A dangerous post

This may come dangerously close to costing me anonymity, but it's such a great story:

I am a defense attorney, in a REALLY REALLY bad, pro-prosecution jurisdiction. I had a case today involving a guy who was charged with, among other things, felony obstruction (involving force or threat) and felony a&b on a leo (law enforcement officer). The officer in question is this 6'7" 270 pound ape (not much exaggeration there either. Nice enough guy, but super-massive corn-fed midwesterner type). The "force" in this case came from a scuffle where ape grabbed my client's hand because it kept going into his pocket (there's a little more after that, but that's the gist of why the grabbing happened). During the scuffle, ape got some scratches on his hand (hence the a&b and felony obstruction). He kept using the term "assisted the defendant to the ground," which is cop-talk, for "I body slammed the mother-fucker."

Ape (I use "ape" as descriptive, not pejorative) and I danced for a while [non-literal re-enactment]:
Me: So you threw him on the ground?
Ape: No, I assisted him to the ground.
Me: You're saying you gently lay him on the ground?
Ape: No, I assisted him to the ground.
Me: Describe that.
Ape: I put my arms around him, brought him around to my side, over my leg and onto the ground.
Me: And then you fell on him?
Ape: No, I assisted him to the ground
[etc., repeat at least 4x]

I've taken martial arts for some time. I was a varsity wrestler. I know what happened here, so finally I got frustrated.

Me: Show me
Ape: What
Me: Demonstrate.
Prosecutor: objection, this is irrelevant.
Me: Judge, they're claiming my guy assaulted him. I'm entitled to show the injuries probably came from "assisting my client to the ground" on an asphalt road.
Judge: I find that it's relevant.

There were some other bits -- I said something like, "I didn't really intend you to use ME as the dummy..."

So, from behind, in the middle of the Courtroom, with a packed gallery, Ape grabbed my right wrist, locked his left arm around me, swung me violently 360 degrees around, levering me over his leg, and fell on top of me on the floor. I'm about 5'8" tall, about 186 pounds (I've lost a lot of muscle mass for lack of time to lift. That will change in a few weeks...)

After we hit the ground I said, "Thank you for proving my point." My client, the Courtroom, everyone, was either giggling uncontrollably, or shocked into silence. That officer will never get away with using the term "assisted to the ground" in that courtroom again.

I then argued that the stop was bad, but that even if that weren't the case, there was no indication of my client attempting to harmfully touch or place the officer in fear of a touch, and therefore no a&b. The prosecutor conceded the point and the a&b went away. There was some argument on the obstruction, which is a poorly written statute, but that one, and some other charges I didn't mention, got certified.

They will talk about that preliminary hearing in that County for decades.