Violent Crime in the name of the Virus

I’ve been combing the media and collecting a lot of news. However, I need stories that are more :

personal to you!

The news has a lot of interesting stories, more personal accounts would be infinitely more informative and intriguing. I want to hear from people who would like to help me create a living document to commemorate this crisis. Please tell me about how this trying time has affected you - legally (changed laws/ rules/ regulations, witnessing different types of crimes, etc) or otherwise.

In the news and on social media I’ve read some of the most shocking stories, along with stories that seem small but really are not, if you give it some more thought. But I want this to be a personal account, and to accomplish that, I’ll need to hear from people I know and people who I haven’t met who are in my various networks. I appreciate any information. Even though I am posting asking for assistance, I did promise to include excerpts of my writing on instances I’ve encountered. Shortly, I will update with a personal anecdote about the impact of social distancing on the way my family is going about celebrating the religious holidays this year. But for now, since I already journaled on this, below, you’ll find a story about a nonsensical crime stemmed by a man’s passion for social distancing, but expressing that passion in the most improper way.

Recently I read about a physician in Louisville, Kentucky who, on April 6, 2020, came across younger girls (teenage) who were at Norton Commons Ampitheater and were not practicing social distancing to his satisfaction.

*please note that I take social distancing extremely seriously and implore everyone to exercise it in the strictest manner, but I still cannot support what happened next.

The physician purportedly chose to take matters into his own hands in an unfortunately way too literal way. He appears to be caught on video first loudly calling one of the girls an expletive word before shoving her; he then aggressively pushed another woman forcefully to the ground, and then he dropped to the ground approaching the last woman and choked her while her panicked friends screamed at him to stop.

The police report demonstrates that the victim of the most violent conduct was a black woman (the only black person in the group of women the physician accosted) and she suffered minor injuries as the man allegedly choked her and impeded her breathing.

*This may come with hate crime implications, though since I don’t know the circumstances, I cannot speak to that possibility; I can only note that it crossed my mind as an attorney.

It is clear to me that this conduct amounts to assault at the very least, but there could be more. Theoretically, he could face felony first degree strangulation, though my impulse was to doubt it would, under normal circumstances, amount to such a high charge. However, I am unsure how much force he was using— some could even argue attempted murder in instances where the force used was exceedingly excessive— and I also can’t speak to the effects the global, emergency scenario amid the coronavirus/ Covid 19 crisis may have on what people committing crimes related to the pandemic may have on the degree of criminal charge. As I also mentioned, there could be a potential race / hate crime issue.

The irony of all of this was that his crime was apparently one of passion, stemming from a physician’s frustration with a group of girls’ failure to comply with social distancing, yet this physician reacted by failing to comply with social distancing guidelines to get close enough to the same girls to violently express that frustration. I don’t think that course of action proved his point in the least. No lessons learned here.

Please comment or submit anything you’ve witnessed or heard about that you believe should be remembered about this period of time. I appreciate any and all contributions.