I kind of worry about this kind of thing, I have serious hearing loss and even with hearing aids I can’t make out what people are saying sometimes. Now, I have some common sense though, in this exact situation I’d think ‘oh, they’re upset about the knife’ and I’d drop it.
What worries me is having a couple of cops draw on me and they’re yelling at me buy it sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher and I have nothing in my hands and I have no idea what they want me to do.
“After Hughes sued Kisela under a federal law that allows people to recover damages for violations of their constitutional rights,”
Let me note that said federal law does NOT apply in the 4th judicial circuit (Virginia, North Carolina, W. Virginia, etc.) to any except descendants of former slaves.
That is the judge-made rule in that circuit.
Hence, if you are hispanic, pacific islander, native american, white, asian, etc., you do NOT have the right to sue state officials for violating your civil rights.
That’s despite the legislative intent, as shown by the congressional debate over that law, that it was intended to apply to everyone.
(That’s the loophole which allowed a federal judge to throw out most of the suits by the Duke lacrosse players against Nifong et al — they were the wrong ethnicity and were not covered by the “federal” law).