[Nev]

Name: Bigz

Ban ID: 8578

Banned by: [L²:M] @Welker‍

Server: Truenorth_v1a

Ban Reason: 13.3, stealing one vehicle & attempting to steal a second in the process with no reason or background RP.

Why should he be unbanned? 
I don't believe the staff member in question had a complete understanding of the situation and I am only posting this on behalf of the accused player because A) I am directly involved in the situation B) I believe there were no rule infringements and C) this was a relatively new user with <12 hours that may not have the complete knowledge on how to access the forums and post in the courthouse. 

I had been casing the joint, which in this case was his apartment, for a good 10 minutes. I knew who lived there and I knew that he was into some shady business because the cops had <randomly> breached his door because they were searching for a mechanic and thought he lived there. They thought it was funny that it actually opened because it meant this person had a search/arrest warrant. They went in only to find guns and what seemed to be a weed operation out of one of the small rooms. An exchange of fire occurred, the individual managed to escape with several officers in pursuit on foot and eventually knocking him down. I took this opportunity to then go and enter the property, take the marijuana pots and move them across the hallway until the situation outside cooled down and would be relatively safe to bring them out and into my trunk.

The situation took a while to diffuse outside and so by the time I was taking the pots outside, I had already harvested them. I took 4/5 of them out and put them in the trunk but as I went up to grab the fifth one it seems that he had noticed them being missing in his apartment after returning and immediately must've seen the last one across the hall through the open door. I go back up the stairs to see him walking back into his room with his pot and I take a bold move and move in behind him into the room and get him under FearRP to have him back up into his room and face the wall. I grab the pot and run back down, throw it in the back of my car and hear the loading of ammunition before I speed off and around a corner. I see an unmarked unit parked on the side of the road and quickly tell him that I thought I heard someone loading a weapon back in that apartment, which had been a previous crime scene and the owner being someone they had been in previous encounters with. I had proceeded to move along thinking the police would take care of the situation, but found myself being quite surprised at the next intersection as I waited at a red light. The individual which I had just robbed had managed to catch me at a vulnerable position. I was waiting at the light only to be rammed from behind! My car spun around and smacked into the nearest intersection light before I was met with a wave of bullets from what I obviously knew was the man that I just robbed.

This was fair, I should've taken more precautions and I certainly shouldn't have been waiting at a red light in a nearly empty city. I spawn back in to see the individual park his car and proceed to run into the apartments to presumably check if there were any more pots in the apartment I had used temporarily. He likely discovered that they were missing and I saw him bolt back outside to go back to check my car that was left unlocked and oddly placed in the middle of an intersection. He jumps into the unlocked car and heads down a street, though at this time a nearby police officer put his lights on behind him for an <unknown> reason... though I assume it was because of my previous encounter with the unmarked unit and the information that I provided about an armed gunman, which had led to a BOLO being placed. Out of OOC curiosity, I followed the situation down the road and used a camera to see it unfold. I only saw what I would've expected any person in that situation to have done. The individual in the stolen vehicle, with the pots in the back and a fully equipped SMG, had taken the cop out. I'd likely do the same thing in that situation to avoid a call being placed and several units being put on your tail.

I'm writing this out because I don't necessarily know what the individual had said when TP'd, but I just would like to say that being directly involved in this situation and having knowledge of the context of the situation - it does not seem like it would be a violation of Rule 13.3 nor did he lack proper background role-play.

He wasn't stealing a car just because he could. I don't believe you have to run a chop-shop to steal cars and I think his reasoning was more strategic. He was headed out of town, presumably to dump the car considering it was tied to a recent murder of his that had been done nearly right in front of his residence. As to the second count of him supposedly stealing a car, I can personally attest that this did not occur. It seemed like he had wanted to loot the cop car as I saw him with his lockpick in front of the cop car for 'X' amount of seconds before jumping back into my car and starting to head off out of town before being teleported away and swiftly banned.

Evidence:
Primary witness and victim.
Video supplementary evidence being uploaded.

Robbery: <

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Car Disposal & Traffic Stop: <

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Apologies for no audio // ShadowPlay being dumb - but it does show my involvement and also the events that unfolded.

[Limelight Gaming]

The staff-members have received your unban-request, David Phillips.

It will take a while for it to be reviewed.

[Welker]

Hello,

While I appreciate your effort in writing this appeal, it was unfortunately in vain as shortly after the suspension was applied these events came to my knowledge and I corrected the reasoning behind them.

While Bigz in this situation did steal your vehicle with valid reason, he did not however have proper background or cause for his actions that followed, therefore I kept his ban length the same as he did commit RDM and violations of 13.3 as his new reason states.

13.3, killing & attempting to steal a police officer's vehicle for being pulled over, no supporting background RP

As the user in question had already been confronted about rule breakages not long before the suspension was issued, a 48hr ban seemed fair and I see no reason to lower it. 

@Night

[Night]

Apologies, @"David Phillips"‍ could you please provide a statement from the banned player saying that what's written above is his own words, and not your view of the situation please?

If it is in fact your view, please work with him to get a statement together of his own.

[Nev]

Apologies, @"David Phillips"‍ could you please provide a statement from the banned player saying that what's written above is his own words, and not your view of the situation please?

If it is in fact your view, please work with him to get a statement together of his own.

This is a statement from me, not from the player in question.
It's not a view of the situation as I was there alongside him during these events and was the one murdered and had my car stolen. I am simply providing testimony as I believe it is relevant and supports the notion that this user had full cause to both kill me and steal my vehicle. I have already attempted to contact him via Steam, but then again that might be difficult considering he got his item(s) stolen by me and then was banned shortly after. I have a pending request.

With <12 hours I believe the indiviual had a fairly structured background RP taking into consideration a number of different variables that included previous encounter(s) with law enforcement, effort put into putting together a fully decorated apartment that included detail elements that supported his roles as a criminal and last but not least and most importantly the context surrounding my murder... it just seems like all the puzzle pieces were there and I still believe there is confusion as the evidence and testimony I provide are clearly detailing a far different situation than the one the ban reason makes it out to be. I think it's just a misunderstanding and presumptuous to say that there is no 'Background RP' when you are not involved in the RP as a staff member, you know? You're not a witness to the events that unfolded nor see character actions, communications over voice, etcetera. It's something you can't just say doesn't exist. 

The video(s) I provided gives you insight into the events that I detailed in the OP // showing the situation play out and how he likely had cause to kill the officer because of the entirety of the situation. It wasn't just a simple traffic stop for speeding. Clearly they knew something and he was clearly in a very problematic position that would not have gone in his favor.

I am all for enforcing rules here but in this case I believe it was done to someone that I believe is innocent of any rule breaks and someone that, even though I myself was a victim of theirs, had witnessed some decent RP from a fairly low-hour player. 

@Night

[Night]

Which is fair enough, but the banned player should make a statement of their own. If you were involved in the situation, you can provide your statement separately to his.

[Welker]

Like I said, while your involvement was initially part of the suspension, upon further investigation it was deemed his killing & theft of your vehicle was valid, dubious as it was (Theft part). 

I updated the suspension reason accordingly a few minutes after the initial ban as you can see, however the killing of the police officer and attempted theft of his vehicle was not valid. Realistically you have little involvement in the overall case. 

The initial reasoning was a mistake on my part and had that been the only part of the situation I would have removed the ban and contacted the user ASAP, but it was not.

As the user had committed RDM & violations of 13.3 without your involvement, I strongly believe a 48 hour ban was more than fair given the user had already been warned about rule violations by both @Decay and myself in the hour before suspension.

Edit: There were no pots in the trunk, after you were shot out of your vehicle the suspended user approached your vehicle, destroyed the pots and stole your vehicle. Perhaps should have mentioned this earlier.

[Nev]

I updated the suspension reason accordingly a few minutes after the initial ban as you can see, however the killing of the police officer and attempted theft of his vehicle was not valid. Realistically you have little involvement in the overall case. 

Edit: There were no pots in the trunk, after you were shot out of your vehicle the suspended user approached your vehicle, destroyed the pots and stole your vehicle. Perhaps should have mentioned this earlier.

My testimony was more or less to provide information surrounding the context of the situation as you yourself were not present for these events that had led up to the incident you had involved yourself in. My concern with this punishment isn't over an interpretation of the rules but rather the fact that you were addressing something without taking into consideration the situations that unfolded prior to it. 

The context or RP Background is something that is extremely important to this incident and the statement that the individual had none is inaccurate/false. My testimony and evidence had shown/described the fact that this was someone RP'ing in a criminal role, conducting criminal business (weed) and was someone that ended up being involved in a valid murder. 

Take a step back from focusing just on that incident that occurred where the police officer was killed during a traffic stop and let's take a look at the bigger picture here because that's what administration is about. My issue with the punishment was that you only looked at the traffic stop as a traffic stop. I'd understand if this was something clean and simple. However, this wasn't a cut and dry case where someone had an insufficient reason to shoot a cop because this wasn't a law-abiding citizen being pulled over for speeding/reckless driving/etcetera. The surrounding context is more complicated than that, obviously. 

This was an armed criminal that was previously involved with previous shootings with law enforcement and most recently the murder of another criminal that ended up being myself. He parks his car, runs back to grab mine to presumably take out of town and dump. He's flagged down by a unit passing by who then starts to follow with lights on. Why is this? This is because of the report I made about someone being armed in the apartment that I had robbed, which triggered the BOLO and multiple units were out looking for this person along with sending alerts to the general public. 

Imagine you yourself were in a position where you were known by the police as engaging in criminal behaviour, had just been involved in the murder of someone and were in the process of taking their car out of town before being signalled to pull over. Let's also remember that he knew that police were looking for an armed gunman as right before he took off there were a series of police alerts. What would you do? It's not completely out of bounds for him to have made that decision because this isn't an RP server where you have to put yourself in a position to lose. He doesn't have to put himself in a position where he is going to get pulled out of the car at gunpoint, nor does he have to wait until a cop shoots at him before being able to shoot back himself. To insinuate that it was RDM is to ignore the entirety of what the character had been involved with prior to the incident and this in itself is a scary idea that I think would set a damaging precedent for AggressiveRP. To then go and make the claim that it was also a violation of 13.3 is inaccurate based on the evidence provided that showed him not actually steal the police vehicle but instead jump back into mine and take off (before being pulled away) and to just clear the air it should be implied that to steal a car you don't actually need to have a chop-shop. Not every person stealing a car is running an operation where they're stealing tires and taking parts and to make that judgement is making the assertion that this is the only case you can do that. 13.3 is simply making the assertion that in cases where you are repeatedly stealing vehicles - you should have some form of physical operation set in place. This isn't the case in this incident as video evidence I provided showed him not actually stealing the car but rather seeming to attempt to use the loot function (?) as the alarm did not trigger nor did he even enter that car.

I understand it is odd for me to be so defensive in this case, especially as the victim, but I tend to take a stand when I believe something unfair/incorrect has occurred. RP Background is simply something that is hard to assess and I certainly don't blame you for not knowing the entire situation because you were obviously not present for the events in their entirety and didn't have a full knowledge of what his character had done leading up to the traffic stop. But to jump the gun and say there wasn't a reason is concerning as it puts me and many others in a position of uncertainty as to what constitutes 'reason' and whether those that engage in criminal/aggressive oriented role-plays need to create a paper-trail of OOC information that provides staff members with the necessary information to gauge if there was background to support a character's actions. 

There are things you just can't easily interpret from your perspective. You don't have an ability to review communication between individuals over voice, you don't have logs on when someone pulls a gun out and threatens you (unless they use chat) and it is confusing and time-consuming when you have to look back over a long period of time to make an assessment on whether or not the background existed. Does that make sense?

TL;DR - I don't think I have little relation to the case seeing as I am providing information that supports the claim that this person did, in fact, have RP Background and cause to kill the officer. The evidence I provided disputes the claim that the user had even attempted to steal the police vehicle as the alarm did not trigger and he had instead jumped back into my vehicle to leave.

[Night]

Without statement from the originally banned user, this appeal will be denied.

[Nev]

Without statement from the originally banned user, this appeal will be denied.

It seems like a moot point to have to require a statement from him considering my testimony provided insight into the RP Background that this individual had // negating the current notion that there wasn't any proper reasoning behind why he acted the way he did. 

My video evidence showed that the user did not, in fact, steal the police vehicle. Not sure why this was listed on the reason.

Out of curiosity, can you provide me with a reason why this isn't good enough? Why is a statement needed from him when what I have provided gives a detailed summary of the events? If you can post a BR on someone that shows clear rule-breakage, you can issue a ban without question and without the need for them to provide their side of the story in the courthouse. Why should it be any different when it is the other way around and instead you are putting forward an UBR that clearly shows the ban to be incorrect. Is this something that's an unwritten rule, or is there something that establishes this as protocol. Upon searching the forum rules and courthouse-specific procedures there is no mention of an inability to post on behalf of someone else.

Unfortunately, the user in question had blocked me after our encounter, which involved me robbing him, so I have requested a friend to send him a request. If you feel the need to close this because the testimony provided does not seem sufficient // I cannot stop you from doing that.

[Welker]

Without statement from the originally banned user, this appeal will be denied.

It seems like a moot point to have to require a statement from him considering my testimony provided insight into the RP Background that this individual had // negating the current notion that there wasn't any proper reasoning behind why he acted the way he did. 

My video evidence showed that the user did not, in fact, steal the police vehicle. Not sure why this was listed on the reason.

The user involved was using a lockpick on the vehicle and decided to leave for reasons stated below.

Original reason

13.3, stealing one vehicle & attempting to steal a second in the process with no reason or background RP.

Updated reason

13.3, killing & attempting to steal a police officer's vehicle for being pulled over, no supporting background RP

When I pulled Bigz into the sit he stated he was moving your car and coming back the police one, or something along those lines. Hence why it is attempting to steal a police vehicle. It is not a case of thought crime or intentions, he did start lockpicking the vehicle and as admitted was stealing the vehicle, I intervened before it could happen. This does not nullify the rule breakages in my opinion. 

As you can see above, this part of the reasoning never changed. I only changed the reasoning regarding your situation and this was done a few minutes after the suspension was applied, not when the appeal was posted. 

Out of curiosity, can you provide me with a reason why this isn't good enough? Why is a statement needed from him when what I have provided gives a detailed summary of the events? If you can post a BR on someone that shows clear rule-breakage, you can issue a ban without question and without the need for them to provide their side of the story in the courthouse. Why should it be any different when it is the other way around and instead you are putting forward an UBR that clearly shows the ban to be incorrect. Is this something that's an unwritten rule, or is there something that establishes this as protocol. Upon searching the forum rules and courthouse-specific procedures there is no mention of an inability to post on behalf of someone else.

Unfortunately, the user in question had blocked me after our encounter, which involved me robbing him, so I have requested a friend to send him a request. If you feel the need to close this because the testimony provided does not seem sufficient // I cannot stop you from doing that.

The only thing I see from the evidence provided is your NLR breakage by following the person that killed you for such a long distance. 

As my closing statements as I have nothing else to add;

While I made a minor mistake within the original reasoning of the suspension and had that been the only part of it, I would have removed the ban as he did not steal your vehicle without a reason.

However this was not the only rule breakage and the user was warned twice about rule breakages within the hour and committed another 2 serious violations by killing the police officer who he did not know was even pulling him over and attempting to steal his vehicle without cause. This has all been discussed and admitted upon within the sit.

[Night]

Without statement from the originally banned user, this appeal will be denied.

It seems like a moot point to have to require a statement from him considering my testimony provided insight into the RP Background that this individual had // negating the current notion that there wasn't any proper reasoning behind why he acted the way he did. 

My video evidence showed that the user did not, in fact, steal the police vehicle. Not sure why this was listed on the reason.

Out of curiosity, can you provide me with a reason why this isn't good enough? Why is a statement needed from him when what I have provided gives a detailed summary of the events? If you can post a BR on someone that shows clear rule-breakage, you can issue a ban without question and without the need for them to provide their side of the story in the courthouse. Why should it be any different when it is the other way around and instead you are putting forward an UBR that clearly shows the ban to be incorrect. Is this something that's an unwritten rule, or is there something that establishes this as protocol. Upon searching the forum rules and courthouse-specific procedures there is no mention of an inability to post on behalf of someone else.

Unfortunately, the user in question had blocked me after our encounter, which involved me robbing him, so I have requested a friend to send him a request. If you feel the need to close this because the testimony provided does not seem sufficient // I cannot stop you from doing that.

I assume you haven't read appeals rule 2 then.

Appeals must be posted by the person appealing. If you are unable to post due to a forum ban or another valid reason, you may ask a player or member of staff to post on your behalf. If you are posting on someone else's behalf, state at the top of your post that you are posting this on behalf of <name> and provide a screenshot to prove that they asked you to post on their behalf. The appeal needs to be written by the person appealing, and copy-pasted by the spokesperson. A staff member may request similar evidence in subsequent posts and replies if they see fit (to ensure that this rule is enforced).

It isn't a moot point at all, I need to consider what the person banned viewed this situation as. Not you. You may be involved but you'd be best getting a statement from the accused and then writing your own opinion separately as mentioned prior to clearly differentiate the two. Many other players with less than 12 hours of playtime have appealed suspensions in the courthouse both successfully and unsuccessfully, and I'm sorry to say that I won't make an exception in the case of this one player. As Welker states, the ban reasoning was corrected upon learning a bit more, and I'm satisfied that was the correct action to take. Ban will remain as issued by Welker, appeal denied.

In the future, keep this in mind please.

Denied.