Oakland Cop Spits On Man Filming Him, Claims It Is Not Assault (It Is)

by Joshua Scott Hotchkin
Cop Block
Aug. 31, 2015

The above video was posted to Facebook by Peter Garza on the afternoon Saturday August, 29th with the following information:

A OAKLAND,CA police officer spat on a friend of mine last night and he got it on video.. the cop claims it’s not assault, but if it was the other way around I’m sure my friend would of got charged with “Assault on a peace officer. THIS IS NOT RIGHT! MAKE THIS GO VIRAL

There is no doubt that the video shows the officer spitting on the man filming. The man informs the officer that his action constitutes an assault. The officer, whose name we do not have (but would love it if you could help us identify him) denies that his disgusting and disrespectful action is illegal. That officer is dead wrong.

According to California Law concerning Assault:

Penal Code 240, defines an assault--also known as a "simple assault"--as an attempt to commit a violent injury on someone else.

For a defendant to be convicted in a criminal jury trial of California assault under PC 240, all of the following must be true:

•The defendant did something that was likely to result in the use of force against someone else;
•The defendant did so willfully;
•The defendant was aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person to believe that this act would directly and probably result in force being applied to the other person; and
•When the defendant acted, s/he had the ability to apply force to the other person.

Even though people often use the phrase "assault & battery," California assault and California batteryare actually two distinct crimes. The California crime of battery consists of the actual use of unlawful force or violence against someone else (as opposed to just an attempt to do so).

It seems that since the spit actually hit the person, the crime might be even further considered Battery. However there does not seem to be precedence in the California legal system for charging an individual with battery for spitting on another person. Such a precedence does, however, exist for that activity being recognized as an assault under the California State Law:

A man who intentionally spat at another can be charged with criminal assault, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

Jeffrey Lewellyn was sentenced to two years probation and 50 hours of community service after he spat in 2004 at a patient who swore at him on the grounds of a Veterans Administration Medical Center in Walla Walla, Washington.

He appealed the conviction, arguing that spitting did not constitute an assault, but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.

“Intentionally spitting on another person is an offensive touching that rises to the level of simple assault,” the three-judge panel wrote.

So there you have it, Officer Camelpucker, you just assaulted a resident of California, a citizen that you swore an oath to protect. Nevermind that what you did was just plain disgusting and disrespectful. Nevermind that it is conduct unbecoming of a public servant. Nevermind that millions of people are going to see what you have done and remember your face forever as ‘spitting cop’. Nevermind that because YOU BROKE THE LAW. Any minute all of those good cops are gonna hunt you down and cage you up and make your life ugly because you broke the law that they swore to uphold regardless of who breaks it.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL…yeah, right!

Joshua Scott Hotchkin is a writer living in Iowa City. Besides helping to expose the growing police state, he also writes fiction and does a bunch of other creative stuff, which you can find at his website-Advanced Ape.