January 3, 2018

"While it is not a crime to give someone a bad haircut, you will get arrested for intentionally snipping their ear with a scissors."

Said Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain.
Stylist Khaled A. Shabani, 46, began to twist the customer’s ear after telling the man he was fidgeting and moving his head, DeSpain said....

With the shortest possible attachment, the clipper was run down the middle of the customer’s head by Shabani, “leaving him looking a bit like Larry from the ‘Three Stooges,’” DeSpain said.
The customer says he only wanted the sides shaved, with an inch left on top. Shabani says the snip was an accident. And the twist?



The charge is mayhem.

34 comments:

Danno said...

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.

Chuck said...

"Mayhem." Lol; right off a first-year Crim Law exam. The story will cause thousands of people to look up the legal definition of "mayhem."

Bad Lieutenant said...

Is that painting on the right the one of Van Gogh doing the self portrait of his disfigurement after cutting off his ear for the prostitute? Cuz that's not a picture of the disfigurement, because I don't see a bloody stump of ear, I see a bandage on the face of a stupid looking man. Why was he a great artist again? Yes, I know, we're all spoiled by cameras.

Quaestor said...

And the haircut is really just a hat.

traditionalguy said...

Good old Anglo-Saxon English order.The common law forbids wanton removal of a body part that maims the other fighter. Fight rules saying no eye gouging out and no biting off ears come to mind. And then there is a No holds barred fight that is against the law.

Wilbur said...

The Allstate Mayhem Guy is calling it quits. At least that's what he's saying in their latest round of commercials.

Michael K said...

When I was a medical student, the Mass General hospital was in a Boston slum called Scollay Square. The Emergency Ward used to get drunks who had been fighting and had facial lacerations. The residents told me that, if a drunk wouldn't hold still to have his face sewn up, they would sew his ears to the pillow to make him hold still.

The good old days are gone.

Quaestor said...

Is that painting on the right the one of Van Gogh doing the self portrait of his disfigurement after cutting off his ear for the prostitute?

Scholars of Van Gogh aren't too sanguine about the ear thing. As a very obscure and lonely person during his lifetime reliable contemporary sources on the events of Vincent van Gogh's life are sparse. About the only trustworthy records are Theo van Gogh's letters. The ear cutting may just as well have been the result of a bar fight (Vincent was a nastily belligerent drunk according to Gauguin.) The story he told to the infirmary doctor, Félix Rey, and the Arles coppers may have been delusional ramblings.

Saint Croix said...

wow

they went from a class C felony to no charge at all.

Update: Khaled A. Shabani was issued a ticket on Wednesday for disorderly conduct, a county ordinance violation that is not a criminal charge.

you charge that guy with simple assault, a misdemeanor

to overcharge and then undercharge is ridiculous

"hey, my steak is overcooked"

"okay, here you go, raw meat"

Quaestor said...

Speaking of bad haircuts...

The Kim dynasty (never has the "nasty" in dynasty been more apt) will fall when the first Nork technocrat points at the rotund rat's goofy do and laughs.

Fernandinande said...

Michael K pontificated...
The good old days are gone.


Your sadistic fantasies aside, I'd bet nobody sewed ears to pillows.

Christopher Moran said...

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, for the love of God, don't be so cruel as to nail his ears to the pump."

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I'm skeptical of this story.

You would have to sit still for a while in order for the clippers to make that cut through the hair. The moment someone tried that stunt, shaving a path through all of your hair, a person would be up and out of the chair.....not sit still for the full swath.

As a side note: It is not wise to be rude to people who have control over things that may affect your body, have control over your safety or serve your food. Want a bad haircut? Defective auto parts? Spit in your food? Be an ass to people who get paid little to do much for your ungrateful butt.

Unknown said...

"The customer says he only wanted the sides shaved, with an inch left on top. Shabani says the snip was an accident."

This explains the Eighties, at least.

- james james

Michael K said...

Your sadistic fantasies aside, I'd bet nobody sewed ears to pillows.

You, of course, were there and know all about it,.

Go away and play with yourself.

John henry said...

Michael k

That story about sewing ears is ecactly why we need your history book in Kindle format.

We could buy it via the portal and both you and Ann could make a buck.

If you won't do it for us, do it for her!

John Henry

Curious George said...

"Dust Bunny Queen said...
I'm skeptical of this story.

You would have to sit still for a while in order for the clippers to make that cut through the hair. The moment someone tried that stunt, shaving a path through all of your hair, a person would be up and out of the chair.....not sit still for the full swath."

Hardly. Here, watch these Marine Corp Boot Camp initial haircuts.







Unknown said...

Years ago one of the sailors in my division got a bad haircut aboard ship while we were deployed in the Mediterranean. He went back to the barbershop and beat up the sailor who had given him the haircut and naturally was written up for assaulting a fellow sailor. After suffering the consequences he never recovered. This sailor , who had never been in any serious trouble before, could not accept the consequences of his action and kept getting in trouble and got drummed out of the Navy. All because he got a bad haircut.

Michael K said...

"That story about sewing ears is ecactly why we need your history book in Kindle format. "

That story may be in the Kindle (War Stories) book. I forget.

The history book doesn't have personal stories mostly. I have started to do a Kindle version but it is a pain. It has to be one long document in Word. I have it in pdf and can't find the original Word files. It was written in 1997 and 1998.

I do plan to do it and correct a few typos that are in the pdf files.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

He was suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ Curious George

Wow. Those clippers ARE fast.

Chuck said...

If anybody is disappointed with the criminal process in this case, remember that there is certainly a civil cause of action available to the customer. For negligence, for an intentional tort, etc. Maybe -- if the barber is a licensed professional -- for professional negligence, in which there may be "malpractice" policy that would provide coverage.

steve uhr said...

Michael -- there are lots of programs that convert PDFs to word.

Michael K said...

" there are lots of programs that convert PDFs to word."

Thanks. I'll look around. I've been doing and it is a pain as all formatting has to be removed.

Curious George said...

"Dust Bunny Queen said...
@ Curious George

Wow. Those clippers ARE fast."

They might be for sheep :-)

Paddy O said...

Michael, you should be able to open PDFs in Word now. At least the newer versions do this. Then you can click the "remove all formatting" button. PDFs and Word play much nicer together than they used to.

Michael K said...

" PDFs and Word play much nicer together than they used to."

Is that newer versions of Word.? I'll see what I can do. Thanks.

n.n said...

A "bobbitt".

madAsHell said...

Scholars of Van Gogh aren't too sanguine about the ear thing.

Tour the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, and they won't talk about the absinthe and/or turpentine either.

Darkisland said...

Michael,

If you have the PDF files and want to send them to me, I'll format them for Amazon's CreateSpace publishing. Amazon then automatically formats them for Kindle.

I doubt it would take me more than a couple of hours to format them to a standard template.

I've published 5 books via CreateSpace so far. Formatting is the second easiest part.

So easy that, rather than make photocopy handouts for my workshops, I publish them in book form. The other advantage to that is, since I price them at $49.95, it looks like I am giving my attendees something really valuable. I am, but it looks even moreso.

Email johnfajardohenry@gmail.com if you are interested.

Michael K said...

I turned the history book over to Amazon before the "CreateSpace" began.

It is now in POD publican because they made a good deal.

As you must know, it is impossible to get any sort of info from Amazon so I dont know if they would do it.

Darkisland said...

Michael,

Don't know what you mean by not getting info from Amazon. I can get my sales and royalty numbers daily. OTOH, I published a book with CRC Press and I find out twice a year how it is selling when I get my royalty statement. That's nothing to do with Amazon, though.

As far as what they will publish, you have so check a box that says you have copyright but as far as I know they never check.

My first book was a collection of article I wrote for Food & Drug Packaging magazine over the years. It was mainly to figure out how CreateSpace worked. Kindle published them but then pulled it a year. The reason was that the articles were on the web. I told them that, while many were, not all were available and that the idea was to collect them all in one place.

This seemed to satisfy them and they put the book back up a day later. CreateSpace has never said Boo about the print edition.

F&DP owns the copyright and gave me permission to republish. Had they asked, I could have sent them a copy. They've never asked.

You would have to see if you retained the rights to publish Kindle when you signed up with Publican. I suspect that you did as I think that is how they work.

Gabriel said...

@Chuck: The story will cause thousands of people to look up the legal definition of "mayhem."

Lately I've been reading Blackstone's commentaries on my Kindle; actually I just read this.

Also interesting was "flotsam, jetsam, ligan", I knew the first two from their use as cliche but I didn't know what the distinction was. I can also see why "ligan" isn't used in the cliche, it doesn't rhyme with the others and it takes too long to say three anyway.

Michael K said...

"Don't know what you mean by not getting info from Amazon"

The site has changed several times in the 20 years since I published the history book. The POD thing was about 12 or 13 years ago.

I get royalties deposited every month but I don't see the reports I used to get when I had just listed it for sale.

I'll try to see about converting the pdf files.