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> Captions in the YouTube video that the counterclaim quoted read that [...] Galanakis had been “kidnapped then raped by the NPD all night.” > In two decisions
by mcpackieh 3y ago
> Captions in the YouTube video that the counterclaim quoted read that [...] Galanakis had been “kidnapped then raped by the NPD all night.”
> In two decisions in May and September, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher dismissed almost all of the officers’ claims. Locher deemed most of Galanakis’s captions as “non-actionable statement[s] of opinion” or “rhetorical hyperbole,” which are both considered non-defamatory. This included the caption where Galanakis said he was “raped” by the police department, which Locher said was “distasteful,” but non-actionable.
False claim of rape is distasteful but non-actionable? I don't get that.
- bottlelion 3y agoIt's rhetorical. If you said said "the Denver Broncos raped the 49ers last night" you wouldn't be accusing the Broncos of literal sexual assault.
- mcpackieh 3y agoThere's a clear contextual difference between a ball game and a bogus arrest. In the latter, he was deprived of his freedom and placed at the mercy of the police with few if any witnesses.
- kyleee 3y agoI think there is a non zero chance that big brute of an officer would have raped him in the era before body cams and ubiquitous surveillance
- brvsft 3y agoMost likely because these were captions on the cops' bodycam footage, so viewers who watched it probably did not get any impression that he was claiming to be literally raped.
- mcpackieh 3y ago"raped by the NPD all night" seems to clearly reference (evidently fictitious) off-camera events.
- Tostino 3y agoI don't think you are reading that the same way most others here would.
- Hizonner 3y agoYeah, no. In the context, it's an obvious hyperbolic metaphor. Nobody was meant to believe that it referred to real rape, no reasonable viewer would have believed that, and most likely nobody did believe that.
- mcpackieh 3y agoHN user strathmeyer seems to believe it.
- Supermancho 3y ago> False claim of rape is distasteful but non-actionable? This is a result of the 1st amendment. Sometimes it's both.
- etchalon 3y agoIt wasn't a "false claim of rape". It was, at worst, distasteful hyperbole.
- fkyoureadthedoc 3y agoWait until you hear about all the kids who claimed to have raped me on Xbox Live during my childhood.
- porkbeer 3y agoAnd our poor mothers!
- mcpackieh 3y agoXbox live rape claims are obvious hyperbole because neither party was ever in the physical presence of the other. In this case it's different, because the accuser was arrested by the police so the police did have the opportunity to rape him. Since that opportunity actually existed, I don't think the claim is obvious hyperbole. I think nobody would believe the claim in the context of xbox live, but many people are inclined to believe it in the context of an unlawful arrest. Even one of the replies to my first comment about this seems to believe the claim. (He's now been flagged for this. What guideline did he violate? I hope he wasn't flagged because his perspective lends credence to my perspective that accusing cops of raping you after a baseless arrest is not obvious hyperbole.)
- micromacrofoot 3y agofrom my perspective, he used rape as hyperbole to describe general harassment... it's incredibly distasteful, but you'll hear something like "your team got raped" as a barb in sports or gaming
- strathmeyer 3y ago[flagged]
- porkbeer 3y agoI have a distaste for many LEO, but this comment is out of line and has no place here.
- always2slow 3y agoWe're just gonna stick our heads in the sand and pretend we don't live in an authoritarian police state dystopia then?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]