs, with the neck and face tatts, the G-Star Raw tees, deliberately one size too small, and most tellingly of all, a weird way of walking from side to side with their arms formed in triangles, as if they're ready to punch pretty much anyone, anywhere, any time.

It's because they are.

Our nation was once largely comprised of genial, drunken boofheads who were most at risk of passing out in a mate's toilet.

You would measure the success of a night on the turps by how much fun you've had. Sickeningly, for this new breed of blokes, you measure its success by the number of strangers you've belted.

Cyber Ghost

mandrake04

Its not the same as 'coward hit' but I don't think the Judge had not much choice in the current circumstances as they had it on CCTV and he did strike the bouncer, I know the bouncers are in scruffys are woeful but if that bouncer fell and hit his head ... as happens... yer man would be looking an mandatory 8 years minimum but could be up to 25 years.

An Irish backpacker has been jailed for eight months for assaulting a bounced at a popular Sydney pub.
Diarmaid Dooley, 28, was sent to prison after the magistrate Jane Culver viewed security footage of the incident which took place at Scruffy Murphy’s pub in Sydney’s CBD on November 13, 2013.
The footage showed Dooley punching the bouncer in the face and kneeing him in the stomach.
Dooley pleaded guilty to the charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm at the Downing Centre Local Court but said and told the court he had been drunk at the time and had no memory of attacking the bouncer.
“This is a crime that involves intoxication and violence …” the magistrate said.
His lawyer told Nine News that his client was “devastated” by the sentence and it should be viewed differently to random assaults.”It was not an unprovoked king-hit on an innocent person,” he said but continued that the sentence was “not a surprise given the current situation.”
Street violence has become a hot political issue in Sydney with the NSW Government announcing a variety of measures to curb the level of incidents.
However Magistrate Culver said the court needed to send a strong message to the community that drunken violence will not be tolerated.
“This is a crime that involves intoxication and violence on the streets of Sydney,” she said.
Dooley is appealing his sentence and will return to court in February.

http://www.irishecho.com.au/2014/01/25/irishman-jailed-over-assault-on-bouncer/30492

Zambia

Bouncers in Sydney were the worst bouncers I ever encountered. Dublins worst doormen would shine on king cross.

However he still should have walked away.

catbear

”It was not an unprovoked king-hit on an innocent person,”

"It twas da drink yur honor" hip!..

Tool!