"Let's see, you don't understand how staring, in and of itself, is a threat. You don't understand that the WAY a person stares makes it a threat. If you can't understand that, I can not explain it to you. You have no cultural context to 'get it.'"

Not that I am conceding to anything that you are saying about me here, but I would like to point out that, in the above quote, you yourself are in effect conceding the existence of people who innocently, ignorantly, and naively stare at people. People who don't "understand," as you do, that staring is a threat. People who have no "cultural context." People who just don't "get it."

This is all the more reason to presume innocence, until guilt is proven. These people exist, whether you want to acknowledge them or not, and they don't deserve to be incarcerated just because you are taking their stare as a threat.

FYI - I have been "on the business end" of a threatening stare. While I was walking one evening, a man gave me a prolonged, angry look, and kept staring at me for a block and a half. I encountered him again on my way home, and about halfway back (with about 15 or 20 minutes left to walk) realized that he was following me home. Eventually I found an intersection where there were people, stopped, and confronted him. When he got a good look at me, and saw that I was not the person he thought I was, he walked away.

It was very scary, but there was nothing I could do about it. He hadn't broken any laws. Do I still believe in innocence until guilt is proven? ABSOLUTELY.

Also FYI - I have repeatedly stated in my posts on this thread that uninvited contact does qualify as harassment. So no, I don't think that it is OK for men to grab women's breasts or rub up against them without their permission. I just don't think that staring equates to anything like that.

And here I was thinking I was being a bit conciliatory, and that we were actually starting to see where each other was coming from. Jesus, you sure are a piece of work.

So am I not allowed to argue my point based on the facts I know? Am I required to go on a fact finding mission before I speak my mind about anything? Or is it that I am required to take what the police say at face value, at least so long as it assumes that the man is guilty?

I never decreed my eternal wisdom, nor did I ever say that women have no right to go to the police with concerns for their safety. All I ever said was that the police are not obliged to arrest merely on her concern, and in fact are rightfully required to presume innocence until the facts prove otherwise. As far as other things, such as opening a case file and keeping records, or placing an officer on that train, I don't have a problem with that. But I don't want to live in a country where you can be arrested and incarcerated just for staring.

What part of innocent until proven guilty do you not get?

...based on the facts as presented to me, and as I understood them. Those facts were that (A) there was an incident in which he sat "too close for comfort" to her; (B) there was an incident in which he sat in front of her and stared at her the whole time, and (C) it was based on these two incidents that the man was sentenced to incarceration. I argued my point because I believe very strongly in innocence until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and find the notion that wordless staring can be an assumed threat and punished accordingly to be repugnant. As I have repeatedly stated here, I was given no indication that the woman either asked him to stop staring or got up and moved. If she had done either (and, admittedly, it is possible that she did, and it hasn't been reported), then things would be different.

Point taken about Italy, and its culture of political incorrectness, but still, this is the police force we are talking about here. If there were ever an organization that, in general, should not be taken at face value and should be subject to extensive scrutiny and repeated second guesses by the general public, it would be the police.

For the record: I have nothing bad to say about AKA Smith. Admittedly, I haven't read all of her posts here, as I have been busy arguing with others, but I found her responses to my posts to be intelligent, well reasoned, and polite.

"Stare too hard at someone and you WILL get shot at home"

You have done quite a good job of painting a scary picture of "the hood," and made a convincing argument that it is dangerous to stare there. However, you have yet to explain exactly how a stare, by itself, is implicitly a threat. For all the ranting and raving you are doing here, you are actually making the staring party look like the innocent victim here.

The truth is that it is possible to innocently stare at someone, with no malicious intent in mind. Your story about your boyfriend and the guy in the club actually proves this point. A man stared at you. When confronted, he apologized. Violence did not ensue. At the very least, this story fails to prove your point that staring is an implied threat and that imminent violence can be assumed from it. I would decline from citing it in future arguments along these lines. It proves your outrage, but not your point.