Street fights

Street fighting is a term used to denote spontaneous , hand-to-hand fighting in public places . This violence isusually intended to result in injury and submission but not death (although death mayinadvertently occur). It often results from a dispute and can stem from groupassociation, harassment , or bullying . Violent incidents involving firearms are not usually calledstreet fights.

Other forms of violence that are not usually called street fighting are domestic violence , riots , war ,and terrorism .

Street fights fall into two major categories: individual street fights, between individuals or small groups of people, and factional street fights, between two or more large groups ofpeople.

Individual street fights

Individual street fighting is distinct from sport fighting and duels because the latter are normally conductedaccording to some pre-arranged format, usually including some sort of rules . The distinction is not simple, since street fighting may be conducted according to an informal code of honor , but in streetfighting such a code would be understood rather than explicitly agreed upon. In societies where dueling was common (and in those that still practise it today, such as the Philippines ) many of the circumstances that would otherwise lead to an individual street fight lead to duelsinstead.

Individual street fighting is very often discussed in martial arts classes, often called self-defense , as a real-world application of thetechniques taught in the class. Most such discussions do not discuss the psychological factors involved in a street fight, nor dothey significantly discuss avoidance of fighting.

Individual street fighting can arise in many ways, and different cultures are subject to different forms of street fighting.The causes of a street fight are almost always mixed, but certain factors often lead to problems.

Drunkenness

The most common factor in street fights is drunkenness and other forms of intoxication . With alcohol orother drugs impairing their judgement, people, ususally male, are more likely to get into aheated argument which leads to violence. Most nightclubs have staff called bouncers whose job is to remove people who are causing this sort of problem. Ofcourse, when drunk people spill out of nightclubs, the bouncers do not follow.

Prejudice

It is unfortunately very common for humans to hate what they see as different, and this can lead to violence. The most commondifferences are

• race ,
• sexual orientation (often gay bashing ),
• religion ,
• gender identity (for women and transgendered people),
• nationality , and
• social class .

Other differences, such as preferred sports team (for example, the Byzantine chariot races leading to the Nikariots and the Canadian ice hockey teams) have led to conflict as well.Under some legal systems, violence caused by some of these motivations gets special legal treatment as hate crimes .

All these causes can also lead to much larger-scale conflict, such as raceriots , ethnic cleansing , pogroms , and the Holocaust .

Money

For centuries, thieves have been accosting travellers and demanding their money. Thisis now usually called mugging . Normally, if the victim hands over their money, noviolence occurs. However, if the victim resists or frightens the thief or thieves, a fight may occur. Generally things go poorlyfor the victim, as thieves select only victims they are fairly confident they can defeat if necessary, either because the thievesare larger, stronger, more heavily armed, or more numerous than the victim.

Sexual assault

While rare, it does occur that one or more attackers will attempt sexualassault on a victim in a public place (most sexual assaults are by acquaintances of the victim; see date rape , a much more common problem). If the victim attempts to fight (rather than submit or flee) astreet fight may break out; as above, attackers will usually not attack unless confident of success.

Organized crime

Individuals involved in organized crime are more likely to beembroiled in street fights, as these organizations often resort to violence to control their own members and to keep each otherin check. This includes members of gangs , drug dealers , prostitutes , gamblers , and other people in illegal or quasi-legal occupations.

Factional street fighting

Factional street figthing differs from war in that governments are not usually involved,modern weapons and soldiers are notinvolved, and the intent is not usually to kill. It differs from rioting because there aretwo major factions more interested in attacking each other than destroying property. Of course, this becomes a subtle point when police are sent out to quell the riot, especially if the riot was a political protest .

A riot is different than a political street fight in that usually a riot is a one sidedexpression of violence by a group against property, individuals or small groups of individuals (often of a different race,nationality or social class ), or the police, although combat betweenrioters and the police can also be termed street fighting if firearms are not used.

The same factors that cause individual street fights aggravate and trigger factional street fights, but for factions to form,some underlying tension in the society must erupt.

Prejudice

Street fights can arise when the police are sent out to monitor a peacefuldemonstration and police prejudice leads to violence between police and protesters. They can also arise between factions - Jews and neo-nazis , for example. Otherhistorical examples include race riots (such as the Zoot Suit Riots ) and the Stonewall riot (in which sexualorientation and gender were issues).

Political Confrontation

Although sometimes described as rioting , a political street fight is a physicalconfrontation between supporters of opposing political organizations or ideas which takes place in public. They are usuallyunorganised or semi-organised and are either completely spontaneous or result from conflict between rival demonstrations and counterdemonstrations .

During the 1930s there were numerous street fights between large crowds of fascists and anti-fascists (particularly socialists or communists ). The Battle of Cable Street was one such confrontation that occurredin the East End of London in 1936 when Oswald Mosley 's British Union of Fascists attempted to march through a Jewish district of London and were stopped by large crowds of Jews and leftists. In Toronto,the Christie Pit Riot in 1933 broke out during a baseball game in a public park when an anti-Semitic youth group unfurled a swastika banner at a game between a Jewish team and a Christian team. Street fights between Nazis and Communists were common in Germany prior to Hitler 'sconsolidation of power.

In recent years street fighting has resulted from large scale confrontations between thousands of police and protesters,particularly at anti-globalization protests such as in Seattle in 1999 or Genoa and Quebec City in 2001, or Genoa . These mayinvolve police use of tear gas , pepper spray and even rubber bullets againstprotesters' use hurling of rocks, setting up impromptu barricades , tearing down police barricades, returning lit tear gas canisters, and sometimes using devices such as Molotov cocktails (rare in North America ).

Labour Confrontation

Work disputes may escalate into street fighting when management tries to break a strike by bringing in strike breakers (or "scabs") across picket lines . As well, particularly in thelate nineteenth and early twentieth century, management would sometimes hire "private security forces" (such as Pinkertons' in the United States) or socalled "goons" to harass and physically intimidate picket lines.

Street fights may also occur during widespread labour unrest such as during a general strike . The 1919 WinnipegGeneral Strike resulted in the deputization by a committee of local companies opposed to the strike, of hundreds of men whowere instructed to put down the disturbance at all costs. Street fighting was also a byproduct of the 1934 MinneapolisGeneral Strike which saw confrontations between "workers defense brigades" set up by the Teamsters union and representatives of business owners as well as the police.

The term "street fighting" is sometimes used to describe military combat betweenopposing armies (regular or irregular) within a city as part of a war , civil war or revolution . This form ofcombat is more accurately termed urban warfare .

See also

• self-defense
• domestic violence
• riot
• list of riots
• terrorism