The scene described by Pat Gault in his recent commentary — a person from a local business deliberately soaking an unconscious woman on the sidewalk with water — meets the legal definition of assault. In addition, as Gault pointed out, it exposed the woman to possible hypothermia.
The business may have a legitimate grievance against homeless people in general, but they still had no right to do to this helpless woman something that a conscious victim would have, and should have, called the police about. Should we understand from the business’s complaints about the city that the Anchorage Safety Patrol is no longer functional?
— Dan Weber
Anchorage
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