Can I push through protesters without being charged with assault?
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Can I push through protesters without being charged with assault?
If there are a bunch of people forming a barricade, can I run through them if
they are in my way? As long as I don’t throw a punch or something like that, if I
just keep my hands tucked and just run through them, would it really still be
assault? I feel like it definitely wouldn’t hold up in court because it’d just be
a ‘bumping into one another’ or something.
Asked on January 20, 2017 under Criminal Law, Texas
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 7 years ago | Contributor
No, it is assault: under the law of your state (Section 22.01), it is assault if you "(3) intentionally or knowingly cause[] physical contact with another when you . . . reasonably should believe that the other will regard the contact as offensive or provacative." Pushing into or through another person is to intentionally cause contact which the other person will reasonably find offensive or provacative, and so is assault.
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