hypothetically speaking, what are you "legally" able to do to stop someone from r{keying your car}r? (ontario, canada)

if you approach your car and see someone doing the deed, confront him and he starts running, can you physically restrain him? can you ****** the keys out of his hands and hold them till the cops come?

i make an effort to park my car as far away as possible from other cars when in public lots. this avoids idiots from dinging my door. but it also has the side effect of making the car stand out more to people who like to maliciously destroy other people's property.

i was walking out of the bank today and saw 2 sketchy looking guys ~19-21 y.o. walking around my car, checking it out. this made me nervous so i walk faster towards them. i didn't make a peep so i can catch them in the act and maybe lay some hurt on them. but one noticed me coming towards them and said something to his buddy. both immediately start walking away. i noticed one guy holding a pair of keys.

now i don't know if they were checking out the car, planning to key it, or steal it. i assume the latter 2 because they wouldn't have ran away. i checked my car and no visible damage. god damn

 

I dunno if you are legally allowed to restrain the person. The best thing to do might be use your camera phone (assuming you have one) sneak up and record a video of the person doing the deed first before you confront the person. And later if the person runs away, you can give the recorded video to police. Although if you give the video to the police, not sure how easy it is for them to catch the same guy with just a blurry cell phone recorded video.

 

I would hit them with a bat or whatever blunt object I could find. I don't really care. If they're going to damage my car, I'm going to damage their face.

 

I'm pretty sure this is a win/lose situation. You win by making sure the person who keyed your car doesn't get away and is held responsible for the crime they committed. You lose by facing battery/assault charges, and if you go way overboard, attempted murder maybe?

 

I would lay a world of pain on them. But that's just me. What are they going to do, call the police and say that you beat the living hell out of them for keying your car? Most kids would take the beating coming to them and keep their mouths shut; they don't want any more trouble brought into the situation. Most kids are not going to think about lawsuits. Unless maybe you live in Southern California where their rich mommies and daddies talk them into it. Americans have become afraid to even protect their own property. This line of thinking wouldn't happen in other countries or here for that matter 50 yrs ago. In other countries someone may lose their hand for doing this or be beaten by a mob. Everyone here is too afraid to do anything, for fear of being prosecuted or sued. This will ultimately lead to the demise of our great country. Police officers are losing their jobs for "racial profiling" even when they work in an area that is predominantly one race. Airport security isn't allowed to profile certain groups of individuals for inspections, even when traveling from known terrorist haven countries. Sorry about the rant, but this type of stuff really bothers me.

 

Its personal property I say do what it take to get them to pay for what they did to your ride. If you catch them in the act. someone scratched my hood not deep but steal those dam jealous people. luck for them i didn't see who it was.

 

I dont think its illegal to restrain someone who commited a crime. But you cannot physically hurt them.

 

A few things, if there are 2 guys doing it, you might get jumped 2 against one. I would say this if it 1 guy and you see him doing it, you can physically stop him from doing it, sure it is protection of property, the law for the most part is use enough force to stop the act. If you decide to lay a beat down then the tables can be turned and you can get into trouble.

 

Although you shouldn't go overboard by punching them in the face or crushing their skulls, i do believe that disabling them by snapping or bruising their wrists so that they can no longer key your car, should be allowed. But like many have already implied in this thread, the law will keep you from giving F#@!%$ what they deserve.

 

yea, its a tough situation. i knew a guy who confronted this huge dude who was keying his car, and the guy just didnt care, and instead kicked his door rite in front of him, and walked away. it was at a parking lot with no cameras, and the guy was three times his size, so there was nothing he could do at the time, and cops didnt have anything to go on. that was a bmw tho, not an evo

 

Start carrying a sword in your car.

 

Knee-cap them. An old Irish custom.

 

damn canadian kids!

 

This could work. A friend of mine used to keep a samurai sword in his trunk. The perp will never see it coming.

 

Depending on how much free time ya got, you can always follow them until you see them get in a car or go to their house. Who knows, while following them you might run into a cop that can help.