Q: Can my friends be charged for assaulting a drunk man who had walked into their house accidentally?
My friend came home one night to find a drunk old man in his bed. My friend and his roommates verbally and physically abused the man, yelling at him while holding a large kitchen knife. Instead of calmly helping the man out of the building they proceeded to push the man over repeatedly, and they even pushed him down a flight of stairs trying to get him to leave. The man looked very frightened and scared, I am not happy with my friends at all. Can they be charged criminally at all with any of this?
A: A person can only use force if they are fear in bodily harm. If they were threatening the man without fear of bodily harm then they could likely be charged for a crime.
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