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Verizon Sued After Tech Punches Customer In Face
suraj.sun writes "A Verizon customer filed a lawsuit after the tech the company sent out got a little punchy. Instead of fixing the customer's problem, the tech allegedly hit him in the face. The New York Post says the tech attacked the customer after he asked to see some ID before allowing access to the apartment. From the article, '"You want to know my name? Here's my name," Benjamin snarled, slapping his ID card into Isakson's face, according to Isakson's account of the December 2008 confrontation. "The guy essentially snapped. He cold-cocked me, hit me two or three solid shots to the head while my hands were down," said Isakson, a limo driver. He said the pounding bloodied his face and broke his glasses. But things got uglier, Isakson said, when Benjamin squeezed him around the neck and pressed him up against the wall. "He's prepared to kill me," Isakson said. "That's all I could think of." The customer broke free and ran away. The Verizon tech then chased the customer until he was subdued by a neighbor who was an off-duty cop.'"
You got beat up by an IT guy. Either he is a paraplegic, elderly or both.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Can you !(*^&%$%^$#-ing hear me NOW????
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If not, the customer is going to have to wait another month for a new appointment.
I can only look on in envy.
Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? What's my name, bitch! Say it!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
He shouldn't need to show identification. All Verizon guys walk around with an entourage of hundreds of jumpsuited, smiling techs and assistants. You really can't miss them.
While it's possible the tech just snapped and went apeshit on the guy (after all, there are violent headcases out there...), why do I get the feeling that there's a whole lot more to the story than we're getting from the victim?...
You mean like the customer consenting to getting beat up, right? Because everyone knows that kicking someones ass is totally within your rights as a citizen of the USA, don't they?
The fact the Verizon tech still has a job is interesting.
"In the months since this incident, his conduct has been blameless. As a result, we will not take further action," Young said.
The lesson here is if you work for Verizon you get to punch the customers as long as you only do it every now and then.
Verizon rep: You don't need to see his identification. Bloodied customer: We don't need to see his identification. Verizon rep: These aren't the droids you are looking for. Bloodied customer: These aren't the droids we are looking for. Verizon rep: He can go about his violent business. Bloodied customer: You can go about your business. Verizon rep: Move along. Bloodied customer: Move along. Move along.
[the customer] asked to see some ID before allowing access to the apartment
I think you are on to something. It seems more likely the alleged assailant has very strong feelings about the right to privacy and is making a statement about how a national ID card would be against the founding principles of this country; and that such a system does nothing ensure the safety of the public at all as the bureaucrats in Washington would have you believe, but in reality only serves to further the government's agenda towards a police state that will only result in violence towards its own citizens.
Surely, I can't be the only one to have gathered that from the summary?
This is so damn funny. If we all start punching people in the face when they ask stupid questions, I'm guessing they will start RTFM. I'm off to the gym to start training.
The man obviously made an affront to the tech's honor which the tech was obliged to address. It once was these incidences were decided by a brush of a glove across one's cheek and a dawn meeting, grim and immutable. To merely be bloodied about the nose describes a situation where the homeowner got off lightly. How far we've fallen from the civilized world of yore.
Carry on then. Cheerio.
The words of the Verizon tech before the attack was supposedly "Mister, if you don't shut up I'm gonna kick one hundred percent of your ass!"
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
NO CARRIER
You guys are right, I think this was handled stupidly.
Having made your post, if you now shoot a Verizon technician it would probably be interpreted as premeditated.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
You mean like the customer consenting to getting beat up, right?
It's probably right there in the Verizon contract fine print.
I am not a crackpot.
established service standards.
...I have a begrudging respect for the Verizon guy.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The awesome part is the binding arbitration clause....
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
There could be, depending on where your home is.
On the other hand if you were lucky the judge presiding might also be a Verizon customer.
it happened in New York...and in accordance with verizons standard operating procedures for the empire state physical violence is the second step to trouble-resolution, right after shouting and gesturing obscenities.
the technician may not have been properly trained, and mistook the customer for telco equipment...this happens occasionally and other companies like AT&T can certainly attest that customers, especially if on fire, tend to resemble things like routers.
why yes, Ive done some PR work before, why do you ask?
Good people go to bed earlier.
That explains why I had to choose a login and password for the website, voicemail PIN, and safe word. . .
You are not the customer.
Having made your post, if you now shoot a Verizon technician it would probably be interpreted as premeditated.
Comcast technicians, of course, remain fair game.
First of all, the company in question is Verizon, not Comcast
This should have been obvious. If it were comcast it would have been the tech who got his ass beaten ;-)
Oh crap - it's the Verizon tech guy...
but the chest-pounding, dick-waving idiots who like to pretend that they're Rambo really, really piss me off.
Naw, pity's more appropriate. They have to behave that way to compensate fro minuscule appendages.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Funny, that's pretty much the way Verizon always treated me as a customer ...
Perhaps they dont care what shallow people think?
They dont necesarily go out of their way, they just have no dress sense, or dont care about looks.
When the drummer in my band, who looks fairly "Evil" shaves his goatee, everyone makes fun of him, his wife tells him he loks gormless.
Still as I said above one should check ID of any unexpected commercial caller at your door, regarless of how they look.
Strangely, sometimes the guy in the suit and tie is the evil one.
I have met more assholes wearing suits than I have guys who look as you so cutely put it anti-social who are assholes.
Wow, these verizon early termination fees are *really* getting out of hand..
The effectiveness of guns, like that of any means of self-defense, is highly situationally specific.
Very true. However, anyone who is conscious about their safety (women in crime-riddled urban areas, perhaps), make sure to keep themselves in situations where their preferred method of self defense is viable.
Unless you were hoping to escape from him, then run to your bedroom, get the gun, load it, and manage to shoot the guy before he's on top of you again.
It's called a quicksafe or a slip, I have several. I can retrieve a gun from them in less than 2 seconds. For that matter, I keep my sidearm and "defense gun" (next to the front door, in a disguised quicksafe permanently attached to a small knick-knack table which is in itself permanently attached to the floor) fully loaded and ready to fire. And before you bring up the safety argument, keeping a snake or trigger locked handgun/rifle/shogun in a safe when you would intend on using it for self defense should the need arise is just plain stupid. If someone has defeated the first and second safety mechanisms (your presence, and your SAFE respectively), the third and fourth safety mechanisms are pointless, they already have access to the weapon.
Or do you load a couple rounds and have your gun in hand every time the doorbell rings?//...// Of course you don't, but then there goes its self-defense effectiveness.
Or like me, you keep it HOLSTERED (The holster is probably the most important gun safety device in use today). As a CCW holder, I can tell you as someone who usually doesn't undress until bed, I can keep even a full sized M1911A1 (my carry weapon) holstered, concealed, and at that even comfortably, myself at a whopping 175 lb, at 5'10" and a little bit of muscle to me. You have to be willing to wear a cover garment in the summer--in my case a Johnny Max 3-button breasted vest (not a hunting vest, a suit vest, classy yet fashionable given the current punk trend)--but it can be done if you keep your head about you. In my case even trained eyes don't scream "COVER GARMENT!" when I'm about town, they think I'm just another skinny college kid.
In all honesty I don't even know what to say to this, I've had the full 9 yards about this discussed with the type of people who were inclined to spit in my face just for voting McCain (and some have), and even they didn't say stupid things like this.
And if you wear your gun when you answer the door, and the guy on the other side means you harm, you'd better hope you can get the shot off before he's on you, because when he sees that gun he is not going to back down while you're conscious enough to shoot him in the back.
Unless the attacker is a hired hitman or someone trained to kill (I.E Military, Police, or Mall Ninja) this will not come to fruition. I've only ever made potential attackers aware of my gun, I've never had to draw. Unless you're dealing with multiple attackers or a trained killer, most critters are predators of opportunity and tend to work like electricity, they follow the path of least resistance. They're looking for an easy score, and the SERIOUS probability of death is not something they want to deal with. In the three instances in which I felt threatened enough to reach for my gun, it was the mere sight of blued steel that sparked a spontaneous dust trail as the would be attackers bolted. For your average citizen against your average crook which turns out to be about %90 of potential self defense situations the mere presence of a gun on the would be victim is all it takes to deescalate the situation almost instantly. For those that realize the fact that three instances in a lifetime is pretty high when I can pass for a college student: you're right, that is high. I happen to live in a bad area of town, I also happen to be white and wearing nice clothes (read: not $250 jeans, but nice enough to as
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last