Talk:Ronald Ebens

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I think it was Robert Nitz who was a laid off autoworker. I think Ronald Ebens (the punk) was still employed at Chrysler Lynch Road Assembly as a Foreman. Ronald Ebens was fired after his conviction due to a clause where a felony conviction is not allowed. jbutera 09:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

there was no 5th amendment ruling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.174.191.14 (talk) 09:31, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

August 29, 2007

I've done significant work to this page to make it NPOV and worthy of its own merits outside of the Vincent Chin case. I know that my referencing is incomplete, and appreciate any help in bringing it up to Wikipedia's standards and keeping material from being deleted due to being insufficiently documented.

PLEASE do not let people slip in comments like: laid off auto worker, racist, lenient, extremely, skipped town on the settlement, etc. (Did you notice he was born on Devil's Night?). It's simply not true and now that I've referenced the article, it is vandalism.

I described the fight from Ebens' POV, told in Who Killed Vincent Chin? and the Moore interview, with only slight mention of specific racial remarks. This includes the intentional omission that Chin did not wield a chair in the fight, meaning that Ebens probably nicked Nitz. A more accusatory tone can be made on the Vincent Chin page, since that is about injustice. This page, to be NPOV, must be about the man who went to trial for murder and was acquitted. Although I'm currently waiting on the Federal trial records for reference, I've perused Third Circuit Court files and have found nothing to be entered into a record of a court of law beyond variants of the F word. That is also probably a factor in Ebens' ultimate acquittal, because it's only more recently that our culture has recognized "you people" as a racist remark, and we can thus understand "you motherfuckers" as being something worse.

Maybe there should be a harsher tone to the civil judgement, but he did respond to the original summons, and expressed an intent, if not the ability to pay.(There's a Freep article from the time, an addendum to the original civil case, and notes in the ACJ archive.) Maybe retribution was contigent on the Chrysler suit, but to say so without documentation is original research.

As a final note, before anybody starts calling me a racist sympathizer, know that those words would be levied at another Asian American from Detroit, Michigan. MMetro 21:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the article should be written from a "Neutral Point Of View," and Ebens' own POV by definition doesn't qualify. We should state each available version of the facts, attributing them to their sources and giving none of them undue weight. For example, the account of the events that transpired given by the police officers who witnessed the beating should certainly not be left out in favor of basing this article solely on the account given by the man who committed the crime. And we should certainly not use a "more accusatory tone" on the Vincent Chin page, as all Wikipedia pages should be equally neutral.

"This page, to be NPOV, must be about the man who went to trial for murder and was acquitted."

This man was not acquitted of killing Vincent Chin. He was convicted of manslaughter and admits that he beat Chin with a baseball bat in that McDonald's parking lot well after the bar fight had ended. Amillion (talk) 08:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The cops only saw the final attack, and had no knowledge of Chin's instigation in the Fancy Pants parking lot. The fact is, there were only four people with knowledge of all the events that transpired. My only concern is that whatever changes are made carefully cite and accurately document the case. Previous editors did nothing to improve the information in the article, and concentrated solely on adding inaccurate modifications to describe the incident (mainly along the lines of racist laid-off autoworker and lenient judge). In light of Ebens' Federal acquittal, racism was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and the rest of what I removed failed WP:Verifiability. These articles are at a point where editors should be studiously making their edits, because there is enough public record that it can be done without the carelessness of the previous versions. Future edits should be done accurately and as carefully cited as posssible. MMetro (talk) 14:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Ebens: Coward Who Could Not Fight

It was stated during a 1980 interview with Ronald Ebens (Detroit Free Magazine) that the cut on Robert Nitz'z head was caused not by Vincent Chin but by Ronald Ebens swinging the chair and missing Vincent Chin belting his stepson instead. It should be truly noted that Ronald Ebens lacked street fighting skills and acted as a coward as a result of his lack of backbone! JButera 21:38, 16 Sepetember 2007 (UTC)

Just the facts-- the Freep interviewed him in 1980? That was before anything happened.

So if we're talking opinion, anything can happen in a bar fight, and perhaps without the baseball bat, Chin could have been looking at assault charges. I interviewed a teacher who called Vincent a "wiseass", so a little logorrhea and there's two inebriated alpha-males squaring off....

And Ebens didn't miss Chin with the chair. Vincent caught or blocked the chair, meaning the recoil must've gotten Nitz. Perhaps Ebens thought he was going up against a black belt. The testimony at the sentencing was about worrying about Nitz. It doesn't excuse what happened, but calling him a coward is opinion. To truly note opinion would be to obfuscate the facts, presenting an emotional argument with no legal recourse.

I guess that's what happened. MMetro 08:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what school you came from. I lived in Detroit - not East Detroit like the bad Ronald Ebens. As far as I can see from my reading of the case - both Ebens and Nitz got their azz's handed to them. They both lost in a barroom brawl and their egos could not handle their defeat. Why was Ronald so concerned about his stepson with just a minor cut on his head. Did Nitz end up in the hospital?

I knew a guy who setup a jukebox in his junk bar which went out of business faster than he got it going - and he told me that Ronald had the crudest mouth of anyone that he had ever met. For someone to maybe assume that some Chinese kid was a black belt because could not hit his intended target with a chair is a coward at best.

JButera 21:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Self-defense Defined

It seems like maybe this would be a good time to define the term and note that what Ronald Ebens and Robert Nitz did had absolutely no justification and was nothing more than bully tactics.

[Self defense] is defined: A person may use physical force to prevent imminent physical injury; however a person may not use deadly physical force unless that person is in reasonable fear of serious physical injury or death. Most statutes also include a duty to retreat (notable exceptions include Louisiana and Florida: see stand-your-ground law), wherein deadly physical force may only be used if the person acting in self defense is unable to safely retreat.

Words are no justification for fighting and would never stand up in a court of law as reason for an attack. In the Chin case - the moment that Vincent Chin was in flight - from that moment on - Ebens and Nitz were the aggressors and at fault. Any actions that Vincent was involved in the minutes before the beating could not legally justify the outcome in a fair self-defense court of law. There is no such thing as fighting words that will stand up in the courtroom today. Basically you only have the right to deadly force to prevent an attack or to provide yourself with the opportunity to flee to safety. Even if Vincent Chin was a fifth degree black belt when he began to run it was no longer a fight and the aggressors were in the wrong.

The self-defense issue is something that everyone involved in the Vincent Chin case should take into consideration when they try and justify the case as a barroom brawl gone bad. Because a barroom brawl is an illegal activity where the winner is prosecuted most of the time. unless - reasonable force was the only way the victim could flee to safety.

JButera 21:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Self-Defense Not Applicable

I never said that anything in the case was justified self-defense, here or in the article. I know from experience that the winner of the fight gets prosecuted. Until the actual beating with the bat, that person was supposed to be Vincent, unless Ebens words constituted an assault.

I'm just nitpicking on the name-calling. If picking up something to use as a weapon makes someone a coward, then Vincent and his friend Jimmy [US. v. Ebens, 800 F.2d 1422 (U.S. App. 6th Cir. 1986)] were also cowards for picking up a bottle and piece of plywood.

If somebody wants to conclude that Ronald Ebens was a foulmouthed coward after reading an objective account, that's fine by me. Why Ebens thought it was okay to go around calling strangers in a bar "motherfucker" is beyond me. And where was your friend in '80's? The FBI could have used him over the JoJo's incident. That guy did not want to be put on the stand.

The two debatable factors (which would have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt) are premeditation (state) or racial motivation (fed).

Really, Joe, I agree with you, and with evidence, I'm trying to dismiss this myth about them being laid-off autoworkers-- it's an insult to the real men (and women) who made the cars.

I don't know if some preacher's ever told Ebens that Jesus died for his sins, even murder, but that requires contrition. He may have it, but as long as he doesn't make any further good on his 1990 promise to pay the settlement, he's still a liar, especially if he's refusing to make amends, rather than suffering from most people's inability to pay a million dollars. Mmetro 08:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you! The laid off automaker claim was pretty lame since Robert Nitz and his mother were both working in a furniture store at the time and Ronald Ebens still had his job at Lynch Road. Neither men were laid off autoworkers at that time. If Nitz had been laid off prior to working at the furniture store - it was most likely due to Chrysler being bankrupt.

The Vincent Chin verdict caught everyone off guard. No one thought much about it until after the sentence. Everyone thought it was a cut-n-dry case. In my opinion - the major players who got the people up in arms were Bill Bonds of Channel 7 and Mark Scott of WXYT. Those two media figures were angry and passionate about the sentencing. Who could forget Bill Bond's commentary after the sentencing? I remember people at the time were enrolling in martial art classes and getting handgun permits because they felt that if someone did not like you they could beat you to death and get away with it in Wayne County.

Living in the Detroit area you always met people who claimed that they knew the people in this case. A woman I worked with who graduated from Oak Park 1974 stated Vincent Chin was a quiet kid who kept to himself. Another guy said he purchase a bed from Robert Nitz's furniture store and could not believe that Robert was involved in the case because Robert was such a nice young man.

There was a Black Judge (can't remember his name) who came out at that time and stated that the interval of time between the barroom fight and the McDonald's beating was enough for first degree murder charges. In any case - self-defense should not have been even considered in this case considering Vincent was running away at the time.

JButera 21:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Bayles was district judge for the pretrial. Could that be who you're referring to? Nitz was laid off back in 1979-- three years before. I think some legacy on the Vincent Chin article should include the reduced amount of hate crime against Detroit's Middle Eastern community. Not sure if there's citations but people were much more aware of what could happen. MMetro 12:46, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Bayles was the judge. In my opinion, the Vincent Chin, Joanne Was firework's beating, and the Malice Green cases all inflicted damage to Detroit's reputation beyond repair. Personally, I think the Vincent Chin case was the most controversial of the three cases.

JButera 21:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

When was the joanne Was fireworks incident?MMetro 11:49, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Joanne Was was from Farmington or Farmington Hills. She and her friends were downtown for the fireworks and she was jumped by some black twins and stomped. It was recorded on a camcorder and was on the news when it happened. One of the twins got off and the other one was convicted of the beating. This happened in the early 1990's and it was considered a racial incident. It was a contoversial case like the Vincent Chin case only not as publicized. It was tried the same as the defense for the Twins tried to say that Joanne Was instigated the fight by being drunk and loud. The Joanne Was beating case caused a lot of suburban Detroiters to refrain from going downtown for entertainment. This was prior to the casinos. I remember talking to a friend - restaurant owner - in Greektown who talked about how the Greektown business in the area went way down after that incident.

JButera 21:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Send me your email, and we'll talk some more. MMetro 01:39, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Ebensnitz.jpg

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BetacommandBot 06:57, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

JButera

Joe, if you're still watching this page, click on the email this user option from my link or user page and contact me. Got some more Detroit chat I need to ask you about. MMetro (talk) 00:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Who Disappeared?

Why is this article listed in the category Disappeared People? There is no mention in the article of anyone disappearing or going missing.Cottonshirt (talk) 13:56, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Before I looked into his case, the article was a lot more speculative. It was well known that Ebens would never be able to cover the multimillion dollar judgement against him, and even reputable sources like Helen Zia's book were at fault for creating an aura of him "disappearing" to avoid his restitution payments.

In June 2007, I asked Rowland Hwang, president of the American Citizens for Justice, about the efforts to find Ebens, and he replied that they knew "exactly where he is." That answer, unfortunately, is Original Research.

Meanwhile, the case has drawn considerable interest from Asian American studies, which often refer to articles with an attitude that it had to be the manifestation of racism against Detroit's Asian American community. Legally, this could not be proven.

Legally, the settlement left his home and any sort of pensions off limits to any liens.

So people have attributed the outstanding judgement to a disappearance, but that sort of conjecture is also original research (or the lack of it), even if backed by words that have made it to print. But given the sudden nature of disappearances, it is probably Ronald Ebens' responsibility to prove that he has not vanished from the face of the earth. Other people seem to think that he has. MMetro (talk) 14:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Objection to deletion

I removed the deletion tag because when I began my editing on the Vincent Chin articles, they were already two separate biographies. Rather than duplicating the information, which would prove the point of merging/deletion. I separated what I could source to the murder and civil rights trials into the Vincent Chin article, and put the job consequences and the Chrysler unlawful firing suit into Ronald Ebens. As such, simple deletion would remove much unduplicated information, including details like the loss of his stepson and his real estate article (which however minor, is a non-Chin article, negating WP:ONEEVENT), while merger would cause the Vincent Chin article to lose its focus on how it sparked an Asian American movement. Unless someone can masterfully merge the articles together, I feel that the information should remain separated, unless we will look at every Wikipedia article and reach ridiculous conclusions like how US Vice President articles should be merged with US President articles because that person's presidency is the WP:ONEEVENT that the Vice President has become notable for. No, when we can demonstrate knowledge of a person beyond the event, the separate articles efficiently organize data and provide additional nodes for the expansion of Wikipedia. MMetro (talk) 02:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The Ebens article has more notability within it than Nicole Brown Simpson. Its information is entirely within the scope of the murder and OJ trial articles. MMetro (talk) 02:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)