Originally Posted by
myrridin
Nope. That was what the cop was telling me. If I pressed charges against the bum for his assault, my name would become public record. Making it a simple matter for the bum to sue me... By not pressing charges, the bum didn't have any way to identify me, so therefore no suit... That was the cops point... even though I was legally justified to use the pepper spray, and even if the court agreed, the bum could still sue me... and pressing charges would give him the information he needed to do so... Yet another reason, I consider California a cess pool...
So let me get this straight, nothing at all happened to you. You did not go to jail, you did not get fined, you were not even charged with anything. If you had violated the law you would have been taken to jail and charged.
Let me explain what really happened there. Cops hate paperwork. By convincing you that a bum in the street that can't rub two twenties together could get a lawyer to sue you, he talked you out of pressing charges. Since you are not pressing charges, he doesn't have to arrest the bum, fill out an incident report, or book the bum into jail. He also doesn't have to show up to court later if called as a witness. By scaring you he saved himself a lot of paperwork for something he didn't think was worth it.