Bubble Bust: Toronto Officer Claims Assault When Bubble Touches Him

We have seen police charge everything from flatulence to a hug to a pillow attack as assault. However, this Toronto officer tells a young woman that if one of her bubbles touches his uniform, he will arrest her for assault. She is later shown being arrested.

What is most striking is that there is no report of this officer being suspended for such adolescent and unprofessional conduct. Toronto police appear to agree that bubble assault is a valid charge.

We have seen a man arrested for blowing a bubble in court but not as an act of assault.

148 thoughts on “Bubble Bust: Toronto Officer Claims Assault When Bubble Touches Him”

  1. Again with the repetition.

    See, Russell Wayne? THAT’S what gets boring about dealing with the psychotic.

    They have such limited material. The voices in their head are often stuck in a loop.

  2. I was in line at the grocery store the other evening and I was hit in the back by a plastic bottle thrown by a baby.

    What are the chances that I might have contracted AIDS?

    Could I have made a citizens arrest on the couple’s baby?

    Anyone?

  3. Was that a squeal?

    It did not seem like the squeal of delight, but more like the squeal of a stuck pig that just got slaughtered.

    And Buddha, it doesn’t sound like you are laughing anymore!

  4. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg&hl=en_US&fs=1]

  5. Has your keyboard contracted that HIV yet? Curious minds want to know. The Vegas money is on rabies infection before HIV infection, but I’m not much for gambling.

  6. Because I don’t have to. I was on this playground long before you and I’ll be here long after you. I come and go as I please.

    I’ll keep pissing you off until I get ready to go to bed if it amuses me, Troll. You can count on that.

    Really. It’s no problem. You’ll continue to make yourself look disturbed and unable to accept being beaten. And I’ll keep on laughing.

    Seriously. You couldn’t beat me with a stick, in an argument or otherwise. I have clothes smarter (and saner) than you.

  7. Face it, Russ. You’re the one who wanted to argue battery. When it comes to skills, you brought a pointed stick to a thermonuclear war. I’m about done feeding your psychosis though, Dancing Monkey. Your ranting and irrational behavior is growing tiresome.

  8. Ooo. Watch out for those volatile mood swings, Russell the Unbalanced.

  9. From the link CCD provided:

    “In a statement to the Sun, Winkels stressed she wasn’t arrested for blowing bubbles.

    “The fact is that the bubbles had nothing to do with my arrest,” she said. “The reason I was arrested is because I was wearing a backpack and had a lawyer’s phone number written on my arm. This number was given out by lawyers, and they advised us to have it written somewhere on our bodies.”

    The 20-year-old was a volunteer street medic at the G20 and said she “wasn’t even protesting.”

    “My medical supplies were taken and suggested they could be used as evidence for my charge,” she said.

    Court records show she is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mischief over $5,000.

    Winkels said she was talking to another officer when “Officer Bubbles” came over and angrily told her to put her bubbles away.

    “I was having a conversation with the female officer,” she said. “She asked me my name, and I preferred not to give it. If she had asked me to identify myself to the police, I would have shown them my ID which I was carrying in my pocket, however, she was talking to me person to person, not officer to civilian.”

    Winkels asked the female officer if her bubbles were bothering her.

    “She laughed and shrugged her shoulders, which I perceived as a ‘No big deal!’” she said. “After this point, Officer Bubbles stormed over and said what he said on the video.”

    Winkels said she put the bubbles away and the officer went away.

    She was later swept up with others when arrests were made at Queen St. W. and Noble St. in Parkdale.

    “I was not ‘blowing them in his face’ or being rude, I was simply trying to keep the mood of the crowd light, as I figure happy people are less likely to start a violent outbreak,” Winkels said. “There was no way I could have blown them in his face because, as I said, he was nowhere near me when I was blowing them, until he came over to talk to me. He was standing roughly 20 or 30 feet away, and nowhere near the range of the bubbles.”

    Winkels said she feels she was not treated fairly during the G20.

    “I was denied many of my civil and human rights, and this whole situation has been blown out of proportion, no pun intended,” she said.”
    ______

    Oh yeah! There’s some dangerous intent to harm and/or offend in that gal! roflol

    This makes Officer Bubbles look like even more of a dick. I was kind of wondering why the female officer is chuckling in the video. She was laughing at his ridiculous machismo.

  10. That is typical of your twisted dumb-shit arguments. This has nothing to do with my ability to “prove battery” or even what charge was filed. I said that the Officer had the tight to not have a substance blown in his face. He is given that right by the Battery laws which prohibit it. Take your bull-shit and go try and con it someone else!

  11. Russell West

    Blouise – It was just a retort to Buddha’s comment about my need for common sense.

    ===============================================================
    Your first post: (emphasis added for clarification)

    Russell West
    1, July 14, 2010 at 3:58 pm
    To extend the theoretical debate, how does the officer know it was JUST Bubbles? Could be mixed in with obnoxious bodily substances or even worse!

    Buddha’s response to your question about “the officer”:
    “A little something called “common sense”.” … and Buddha continues in the post to refer to the officer as … he … him. Never once during that initial post does he refer to you as being the one lacking common sense or to you, personally, at all.

    Thus your claim that you were merely responding to his comment about your need for common sense is completely false.

    Unless, of course, you are the officer who arrested the bubbleblower posting here under a different name … then, yes he inferred you lacked common sense.

    Though I do find it interesting that you characterize your comment as a “retort” but others comments as “personal attacks”.

  12. Prove it then.

    Oh, that’s right. You can’t.

    Battery is both a tort and a crime. Its essential element, harmful or offensive contact, is the same in both areas of the law. You almost got the definition of the elements correct. The “substance put into motion by him”? Cite the specific code for the jurisdiction in question or you’re simply making shit up again.

    In order to prove the common law defined offense of battery, you must prove (1) an act by a defendant made with (2) an intent to cause harmful or offensive contact on the part of the defendant and actual (3) harmful or offensive contact to the plaintiff.

    Your “harmful” argument was crap and has been dispatched. I will not address it further. This leaves you with the “offensive” argument of which I address elements one and two leading into element three.

    Bubbles were blown by the defendant. Thus the stipulation that element one is met.

    As to element two, her intent is as subjective as his offense, so unless you’re psychic, if she says she wasn’t trying to be offensive? That is that. She was outdoors in a public place conducting a legal act – blowing bubbles. The contact was not harmful, she says it was not intended to be offensive and an action indirect at best being wind borne and beyond the foreseeable control of the woman and thus arguably accidental contact and absent any motive. Element two – her intent – is rendered moot.

    Look at the tape. She was complying with his rudely made demand and she put the bubbles away when the officer got threatening. The woman asked for respect when he was speaking to her and he mocked her. Then a gentleman in a gray t-shirt was even more confrontational about the “officer’s” bad attitude – which angered the cop even further. You can see the officer visibly clench up. He can say he was offended, but that’s just as subjective as her motive and carries just as much weight.

    This is where you’ve got a problem with element three – proving his state of mind as being offended at the touch of bubbles. The above is evidence to the contrary.

    Had he truly been offended? He would have and could have simply arrested her upon the touch without opening his mouth other than to tell her she was under arrest. That is the natural reaction to being offended – to act immediately – and well within his legal powers.

    However, he did not arrest her immediately.

    He arrested her remotely in time from the alleged “offensive touch”. Instead of affecting immediate arrest, he opted to act like was “the badass” in the scenario and threaten a girl half his size, engaged in legal activities, over something patently ridiculous and probably accidental and beyond her control (unless she can control the winds!) – battery by soap bubble. When others in the crowd took him to task for his attitude, he visibly smoldered, still not affecting her immediate arrest for the alleged offense.

    Then after making a fool of himself in front of a crowd and because he couldn’t or wouldn’t escalate enough to arrest the other guy for challenging his bad attitude without really doing something to loose his badge, he arrested her remotely in time after she had complied thus indicating his actual motive was not his subjective offense for which he could have (and should have) affected an immediate arrest. He can claim he was subjectively offended but that carries the same weight as her subjective intent.

    Except for the evidence of his actions – his visible and demonstrable anger and/or embarrassment, emotional reactions with physical cues that visibly show on the records and are evidenced by his tense and hostile bearing and snide condescending speech toward the woman.

    Thus element three fails due to his failure to take immediate action in arresting her for battery and further evidenced that his true reaction was not offense but probably something else judging by both his subsequent speech and actions to the alleged offensive contact and remote in time actions incident to affecting arrest.

    Awww. Someone had a case of the “grumpies” in addition to being a general douche bag.

    Filed as a tort case? A judge would accept a summary motion to dismiss and dismissed with prejudice.

    Filed as a criminal case? Case dismissed. End of story. Or maybe there was another reason altogether he arrested her?

    Again, you are both factually and logically deficient in your claim both to the harmful aspect of the charge and the offensive contact aspect of the charge.

    Now run along, ‘lil Russell the Deficient.

    Not just because you couldn’t prove battery.

    Because her actual charge wasn’t battery at all.

    Not that you could argue that any better than you argue battery.

  13. Blouise – It was just a retort to Buddha’s comment about my need for common sense. What I said factually correct. If Buddha had any common sense he would have know you don’t stick it your mouth to blow it. You put in front of your lips and then blow like any 4 year old would know.

    And Buddha – You touted your legal sophistication when describing how you argue when you said ““. . . because that’s what lawyers do,,”. Is that what lawyers do – not know anything about the law? I decided to stay around long enough to show that you were actually a dumb-shit pretending to be a smart guy! This pretty much does it!

    Notwithstanding the sympathy for buddle girl, it is simple; the cop had the right to not get the bubbles blow in his face.

  14. Russell West

    The pattern here seems to be personal attack when logic doesn’t carry the argument. Your qualifications to evaluate my personality and the information that you have to base it on are about as groundless and hollow as your arguments.

    It is simple; the cop had the right to not get the bubbles blow in his face.

    ===============================================================

    Russell, Russell … the first personal attack was rendered by yourself as follows: (emphasis added for clarification)

    Russell West

    She is not placing it in her mouth; she is blowing on it like any 4 year old knows how to do! She could urinate in it, spit in it, or accidentally infect it with her own viruses. Things you should know if you had any common sense.

    Don’t whine about getting back what you gave … it’s, what’s the word I’m looking for? … soooo hypocritical ( A hypocrite thinks that what he or she usually professes does not somehow apply to him or her.)

    You chose to defend an LEO’s action that the rest of the world is laughing at. Now I can be reasonably certain that when the big man decided to go after the little bubbleblower, he had no idea he would become a world renown laughingstock … but that sometimes happens to bullies … even ones who carry badges. And sometimes all it takes is a bubble.

  15. Drop the unsubstantiated general charges, and continue to be specific in your claims that I am non-factual, and you will lose every time.

    Battery is defined at common law as “any unlawful touching of the person of another by the aggressor himself, or by a substance put in motion by him.”

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