[Noisebridge-discuss] Robert "assault" incident.

[Justin Doerr]

Hi everyone, for those of you who don't know me, I'm the guy Robert
Chu is accusing of assaulting. My name is Justin. Here is how I felt
the situation went down. Milo and a few other people were hanging up a
sign in the couch area addressing that Noisebridge is a hackerspace,
instead of a homeless shelter (and I give them props for communicating
it in a peaceful way). However two men from the Occupy movement
arrived with backpacks with blankets strapped behind them. They went
about settling on the couches themselves and I indicated to them about
the sign above them, and I was steadfast in implementing that policy,
yet I would be kind enough to allow them to take a cat nap as long as
they'd willingly leave in two hours. Robert was on another couch, and
he made a request that I awake him in two hours "by any means
necessary," So I agreed to what he said. Two hours go by, and I awake
the Occupy people first (whatever their names were) and I attempt to
awake Robert by shaking him awake and he didn't respond so therefore I
did what I used to do to my brother all the time to wake him up and I
sat on his feet. I admit I made a mistake in going a little overboard
on rough-housing. That's when one of the Occupy people pulled me off
of him out of self defense.

I sent Robert an email after reading the discussion post, saying I
truly apologize for unintentionally bringing him physical harm and
that I vow never to do it again, and that I think that it would be a
sad way to lose a friendship.

What he failed and in fact lied about was how I was belittling the two
individuals from the occupy group, if anything they were both
deliberately trying to deprecate me and put me down because I happen
to have the fiscal advantage of being of a different socioeconomic
status, not by choice, I can't help my family makes 6 figures a
year....

I also apologized for the instigating exchange of dialogue between the
wee hours of Xmas eve morning, along with other things I mention yet
honestly don't recall within the email.

I want to address a few things however. I respect Robert's right to
consider what I did to be "assault" because by slight technicality it
is. Yet I personally am responsible for my own emotions, and although
I apologize, I refuse to give into Robert's initiative to try to make
me "feel guilty" for what I considered an honest mistake. Moreover, I
find it disrespectful that he took the liberty of putting
incriminating information about me on the internet for everyone to see
without my permission, some of which I would consider slanderous. So
therefore what empathy I had for him in the situation has
significantly been diminished.

Although I respect his right to consider what I did to be "unlawful
assault", I also respect my own opinion that I quite personally think
he is making it into a way bigger deal than what it really is,
especially when he claimed no injuries. I also respect my own opinion
that the person from the Occupy movement had no right to manhandle me
the way he did, even if it was out of self defense, while following up
by making threats of physically attacking me (another thing that
Robert chose to omit from his discussion post).

Bottom Line: After reading Robert's post, it really seemed to make me
feel like it really reflected negatively on his character by publicly
posting an issue that I would have preferred to have settled in
private, without feeling the sense of pervasiveness inhibiting me from
coming up with thoughtful rational ways of getting my point across.

As far as the meeting next Tuesday is concerned, I've made up my mind
that I will gladly not be attending because that's honestly how little
I care about the situation, let alone how Robert feels period at this
point. He's done and said many things I feel aren't worth comfortably
mentioning on the inernet within the past that have hurt my feelings
enough already that I don't think he truly deserves my sympathy or
cooperation. And mostly everyone I've discussed this entire issue with
have unanimously agreed that they think he's overreacting. And I
personally feel there is no ultimate goal behind his objective of
bringing this up into discussion at a meeting, other than to ridicule
me and make me feel guilty, with little room for compromise.

With that being said, that is my rebuttal and I solemnly swear that I
will not respond or read any replies related to this subject, and
rather instead I'm going to take a week's vacation from Noisebridge
considering this bullshit upsets me and discomforts me enough to not
want to be there, which is some. But when I return, I promise not to
be excellent with my goals and achievements at Noisebridge, but more
importantly to n promise to be beautiful and fabulous, and filter out
those in my life who feel otherwise, because they aren't worth any of
my time. Therfor end of discussion.


Thanks, Justin Patrick Doerr.