It was a bad choice but not a big deal. He didn't do any harm to them by showing the way. There would've been more civilised methods he could've tried before I guess, like asking skate park authorities to restrict access to their competition, a preliminary announcement so they could've done some more preparatory work, but you always know better afterwards, and especially as an outsider. He was enraged because the kids were getting in the way all the time because of carelessness, and if anyone had truly collided with them the outcome would've been more severe.
The following quotes are all from Baku's article.
Let's mention the people who think they have the moral upper hand and the right to judge btw:
There was also a telephone threat on the life of his daughter who was running the gallery.
And some relativising circumstances
Unreasonable damages, likely because of outsiders being shocked and appalled
Platt had not been able to sell his artwork costing him about $9000.
That's not what a tackle and a shove should cost him.
Teens being teens and not giving a shit
He said the young victim was making a nuisance of himself and was asked to leave on a couple of occasions.
Lacking communication as a prime source for erratic decision taking
Armstrong said Platt had no idea what the arrangements were. He was "roped in" to judge part of the competition.
He clearly felt sorry
Platt had also attended a 20 week anger management course at his own cost.
And judging from the article he contributed a lot to society beforehand, probably more than anyone vilifying him ever would care to do, so I believe we can forgive him one neglectable faux pas. I hold him in higher regards than a teen who explicitly chose to not respect the physical boundaries of the competition. So ultimately I don't care he shoved him out of the way. I don't hold 15 year olds sacred. If you get in the way, you get in the way.
I believe many of us have done worse harm to people, even minors, because sometimes emotions override clear thought or because priorities were set differently. It happens.
Honestly I don't understand how he could be charged. Yeha it was an assault, but not an assault I would call worthy of the time of judges and lawyers when there are other far more rugent cases on the line. I don't know how English common law handles, but in Germany we ahve the term "
Bagatelldelikt", which literally means something like "petty offence" but here means a behaviour that in theory deserves to be punished but is of such insignificance and consequently its persecution of such little use to the public that it is in fact not usually criminally persecuted (
like stealing a small piece of candy from a store, using public transport without a ticket etc.). I don't know how they actually handle this sort of thing here, but I would definitely consider this a
Bagatelldelikt.