Tuesday, March 27, 2012

New Zealand skate park attacker says he's not a bully

A man caught on video pushing a teenager off his skateboard has spoken out, saying he is not a bully and simply reacted after the teenager and others dangerously cut off youngsters taking part in a competition at the Auckland skate park.

In the video, Craig Platt is seen pushing a teenager off his skateboard as he was apparently getting in the way of 'The Skinny & Serenity National Grom Skate Comp'. Mr Platt, whose child was among those competing, said he was helping judge a part of the competition when things turned ugly.


LiveLeak link.

"These guys turned up and they just kept cutting everybody off. They weren't in the contest. They cut several of the contestants off. One of them left the rock garden and whacked into a little tiny kid and just walked away. I asked them several times to stop. I got abused.

"They kept doing it - cutting people off - and that's when I stepped towards him. I hit him harder than I should have ... it doesn't look flash. I was just trying to stop him." Mr Platt said he apologised to the boy later. Mr Platt's wife said he wasn't at all like "that", but she had seen the footage and acknowledged it did look bad.

Many thanks Ana!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am going to believe him because I've dated many skaters, and they do have an attitude problem. At some point, the man says he will call security, which indicates he feels he's the offended party.

WilliamRocket said...

WTF ? If I shoved a guy like that I would get done for assualt ! AND then the big fat bully punches another guy in the throat ! Lock the guy up, he thinks he owns the world. And @ nellievaughn, you didn't date the skater on the video clip so what would you know about him ? Jeepers, glad I dont live near you.

Anonymous said...

You can't go around shoving people but I understand the desire to do so. A lot of times skaters around here will purposefully just get in the way. And luckily it has stopped but there used to be hoards of teenaged/tween idiots in my neighborhood who would inexplicably congregate in the road to chat or toss a ball. The problem was they wouldn't move when cars needed to get through. I will admit to more than once just slowly driving through the little bitches, forcing them to move aside while the half-wits screamed obscenities at me.

Patrick said...

Appreciate the way the guy stood up for the kids. Scrawny guy faces a bunch of big fellas, and stands his ground properly. If nothing else, those kids learned what standing up for your ideals means, on that day. And that's a bunch.