NJ Driver Faces Charges After Fleeing Anti-ICE Protesters, Injuring 3
If this incident had happened in Florida, Roglen likely would not have been charged.
Local media outlet HudPost posted video footage of a car attempting to flee after being surrounded by anti-ICE protesters during a rally in Fairview, New Jersey, on Saturday afternoon. The driver, Linda Roglen, a 62-year-old resident of North Bergen, slowed down when a protester approached her window and, as reported by the person recording the video, allegedly spat in her face. Roglen closed her window and moved forward, and according to a report in the New York Post, clipped his foot.
Immediately, her vehicle was surrounded by a group of demonstrators. Roglen continued moving slowly through the crowd and finally escaped their grasp. In the process, two additional protesters reportedly sustained minor injuries.
The caption on the first video read, “Newly obtained video footage shows a driver striking protesters twice during a July 12 immigration rally on Fairview Avenue in Fairview, New Jersey.”
The second read, “On July 12, a peaceful protest against federal immigration policies near the border of Hudson and Bergen counties was disrupted when a driver struck several demonstrators with her vehicle.”
After watching both videos multiple times, it became clear that the HudPost‘s descriptions of events were disingenuous and that Roglen wasn’t the aggressor. This looks like a replay of what has quickly become routine at protests throughout the country in recent months.
Newly obtained video footage shows a driver striking protesters twice during a July 12 immigration rally on Fairview Avenue in Fairview, New Jersey. pic.twitter.com/rlnYBRatU0
— HudPost (@hudpost) July 12, 2025
On July 12, a peaceful protest against federal immigration policies near the border of Hudson and Bergen counties was disrupted when a driver struck several demonstrators with her vehicle. pic.twitter.com/c6hTsQVnym
— HudPost (@hudpost) July 12, 2025
The New York Post reported:
Roglen has been charged with careless driving, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and four counts of assault by auto resulting in bodily injury.
Three people sustained minor injuries, including one victim who sustained an injury to their knee.
I find it shocking that Roglen was charged. What was she expected to do? Sit in her car until the crowd turned violent. I would argue that simply surrounding her vehicle en masse was a violent act.
A similar incident recently occurred in New York during one of the “No Kings” protests. A woman who tried to block a car claimed she was injured when it continued moving forward. Not even the police were sympathetic to her “trauma.” In fact, they issued her a citation.
Anti-ICE rioter is OUTRAGED after police “didn’t care” when she got hit by a car at a protest..
(She was rioting in the street btw) 💀💀 pic.twitter.com/XE1vd92qix
— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) June 22, 2025
If this incident had happened in Florida, Roglen likely would not have been charged.
In a recent episode of The Rubin Report, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) told podcast host Dave Rubin, “If you’re driving on one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety, and so if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you.
He said, “You don’t have to sit there and just be a sitting duck and let the mob grab you out of your car and drag you through the streets.”
“You have a right to defend yourself in Florida,” he added.
Assuming Roglen decides to fight these charges, and I sincerely hope she does, what would be her defense under the law?
After protestors in Charlotte, North Carolina, tried to block Interstate 277 in September 2016, attorney Andrew Branca looked at whether running down rioters surrounding your vehicle was a lawful self-defense in a post on Legal Insurrection.
In short, it’s not as easy as one might think. Branca takes the reader through the five “elements” that are required for such a defense: “innocence, imminence, proportionality, avoidance, and reasonableness.”
He explains what is necessary to satisfy each element. To put it mildly, for a layman like myself, it gets complicated. For example:
It is also worth noting that if you respond to even a legitimate threat that is non-deadly in nature with a deadly force response, it’s quite possible that you will be deemed the deadly force aggressor, even if the other party was the non-deadly force aggressor. In that case the other party could well be legally justified in using deadly defensive force against your deadly force aggression.
However, he notes, “things change dramatically” if the protesters are not merely blocking your path, but present a threat.
Once a person being blockaded has been placed in reasonable fear of an imminent deadly force attack, then that person would be legally entitled to use deadly force in self-defense, including the use of their vehicle to “run them down” and neutralize the unlawful deadly force threat.
The question then is what would be required to generate a fear of imminent deadly force that would be deemed reasonable by police, prosecutors, judges, and juries.
Certainly if the protestors attempt, or reasonably appear to attempt, to forcibly enter the blockaded vehicles, this would constitute reasonable grounds to fear an imminent deadly force attack. Such conduct would include the smashing of windows or attempts to force open doors. The same applies to attempts to set vehicles on fire, or to flip vehicles over.
Note that a defender need not necessarily wait until the protestors have turned violent against his particular vehicle. If they have begun threatening or using deadly force against other blockaded vehicles it is reasonable to infer that your own vehicle is likely to be next — you are, after all, legally entitled to defend yourself not just against the danger already occurring to you but also against the danger that is about to occur, that is imminent.
…
As a parting thought, there is nothing to prevent a legislature from defining the disorderly blockading of a public way as an act against which deadly defensive force can be used, such as by creating a legal presumption under such circumstances of a reasonable fear of death or grave bodily harm. The large majority of states have already created such legal presumptions justifying the use of deadly defensive force in other contexts — particularly in the context of an intruder in the home.
Incidents of protesters surrounding vehicles — often in threatening and menacing ways — are becoming increasingly common. What should be the consequences for those who are, in effect, holding citizens hostage? And what rights do individuals trapped in their cars have in these dangerous situations? It would behoove state legislatures to take this issue seriously.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Spitting on someone is assault; a sane person would have gotten out of the way when the car started moving. Bringing the mob to surround her car turns it into a disparity of force situation — driving through the mob was justified, IMHO.
I hope the feds prosecute the prosecutor who brought these charges; they’re going after the wrong side of this conflict.
Agreed. There should be a law addressing malicious prosecution…
There is a law that addresses this. It’s called “unequal protection.” And it operates at the federal level under the 14th Amendment of 1868.
Crawford, prosecutors can’t be prosecuted for doing their job as they see fit.
Coyote, no, there is no such federal law. Prosecutors are within their legal rights in bringing these charges, though they shouldn’t be.
FREE LINDA
And congrats to G Floyd on five years of sobriety
lets add to THIS STORY
Karen the commie Bass copies blmplo middle east terrorists by doing this :
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced Friday that the city would be giving cash to families affected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, as part of an effort to protect “immigrant” communities.
when terrrorists in the middle east attack israel their families are rewarded especially when said terrorists are injured or killed and the dnc george soros funed iranian backed haaaamas are rewarded with the families given money
The Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund is a financial program operated by the Palestinian Authority (PA). It operates through two main channels: The Foundation for the Care of the Families of Martyrs that provides monthly financial support to the families of Palestinians who were killed, injured, or detained in connection with acts of violence against Israelis; and the Prisoners Fund that delivers payments to Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons.[1][2][3] As of 2018, the stipends amounted to $330 million, or 7% of the PA’s annual budget.
Critics often call the fund “pay for slay” and blame the payments for “encouraging terrorism”. In 2007, the World Bank argued that the fund did “not seem justified from a welfare or fiscal perspective.”
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2025/07/13/los-angeles-to-give-cash-cards-to-families-affected-by-ice-raids/
I’ve read Branca’s book, and everyone should memorize the 5 elements, and after having been stopped defending oneself, parrot one clear statement incorporating all 5 elements and then say nothing further until one’s lawyer is present.
Being surrounded by a mob in one’s car is terrifying and a senior citizen strapped in her car has only one means of escape and only one viable level of force available. But, leave that to your lawyer. You were in mortal fear for your life and you had no other choice, and then shut up.
Mr. Hunt, and anyone else who might have the answer to this. I see statements like,”say nothing further until one’s lawyer is present.”
I don’t have my own lawyer. None. What now? Or. even if I did, if I am away from home and need one, what does one do?
This is a SERIOUS question: are there any companies where one can pay a fee per month and be given a phone number to call so if, for example, I am in some shithole like New Jersey, far from home, I can get some help?
There are a number of companies that provide legal services for self defense situations. However you need to carefully screen them for financial strength (criminal defense is not cheap), reliability (will they actually do what they say they will) and whether state law prohibits them from providing services in that state. This is especially important if you are going into the anti-self defense states such as New Jersey. It is interesting that the Armed Citizen Legal Defense Network (of which I am a member) is based in Washington State and is (to the best of my knowledge) not allowed by the state insurance laws to provide services in Washington. Best situation is to never go to those states that demonize firearms and self defense.
Other questions would be whether you have to use their attorneys or can choose one yourself (again reputation of the company is important as to the quality of their attorneys) and whether they pay for expert witnesses and investigators. Plus if they pay the lawyer upfront or reimburse you after you pay them (in case you don’t have a spare $100K lying around). In short, do your homework. I don’t want to make any recommendations as everyone’s circumstances are different and you need a program appropriate for your situation and needs.
I am just a broken down old man that likes to travel now and then, and in these times, could find myself turning down a wrong street. I end up getting surrounded by writers or various people with low impulse control and no future time orientation. I don’t want to be the next Reginald Denny.
the gentle grizzly
re: july 13 10:03 pm post
yeah…thats the tough part
you could go mere miles/feet from your own home and encounter those pos that are looking for trouble
dont give up!
carrying a cane makes you a (bigger) target but also gives you a line of defense
stay away from public transportation..another sneaky free ride the left has given to their rampaging “Children”
I don’t understand what you are saying. Few people travel with a lawyer or have one on speed dial. If something like this happens or you are forced to defend yourself using a firearm your only statement to police should be “I was afraid for my life” or similar and then shut up. You are not required to speak to police or assist them in their investigation. If they arrest you and you are taken to jail you will be given a public defender if you can’t afford your own lawyer. You speak to them and only them.
Bad advice!!!
Once you open your mouth to make a statement and refuse to answer follow-up questions, you no longer have Fifth Amendment protection and a refusal to answer can be used as evidence against you. (Thanks to Justice Scalia. God bless the man but he had a huge blind spot towards the 5th). You must plead the fifth at the very beginning or else it may not protect you.
Shutting up after you speak can and will be twisted into consciousness of guilt, allowing the prosecution to argue the reason you stopped talking was not to incriminate yourself. It’s the same line of reasoning as to why police would shut off their body cams and then turn them on later — you can infer they didn’t want anyone to see they were doing something wrong in that time period and they knew it.
Prosecutors are highly skilled into manipulating your words into evidence against you. That is why you never make a statement –other than your name, address and DOB — when questioned by police or prosecutors.
Once you open your mouth to make a statement and refuse to answer follow-up questions, you no longer have Fifth Amendment protection and a refusal to answer can be used as evidence against you.
Ummm, no. Not true in the least. You are clear to invoke the 5th and 6th Amendment at ANY point. Anything you said prior to that point could be used against you. There might be jurisdictions that will not protect your right, but it is absolutely your right.
Any use of the 5th Amendment against you might convince a jury, but it will certainly be relevant in an appeal. It’s a dangerous game to play anywhere the prosecutor isn’t absolutely protected against negative results.
Not true.
Grizz—
The very best fight is the one you aren’t part of. It’s sensible to avoid places like NY, NJ, etc. where being armed is a right reserved only for criminals. Want to travel? Try the Deep South. We have large Jewish communities, mostly red states, better food, politeness rather than rudeness. Before you say that you don’t want o have to avoid parts of the US, how often do you want to go into a Harlem slum or East LA? Want plays and music? Plenty elsewhere. New York and New Jersey have taken the path of the sleep of reason. Do I miss that? A little, yes. But I also miss my youth. Neither is coming back.
Yes. It’s called “on retainer.” There are a number of firms in your area that offer it.
My personal recommendation is Marc Victor, whom I have known for years*, is highly qualified in self-defense law, and is a 100% straight-arrow. His retainer is $357/year or $35/mo.
*You might be amused by this anecdote from 22 years ago. THe man has principles, and he’s not afraid to use them.
You shouldn’t say anything other than, ‘I want my lawyer.’ Nothing more. Nada. Zip.
Wasn’t there a Supreme Court decision that said that you must say you are asserting your right to remain silent, otherwise you’re just being noncompliant? Say that you are invoking your right to a lawyer and your right to remain silent and nothing more. It’s unambiguous that way.
So long as you identify, there’s nothing else you have to say, to my understanding. It doesn’t hurt to say you’ll wait for your lawyer, of course.
Kinda. There’s two precedents for two different situations.
Salinas held that during a non custodial (aka consensual/voluntary) situation a defendant can’t use mere silence in response to a LEO question as evidence of invoking 5A. Gotta clearly communicate wish to invoke 5A right then be quiet.
Berghuis held that in a custodial setting where Miranda rights were read to defendant and LEO is questioning him, the defendant can’t be silent, then choose to answer a question and claim 5A to suppress the answer. LEO is allowed to lie, trick and trap a statement, an answer, confession or a link to a piece of evidence out of your answer.
The general take away is don’t answer questions in a consensual encounter. Clearly say you are invoking 5A right to remain silent then shut up. If LEO keeps asking questions clearly communicate you won’t answer without an Attorney. That said don’t play games with LEO on the.street. You must provide basic identity info; name, address at minimum when operating a vehicle and usually where you could issued a citation. Each State has slightly different laws on when you must provide basic identity info but those are fairly consistent so when traveling don’t try to use your interpretation of own State’s statute to defy LEO.
I don’t understand why you must ID yourself. Silent is silent. The 5th says you can’t be required to bear witness against yourself, and because you can never know what information you provide might be used against you, you shouldn’t provide any information about yourself, your activities, whereabouts, etc.
For instance. Your name is Steve. You’ve just been stopped and the police ask you your name. You reply, “Steve.” The officer arrests you because there’s just been an assault three blocks away, and the victim reported that one of the assailants called the other by the name “Steve.” Even your name can be used against you. If the police are looking for “Steve,” the onus should be on them to ID you as “Steve.” When you’re required to give that information you’ve just surrendered your 5th Amendment right and have borne witness against yourself. (Unwittingly, but this is why “silent” means “silent” – you can never know what information you may give will be used against you, even when you believe the information is exculpatory or cannot otherwise implicate you in a crime.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
In a truly consensual encounter you may not need to do so depending on the State. Are you driving aka ‘operating a motor vehicle’? If so you gotta produce a DL, registration and proof of IN. No if and or buts.
Are you a pedestrian? Don’t have to supply a DL but you may (more often must) give name and address. Is it a consensual or non consensual encounter IOW are you detained? If they say detained then stop playing around give your name/address and take the 5th.
Why? Some States have a stop and ID law so there’s a statutory requirement that compels you to do so and you can (will) be arrested if you refuse to comply. In other States LEO must have a crime and reasonable suspicion you are involved in that crime in order to demand ID.
Even then some LEO will spin a consensual encounter into a non consensual encounter to get the name and address. All they need is some low level offense that justifies issuing a citation to demand your name and address. A refusal to ID then becomes a separate offense. If the LEO is a jerk then you probably gonna catch resistance without violence charges if you don’t 100% follow subsequent commands. If you actually resist then you probably gonna get thumped in some jurisdictions. Sure you can file a suit or worse your estate can if you die or your trustees can if you end up brain damaged but that won’t prevent the thumping. See Jackson Mississippi PD.
Bottom line I wouldn’t push the issue. Especially down South. You’ll get arrested and booked as ‘John Doe’ which means no one outside the County Jail knows who or where you are b/c often they have a policy to withhold phone calls until booking is complete under your true name and until you provide the name or the fingerprints come back with an ID they will claim the process is incomplete. The magistrate you are arraigned in front of will not be happy with you, that’s assuming their policy to bring you before the magistrate doesn’t have the clock start on the time limit to do so upon completion of booking. Is it right and legal? Meh, not really but that after the fact civil suit won’t help you much in the interim. Again see Jackson Mississippi PD and how many arrested folks ‘disappeared’ into unmarked pauper graves.
I believe this is the seminal work on the subject….
https://x.com/LawyerCat_/status/1454135406501326849
Branca, in his book, makes a good case for saying just what I suggested if you can handle it. Saying nothing is superior if you have verbal diarrhea, but being Mr. Clever tough guy and saying zip will not be as effective as the simple self serving statement outlined.
That’s true…with the caveat you mention, ‘if you can handle it.’ I think the vast majority of people, if having just seriously injured or killed someone, simply cannot be trusted to maintain message discipline and instead, would be better off saying nothing but: I’m invoking my 5A rights and wish to speak to my lawyer.’
Very succinct and very good advice. Clearly assert your right to remain silent then actually remain silent and get with an Attorney asap.
Exactly, but remember the attitude of the police toward you is very important. They are NOT your friend, but if you can stick to my advice you can essentially remain silent without unduly alienating them, and have a helpful contemporaneous statement on the shelf.
“I find it shocking that Roglen was charged”
In New Jersey? She was lucky the cops didn’t shoot her.
In short, it’s not as easy as one might think. Branca takes the reader through the five “elements” that are required for such a defense: “innocence, imminence, proportionality, avoidance, and reasonableness.”
That’s all complete legalese pseudo-intellectual bullsh*t. If someone puts his body in an active roadway for the purpose of using his physical person to stop traffic then he is implicitly consenting to being run over. Add this clear consent (presenting oneself as a human shield for something is clear consent) to the threat of a mob (with a history!) and the case is open-and-shut (for anyone with half a brain and an ounce of integrity).
The attackers in the road need to all be arrested – for their direct attacks, for their unlawlful imprisonment of people they stop in their cars, and for the conspiracy they are OBVIOUSLY a part (right there on the video!).
The fact that any court would have a problem deciding who is in the wrong when someone puts himself up as a human shield for something and someone else takes him up on his offer (not even counting the clear and serious threats in these cases by the leftists) says all one needs to know about how modern jurisprudence has perverted the concepts of guilt and justice to turn them into weapons for the most deranged in society.
The following is a very slightly modified version of a comment I posted here in August 2019:
With all of the burdens put on the defender in lethal force situations, what I’ve been reading here (on LI in general) is that when a defender’s use of lethal force meets the standards set by law that this is just a fortunate coincidence. No person can possibly have complete knowledge of the law (that changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and that even those schooled in the law argue about) or perfect information about the situation (complete knowledge of the situation, including his opponent’s intent, skill levels, and whether or not he may be armed or have other weapons than those that might be visible, etc.). Even if a person did have this information, nobody could possibly synthesize this data unerringly in the seconds during a violent encounter when his focus is on survival now (focusing on survival later is simply not a good idea). Defenders who experience “good shoots” or who are exonerated at trial seem to be just lucky. Surviving a lethal force incident and avoiding jail does not appear to be the result of either knowledge about the situation or how the law applies to it. The police investigation into the shooting, and the possible subsequent trial, only make it seem that the defender had properly sorted out the facts and the law, when in fact, at the moment of the incident, he almost certainly had a lot of it wrong (if for no other reason than it appears to be impossible, under the duress of a potentially lethal attack, to get everything right).
Unfortunately that is not the law. Not in NJ and not anywhere in the USA. It should be, but it isn’t.
Surrounding the car to prevent movement is a form of incarceration. I am certain the NJ cops will let any damage to the car be a ho-hum. Two thresholds… broken window or some damage to incapacitate the car such as flat tires. In final, the street thug army of the Democrat Party is active.
If someone unlawfully stops a person, that person has been arrested unlawfully.
Or “illegally detained.”
I have a truck, lay on the horn, drop into low range 1st gear, engage electronic locking diff and go forward at 1 mph. If the idiots get trapped under a tire or run over it is their fault for being stupid. An 8000 pound one ton pickup has more weight on the front tires than the rear. Count on crushed bones if you are dumb enough to try to block a truck blaring it’s horn.
My Diesel Ram 2500….the engine weighs 700 pounds MORE than gas version.
Charging a 62-year old woman for the crime of being terrified of people who are illegally impeding traffic in a menacing way. This is sickening. Not sure if leaving the scene of an ‘injury accident’ in NJ is a felony. In most states it is. The best she can probably hope for is some kind of misdemeanor plea because no matter how strong your case, you have to convince a jury in this climate in NEW JERSEY that you were reasonably in fear for your life…and that presumes in NJ this would even be an allowable affirmative defense. Good luck for all the reasons Branca points out. Plus, you have the cost of your defense.
The moral of this story is get of of Blue States because your life may literally depend on it.
Yep. Your final sentence is absolutely correct. If people choose (and everyone does have a choice, the trade off may be less optimal financially or sever family interactions but it is a choice) to remain in a blue one party jurisdiction where lefty, wokiesta ideology is paramount then they gotta accept the potential consequences of their decision.
remember why they are charging her
b/c the gov knows they dont have the guts to properly put out the fire
so they appease the swine
like I stated
maga might be in the wh…but locally its all lefty all the time..varying degrees
If a protester spat through an open window into an elderly female driver’s face that’s biological assault, assault on a woman, and abuse of the elderly – you can dispute that of course but the Left’s intersectional victimhood idea is useful here. Clipping her assailants foot is, likely, accidental, and a direct response to her assailant’s actions – attempt to escape her abuser.
Upon being surrounded by peers of her abuser, the driver slowly moved through the crowd seeking to escape, allegedly causing minor injuries in the process. There’s no lethal force, just constant efforts to escape her assailant and those with him.
Hard to see how a decent jury would return a guilty verdict, but it depends if this is a Lunatic Leftist jurisdiction, or if the process is intended as punishment and forced compliance to an anti-ICE agenda.
Typical liberal logic. The victim is the perp.
As an aside, It’s good to hear about Mr. Branca again, and I miss his occasional trial watching.
No more Reginald Denny moments. If the protesters stay away from the car and don’t start beating on it, there won’t be any trouble.
“Roglen has been charged with careless driving, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and four counts of assault by auto resulting in bodily injury.”
“Assault” is a criminal act. Crimes are acts of intent.
If the State believes Roglen “assaulted” someone(s), why is she charged with “careless driving,” “reckless driving,” and “leaving the scene of an accident”? None of these acts are intentional. The last even has “accident” in the charge! Methinks they’re over-charging her in order to nail her one way (intentional, criminal act) or the other (careless or accidental act).
Prosecutors shouldn’t be allowed to throw charges against the wall to see what sticks. The should be required to charge people for the most serious crimes they think they can make stick, and then be required to go all in and take their chances with convincing a jury. Multiple charges of varying degrees of seriousness/potential punishments is a ploy to get the jury to give the prosecution at least a token win, meaning an innocent person can more easily be convicted.
Careless driving, reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident are all intentional acts as is assault. You are right, though, in the over charging. It’s pretty common and they throw it all in to try and get something to stick. As the case goes on you will generally see some of the charges dropped.
They’re crimes, but they are dependent upon unintentional acts. If you intentionally run someone down you weren’t “reckless” or “careless” in the operation of your motor vehicle. That’s clearly an assault, an intentional criminal act. Both recklessness and carelessness mean that no consideration was given as to whether or not harm might come to others due to an act, meaning that any injuries resulting from the act were unintended even if they may have been reasonably foreseen as potential outcomes. The idiot doing donuts in an intersection is being reckless and careless, but doesn’t intend to strike someone in the crowd of onlookers. If he does, the seriousness of the resulting injuries can be taken into account when sentencing the fool, but the charges result from unintended consequences of an act. “Leaving the scene of an accident” is a charge to which the accident itself isn’t proximal, it’s about action subsequent to the act (whether it caused injury or not).
As I wrote, the problem here is the State is allowed to claim that Rogen involuntarily (recklessly/carelessly) and intentionally injured (assault) someone at the same time. It’s like Schrödinger’s cat, only here one doesn’t know if the cat is dead or alive until the jury renders its decision. What if the jury says she’s guilty of both recklessness and assault? The cat can be both alive and dead even after looking in the box?
Does a judge in such cases instruct the jury that the defendant can only be found guilty of charges that involve unintended injury or of charges that involve intentional injury, but not both?
This is the issue: there are a different set of facts, only some of which overlap, required for those 3 crimes (assault, careless driving, and reckless driving).
A prosecutor should never be allowed to charge with crimes that have conflicting sets of facts.
Having said that, the other problem is that often the first charges are not even remotely the ones with which they will go to trial. A smart defense lawyer would use that against the prosecution, IMO.
The charges may be in the alternative. The jury gets to decide which are true, and which are not. This sort of charging is both common, and in many instances proper, when the underlying act isn’t in question, but the mental state is.
You are way out to lunch on this one
This analysis is wrong. A person who deliberately decides to drive carelessly and recklessly intends any injuries or damage that may to result. Therefore, if this had happened in a pedestrian plaza the driver would have assaulted her victims even though she didn’t intend to strike any specific individual.
In “leaving the scene of an accident”, “accident” is not the key word. It is not a defense to say “Your honor, this wasn’t an accident, I intended to hit that person”.
This is being looked at backwards.
People have an obligation to get out of the way of a moving car. It’s the standard of care (what reasonable people would do in the same situation) for human behavior, and if they don’t, especially deliberately when doing so is easy, is grossly reckless and negligent behavior.
The people who don’t move out of the way of a moving car deliberately are responsible for the outcome through their own recklessness and negligence.
But it is NOT the standard of care anymore. If you hit a jay-walker, you’ll be prosecuted – even though they broke the law by stepping into the street in a non-protected area. If someone crosses the street against the light and you hit them, you’ll be prosecuted – even though they were not acting in accordance with the rule.
Pedestrians are now assumed in almost every jurisdiction to have the right-of-way, even if in violation of all road safety practices, procedures, and regulations.
Common sense may impose such an obligation on them, but the law doesn’t.
Would anyone argue that people don’t have the obligation not to deliberately splash themselves with hot McDonald’s coffee, or with sulfuric acid?
Would anyone argue that people don’t have an obligation to get out of the way of a moving car, when doing so is trivial and easy?
Would anybody also argue that people don’t have an obligation to not deliberately put themselves in front of a moving car?
They have both of these obligations, and not doing so causes their own liability for any injuries that occur.
You might think that, but how the law works has changed in the last 30 years. You, as the operator of a motorized vehicle, nowadays ALWAYS have the obligation to avoid hitting a pedestrian. It isn’t even the law in many places, it’s just how they handle the law.
I don’t agree with it, but those are the facts on the ground.
It hasn’t changed; it’s always been the law. Contributory negligence only ever comes into play in a civil suit, after liability has already been found, and it comes to calculating damages.
There is no such obligation, and there never was one. You are mixing up totally different concepts. You are introducing the concept of contributory negligence, which is exclusive to civil torts and has no place in criminal law. If the victims were suing the driver for damages, then it would become a factor how much they contributed to their injuries. But in a criminal case such as this that is not a factor.
The sad truth is that in order to defend herself against the charges she must spend thousands of dollars on an attorney. The thugs who attacked her face no penalty at all.
In that state it is a criminal act to spit on someone. We need to flood the DA’s office there with calls and post on any tourism social media site that we won’t visit there until they drop the charges on this. This does actually work.
Actually, demand prosecution of the spitter, not just dropping the charges against Roglen.
No, it doesn’t work. The DA gets no benefit from tourism and doesn’t give a **** whether you visit there or not.
Force may be met with force. The root problem is the presumption that any movement of a vehicle constitutes lethal force, and therefore an escalation. IMO, that needs review and reconsideration. Movement of the vehicle is the driver’s ONLY viable option., the others being to abandon what dubious protection the vehicle offers, and the other being to accept the unlimited danger of surrendering to the swarm by remaining in place.
And, in exercising that option, they’re actually attempting to “retreat” from the location. They are using the LEAST amount of force to retreat and thereby “de-escalate.”
Apparently, you’re supposed to allow someone to destroy your property and to drag you out and beat you to death. Because the only way that things go down other than that or if you use the car to push your way through the crowd and get away from them.
At one point, it looks like a protester tried to open the door to her car. If so, and the driver knew it, an uninvited opening of the door could and perhaps should be viewed as a substantial threat of force.
To me, the crowd is trying to detain her, and using their bodies as the method to stop the car. That theory relies on an element of (i) common decency by the driver, and (ii) the threat of law for not striking the protestors. There is a cognitive dissonance that goes with that logic: some rules/laws are to be respected while they are breaking (by illegally detaining) others.
Have no problem with the driver trying to remove herself from that situation. She seemed to take care not to injure the crowd, indicating she was trying to leave, not hurt people. Use of force is justified in such a situation.
Interesting that it is reported as a driver who hit protesters with her vehicle yet when the tables are turned it is a vehicle (presumably driverless) that plowed into pedestrians.
I wonder why people are fleeing blue states
Andrew Branca has a web site, “The Law of Self-Defense”. Membership includes a newsletter of up to date law regarding self-defense. I believe the NRA sells liability insurance which may or may not include shooting incidents. And another poster named the company he uses.
I would expect any policy covering legal costs, which can spiral so fast, to be expensive. Insurance companies are not charities. Maybe an umbrella policy added to your homeowners policy, depending on what it covers and how it does so? Mine covers personal suits against me, which is good enough for me.
Even if that were perfectly safe for her to do, she should not have had to do it. She has a right to go about her lawful business unimpeded, and it ought to have been lawful for her to do so regardless of anyone unlawfully impeding her. Standing in front of a moving car, or in the path where cars are entitled to move, should legally be regarded as consent to be struck.
The same should apply to railroad tracks, runways, shipping lanes, and shooting or bombing ranges; people deliberately trying to prevent their use should be regarded as fully responsible for any harm done to themselves or to others.