Bike ride story. Assualt?
 

I went for a bike ride today into town. I'm downtown and I ride my bike past this house and this guy who is probably 20 or so throws a football at me. So I go into the parking lot it landed in and take it. I'm riding back up main street and I'm maybe only half a block from his house the "dad" and his wife come speeding up in a van and yell at me.

"Give me back my f**king football!"

-"Don't f**king throw it at me then!"

So I toss it as his van and his wife yells:

"Watch where you f**king throw that football!"

How ironic right?!

Then the "dad" yells :

"I'm going to break your f**king neck next time f**ker!"

Then he whips it at me and it bounces off the sidewalk and hits some stores window.

So I road my bike around for about 10 blocks or so looking a police officer I saw earlier and told him the story and he said he would go talk to the guy.

I saw the police officers car pull up to his house.

I really wonder what happened.

Well, you killed a lot of your legal advantage when you threw the football at the van. He can claim that you maliciously interfered with his operation of his vehicle, and because it is so much larger and more likely to do significant property damage in the event of an accident (I'm not discounting your likelihood of personal injury if you were to wreck, but the van can cause many personal injuries simultaneously).

I doubt if the guy can do anything to you. If it had been me and I hadn't identified myself, I would just ride away.

Don't understand where the hate is coming from, though. Why do people think they can mess with you just because you're on a bike? That's crazy.

I was actually trying to toss the ball into the van window.

No. He would've continued to chase me down no matter where I went I'm sure. I mean I had his football that his 20 year old kid threw at me.

It's probably just an angry household that raised an equally angry kid. You can't win. But people like that live life as losers, even if they don't know it. You can't get ahead by being dysfunctional.

I like this conversation, and kind of wonder if you are allowed to carry a handgun in these situations. Just asking (have no clue - yes am thinking about escalation issues). If this is on your commuting route, what are the choices?

Is there better social engineering to take care of this? Should you have asked what is his favorite team instead?

With dogs chasing bikers (do I need pepper spray). And idiots throwing balls what deterents are there for just plain stupid people?

should have thrown the football in the nearest lake/dumpster/mean dog enclosure and rode off.

this is where a cell phone comes in handy. hold it up and say "one step closer and you're going to jail".



edit--> btw, like most angry, testosterone-filled jerk-off sports freaks, both father and son can't even throw a football with any accuracy (by the sound of your story, neither actually hit you with it). thats funny

I read that an airhorn on the bicycle is a handy tool (safer than a pistol). Set that off pulsing with sound. Then stop it.

If attempted: say to the nice man:

"I call 911 and tell the cops to find the airhorn. They will be here in 60 seconds and take you to jail for assault, and I will file a complaint that you attempted to knock me off my bicycle to assault me, do you want me to do this right now?"

If actually assaulted -- (someone throughs a rock, or a stick, or a ball, or a dog at you) please call 911 and follow through. Start the air horn now. There are most likely kids in the area that are not brave enough (they need to live in the area) to have the cops take care of the bully, and you are the first. That so called father needs to have the cops give him a lesson in civility.

Hopefully the cops show up. I might ask the cops to review my commuter route for safety from being assaulted. Might be a good idea.

I was honestly about to drop it in the garbage, but for which ever reason didn't.

I'm glad to hear you didn't let it escalate any further. Although it would be tempting to do something, a football isn't worth killing or even threatening to kill someone over. I do think that I would have been greatly tempted to just throw the football over a fence into some relatively difficult place for them to have retrieved it.

I've had a few such encounters, and agree with the poster who said "you can't win".

It's true, dysfunctional families raises messed up kids, the cops probably know exactly who these pepole are and respond a few times/year for all sorts of reasons, you just happened to ride past at the wrong time.

Best to just let it go and move on, the family are likely experts at being idiots, you'll never beat them at their own game.