Jets Fan Shown Striking Woman After Jets-Patriots Game Identified As Former Felon

We have previously discussed how many families, including my own, have abandoned football stadiums to rowdies who have turned games into a contest of obnoxious drinking, swearing, and fighting. Games are now viewed as a license what is becoming the American version of Soccer hooligans. That element was on display this week with the video below of a New York Jets fan punching a woman in a Patriots jersey. According to reports, the man is Kurt Paschke, who was previously found guilty of negligent homicide in a stabbing death outside of a pizzeria in 1992. However, the Patriots fans come off as no better in the video, including the woman, identified as Jaclyn Nugent, 26, who is seen as hitting Paschke before he hits her.

Paschke’s mother, Colleen, insisted that the Patriots fans were harassing them throughout the game and pursued them after the game. She says that the Patriots fans yelled “get them” and were throwing punches. She insists her son was protecting her. The video does show the woman throwing punches before being hit herself.

According to reports, Paschke stabbed a man four times outside of the restaurant, though his lawyers insisted that he only used the knife after being severely beaten. The victim’s family insisted that Paschke got a special deal because his father was a sergeant in the police force.

It is interesting that the police have been seeking Paschke but reportedly not Nugent or the other fans in the melee. As shown by the wonderful photo below, Paschke seems like just the type of guy keeping families away from stadiums. However, the Patriots fans were clearly pursuing at the time of the videotaped attack. When reporters tracked down the woman’s brother, he reportedly responded with the articulate instruction to “Go screw!” From a torts perspective, if he was hit first, Paschke can claim self-defense and defense of others. Unlike his stabbing incident, he is responding in a commensurate fashion though we do not see what happened before the clip below.

Interestingly, the incident has created a debate over the common view that a man can never hit a woman. Many have objected that when a woman hits a man first, he is within his rights — and social standards — to hit back. Do you agree?