Long and short of it, you should not have approached the guy after you got the mic back. That is the point where you lost the idea of a 'clean shoot' situation. Regardless of what happened after that, if you had gone to your seat and tried to just enjoy the rest of the evening or (even better) left the bar and gone somewhere else the pushing/shoving that set up your sucker punch would not have happened-or would have been because they approached you (in front of witnesses) and you were always 'defending yourself.'MJS said:Yup, it sounds like you got the short end of the stick in this one. Unfortunately in this situation, it turns into a situation where its your word against his. I do feel that you did the right thing by calling the police. The security of the club did nothing to control the situation. I do feel that the cops were very negligent and lazy in the way they took care of the situation. Funny thing is, is that you could have 20 cops and depending on who you talk to really determines the outcome.
One thing that can be learned from this, is to never turn your back on a hostile situation like that. Defiantely keep your eyes on the person until some distance is between you. Not saying that 5 min. later he couldnt have hit you, but most of the times, the sucker punch is going to happen sooner rather than later.
Mike
Wisest option (though hindsight is 20/20 in any case so take this with a grain of salt) was to simply leave when you knew that your own internal status had changed from 'fun karaoke guy' to 'must regain my pride/ego guy' and you walked up to them and invited a confrontation.
Sounds like the owner and the LEO down played it a lot more than you were comfortable with, but maybe they were recognizing that part of the situation where you approached the 'mic idiot.' Lazy? Irresponsible? I don't know wasn't there and only am working from a single perspective account. For the sake of an after action review and the goal of 'lessons learned for next time' all I can do is point out stuff that you can use.
In any situation, there is enough 'blame' to go around, but since no one was hurt badly, no one ended up in jail and the worst damage seems to be to the good old male ego, try and treat this as a "what would I do different next time" lesson so that you can actually make changes about things you are in control of - not the owner, the idiot who took the mic, the LEO or anything else - but yourself.
I can't say that I have been the 'perfect martial artists/self defense citizen' in situations like this either, but looking at it as a whole, the only change you can really make is in yourself in this case.
I am sincerely glad that it didn't result in the guy pulling a gun or you in jail. There is a good chance that had the LEO pressed charges, you would be talking your lawyer and spending way more money than you wanted to - or hearing about the same point in the incident that I mentioned but from a lawyer who is ripping your side of the story apart and getting these guys off - all at the cost of your work/mental stress/money....