- [Devin] Life in prison for throwing a glitter bomb.
- Wait, what?
I thought you said this was legal.
- No, Mark Rober is probably not going to jail,
but two Florida women have been charged with felony offenses
for allegedly throwing a glitter bomb
at a man inside an apartment complex.
Their arrest made headlines with some announcing
that they faced life in prison for a glitter bomb.
Now while it's theoretically possible
that they could face that kind of a sentence,
they probably won't face anything like that,
but their actions do go well beyond putting some glitter
in an envelope and surprising some porch pirates.
So they do face potential heavy jail time.
And all of this has Twitter wondering
just what are the legal implications
of attacking people with glitter.
Is it illegal to send someone a box of glitter
through the mail?
Can you deal with a would-be thief
by booby trapping a package?
Just how much money does Hobby Lobby make in glitter sales?
And how do we stop Mark Rober?
Today we're talking everything glitter bombs.
(upbeat music)
Glitter bombs became popular about 10 years ago
when some gay rights activists
started throwing glitter bombs in the faces of politicians
who opposed gay marriage.
Some famous people have since been on the receiving end
of a glitter bomb.
For example, in 2012, a Boulder student was arrested
for glitter bombing Mitt Romney
at a Colorado campaign event.
Prosecutors originally charged Peter Smith
with throwing a missile at Romney,
but he pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace,
a lesser charge.
Here while the glitter didn't make much of a visual impact,
if you throw something at a politician,
you should probably expect the Secret Service to tackle you.
Lindsay Lohan was on the receiving end of a glitter bomb
while she was on her way to court.
As you can see, the use of the glitter
looked more like rice or confetti,
and I guess the message was,
"Congratulations on your jail time."
Glitter bombing celebrities and politicians
was all the rage for a couple of years in the early aughts.
This being America, the glitter bomb fad encouraged
a few enterprising souls to turn glitter bombing
into a business.
Websites popped up all over the place
allowing you to send a glitter bomb through the mail.
Just pay 39.99, enter in an address,
and presto, you've just pranked someone.
So, at first glance, this all just seems like harmless fun.
Glitter is a pain in the ass to clean up,
but beyond that, what's the harm?
Amazon even sells something called Unicorn Snot,
which is described as, "Biodegradable holographic
"body glitter gel for body, face, and hair."
So it's safe to say the glitter by itself is annoying,
but probably not dangerous.
But when we consider whether any of this is criminal,
it depends on what you do with it and why.
People have lots of different motivations
for sending a glitter bomb.
They may wanna do it as a prank, a joke,
or even for revenge.
But in some cases, glitter can lead
to serious criminal charges.
It is alleged that the two Florida women in question,
Kaitlin O'Donovan and Sarah Franks,
went to Jacob Colon's apartment
at three o'clock in the morning
to argue with him about something.
We don't know what the argument was about,
but while he stood on the balcony,
the two women through a container of glitter at him,
hitting his head and torso.
Franks then scaled a fence, broke into Colon's apartment,
and threw more glitter at Colon.
When Colon was covered in glitter,
Franks let O'Donovan into the apartment
and she threw yet more containers of glitter at Colon.
Franks then kicked a window until it broke,
and then left the apartment.
"The Smoking Gun" tracked down the arrest affidavits,
which revealed that Colon had called the police
and gave them a description of their car.
Police found the car which was, unsurprisingly,
covered in glitter.
O'Donovan and Franks were charged with felony burglary
and assault and battery.
Franks got an additional charge for criminal mischief.
So while the story is definitely more
than just throwing glitter at someone,
the crux of the argument here
is that they went to someone's apartment
and threw glitter at them.
And so to understand what's going on here,
we have to talk about the law of assault and battery.
Assault and battery are criminal charges,
as well as civil torts.
In the criminal context, a person commits battery
if they intentionally cause a harmful or offensive contact
with another person.
In many jurisdictions, an assault is an attempt
to commit battery.
In other words, any intentional act
that causes another person to fear
that he or she is about to suffer physical harm
would be considered assault,
while the battery requires actual physical conduct
by the person or an extension of that person.
The police report here says that the two women
hit Colon with a flying object, multiple jars of glitter.
If these facts are true, that's potentially battery.
And here the alleged facts suggest
that these acts were intentional
since the women apparently rolled up on Colon's apartment
already armed with several containers of glitter
and then, you know, covered his apartment
and his person with glitter.
It might be hard for them to claim
that they were just headed to his house
in the middle of the night
for an evening of hardcore crafting.
And the police charged both women with burglary,
which in Florida is defined as, "Entering a dwelling,
"a structure, or a conveyance
"with the intent to commit an offense therein."
Okay, so it's not that surprising that under these facts
you can be in big trouble for breaking and entering
into someone's house, assaulting them with glitter,
and breaking a window.
Still though, this is not the kind of situation
where you would expect the perpetrators,
or the alleged perpetrators, to be facing life in prison.
And there's definitely a conversation to be had here
about the carceral state, that we tend to only ratchet
the penalties for crimes up and not down,
and we tend to over-incarcerate people.
This is a large and systemic issue that we face.
But the thing that I wanna talk about today
is a little more lighthearted.
What about all of these other glitter attacks?
How could they possibly be legal?
Well, to answer that question,
let's consider the legal implications
of Mark Rober's holiday package glitter bombs.
Because every December Mark Rober spreads Christmas cheer
by getting back at package thieves.
Honestly, these are some of my favorite videos of the year.
Rober engineer's a glitter bomb inside of a box
that looks like an ordinary package.
Once the porch thief picks up the package and opens the box,
it detonates a glorious spray of glitter
and aerosolized farts.
This is NASA engineering at its finest.
But so far, none of these thieves have sued Rober,
nor has he been arrested.
Doesn't his act, intentionally planting a device
that explodes glitter in someone's face,
meet the traditional definition of battery?
Well, the answer might surprise you.
And to dig into this, let's look at the Texas law
since that's where Mark Rober's original video took place.
And we just talked about assault when someone apprehends
immediate bodily injury or contact,
and battery refers to the actual bodily contact,
whether it's harmful or offensive.
And the Texas statutes tend to mirror
the generalized definition of assault and battery.
Under Texas law, intentionally or knowingly causing
physical contact with another person
when that person should know or reasonably believe
that the other will regard the contact as offensive
or provocative is a misdemeanor crime,
unless committed against a public servant.
So as with most things, we have to start with intent,
because intent is almost always a requirement of the crime.
And here did Rober knowingly cause physical contact
with another person?
Well, it seems like it.
He planted a device that he knew
would cause glitter particles to hit
or almost hit another person or their property.
And while these glitter bombs haven't caused
any physical injury, I'm gonna go out on a limb
and say that being covered in glitter and fart spray
is offensive, or at least provocative.
And if you think it's wrong for a thief
to have any human rights whatsoever
and to be able to complain about anything,
well, you should probably watch my video
on the shotgun booby trap case,
which is based on the very famous case
of Katko versus Briney.
In that case, the Briney family owned
a boarded-up farmhouse in Iowa.
Marvin Katko and his accomplice broke into the building
and stole old bottles and fruit jars.
The Brineys posted "No trespassing" signs,
but the burglaries continued.
That's when Edward Briney decided to take matters
into his own hands
and he mounted a 20-gauge spring-loaded shotgun
in a farmhouse and rigged it to fire
when the bedroom door was opened.
The bedroom window was also covered with steel.
In 1967, Katko and his accomplice broke into the farmhouse,
and this time Katko went into the bedroom,
tripping the trigger wire, the gun fired into his right leg,
blowing away most of his tibia.
And while Katko was convicted of burglary,
after serving his time, he sued the Briney family
for assault and battery.
In 1971, the Iowa Supreme Court decided the case,
and the Supreme Court found that the rule of law
to be applied was this:
"One may use reasonable force to protect property
"but may not use a means of force that will take you in life
"or inflict great bodily harm.
"The fact that a trespasser may be acting
"in violation of the law would not change the rule,
"and the only time the setting of a spring gun is justified
"is if a trespasser is committing a felony of violence
"or one punishable by death,
"or where a trespasser is endangering
"human life by his act."
And so a jury awarded Katko $20,000 for actual damages,
plus another $10,000 in punitive damages.
And remember, this was the 1960s,
so that was quite a lot of money.
So it's probably an open and shut case
against Mark Rober, right?
Well, probably wrong.
That's because unlike a shotgun booby trap,
a glitter bomb package isn't going to kill
or seriously injure anyone.
Under Texas law, a person who was accused
of committing a battery can avoid liability
if the act in question was committed
in defense of their property,
if the act was reasonable and not lethal.
Rober's glitter bomb is not at all like a shotgun
mounted to a bed set to kill an intruder.
Under Texas self-defense law,
you're not permitted to use deadly force
to protect your property.
However, you can use non-lethal and reasonable force
to protect your property from thieves and trespassers.
So it's a good thing the glitter bomb is just glitter
and fart spray because if he sprayed the person with acid
or bleach or rigged a package to fire a weapon,
explode, or release a pit of vipers,
that probably would not be justified.
It would also be a lot less entertaining
to watch on YouTube.
One might make an analogy to anti-climb paint.
Anti-climb paint is slippery
and prevents someone from climbing a wall.
Now I'm only covering one of the many potential defenses
for Mark Rober here.
There are, I think, a bunch of others as well.
But the main thing is that Mark didn't climb
into some innocent person's house,
break in, and start throwing glitter and fart spray.
In the eyes of the law, Mark Rober is not a criminal.
At least about that.
(suspenseful music)
If only we could talk to Mark Rober
to find out what he was thinking.
- Okay, you gotta help me out here.
You gotta clear my name.
Who else is gonna glitter bomb these thieves?
- Mark, I told you not to use the snakes.
(cheerful music)
All right, the man himself, Mark Rober.
Thanks so much for joining today.
- Good to be here.
Let's get to the bottom of this.
- Out of curiosity, at this point,
how much glitter and fart spray
do you think you've gone through?
- Like, what metric?
Like, by pounds or by like number of boxes?
- Well, I mean, you know, you're a NASA engineer,
so, you know, kilograms probably more than pounds.
- We gotta stick with freedom unit.
(Devin chuckling)
We're talking probably like 44 pounds of glitter,
so that's like 20 kilograms, give or take, of,
don't quote me on that, ish kilograms of glitter.
And I would say probably we've gotten like 50 boxes stolen
or something at this point.
- And I know that you've gotten law enforcement involved,
both in the porch thieves
and on tracking down some honest to goodness scammers
who were taking advantage of, you know,
sometimes the elderly.
Has anything come from that coordination
with law enforcement?
- So we've literally had like the Department of Justice,
like FBI, Homeland Security, Scotland Yard, Interpol,
like all of them at some point
in some capacity have reached out,
including I think it was like Microsoft's fraud team,
like companies as well.
We will just give them our information.
We're just like, "Here you go.
"Do with it what you want."
They generally don't follow back with us
and say what happened, for whatever reason.
It's not necessarily a two-way street.
If we're looking with like local jurisdictions,
like this year, we're gonna work with San Francisco PD
and kind of tackle the car,
people smashing and grabbing cars and like stuff from cars.
So we're working more like that,
than there is more back and forth.
But otherwise we just kind of just give them all the data
and let them do with it what they will.
They have told us they like what we're doing,
A, because it's like we do stuff technically
that they just don't have the resources
or ability to do in their department.
But B, we can get away with stuff that they can't do
because we're like private citizens, I guess.
But somehow they could use that information.
So it's like in certain cases, they be like,
"No, we love what you're doing.
"Please keep doing it."
For whatever reason, they're either legally
or constrained from a resource standpoint can't do it.
So they love when we feed them whatever we get.
- Yeah, well, I mean, that's a great example.
You know, the police are bound by the Constitution.
- Pfft! Lame!
- (chuckles) Yeah, theoretically.
Theoretically, they should be bound by the Constitution,
and, you know, you get people saying,
"Oh, that infringes on my First amendment rights,"
when it doesn't actually involve the government,
and the First Amendment doesn't apply to anything
but the government.
You are a private citizen, so there are rules
that define what the government can do with information
that's created by private citizens.
Mark, I noticed that a lot of the people in your videos
have blurred faces.
Is there a particular reason why you do that?
- We might as well just state it on your channel.
I put this in the description sometimes,
but basically if someone doesn't sign a release,
their face is then blurred.
And I don't wanna ruin anyone's life
over like a stupid decision to like steal a package.
So by default, faces are blurred.
If you see a face that's not blurred,
that's because they signed a release
and we went back later and said,
"Hey, will you sign a release
"so I can put this in a dumb video?"
And they've signed it.
- Are you able to prevent future package thieves?
- It's kind of a case by case basis.
There's one two years ago,
these two college students took it
and they were hilarious.
I didn't end up turning their footage
to the police or anything, but then Discovery Channel...
We were doing something,
so the Discovered Channel tracked them down
and then I interviewed them, and I asked them, like,
"So have you guys stolen any packages since?"
And they're like, "Oh man, I got in so much trouble
"from my mom and my grandma."
And then they're like, you know, someone else,
a package came to their house accidentally,
just shipped to the wrong address, and he's like,
"I frigging personally walked that thing to Georgia
"where it actually was supposed to deliver it to."
'Cause it's like, I didn't want anything to do with this.
He's like, "I'm just gonna go through hell or high water
"to make sure it got to the right person."
So I was like, "Oh, well, my job is done here," you know?
I think they learned their lesson.
- Well, Mark, if Batman had a YouTube channel,
I think he would aspire to do exactly what you're doing.
I think you're doing really good work.
My final question for you is if Mark Rober found himself
in jail, how would he engineer his way out of imprisonment?
- (laughs) Oh man.
I mean, what kind of jail is it?
I gotta know like what the weaknesses are, right?
Usually those things come down
to a little bit of like combination of social engineering.
You kind of got to observe, know when the guards go on rest,
make friends with the guard, you know?
It depends on how long the jail sentence was,
because also I'm not gonna like break out
if that gives me like 20 more years.
So you've got to balance it all.
But yeah--
- Let's say you're wrongfully imprisoned for life.
You are a completely innocent man,
but you have no hope of parole and you're in Alcatraz.
How does Mark Rober Mark Rober his way out of Alcatraz?
- Yeah, I'm going El Chapo, baby.
I'm digging a tunnel.
I'll invent a machine
that's like the fastest digging tunnel machine,
and that's how I'm getting out, I think.
I'm calling it right now.
- Maybe there's a collaboration with Colin Furze
in digging a tunnel out of jail.
- Good point.
I feel like I'm on Colin's grass here on this one.
All right, well, if I get one phone call from jail,
you know who it's going to now.
Sorry, Mom, I'm calling Colin.
- [Colin] Oh, you got a lot of tidying up to do here, Furze.
You got a lot of tidying up.
- All right, well, thanks for the call.
And by the way, thanks for being a lawyer
and you making me sleep a little bit better at night.
Sometimes it's a little sketchy with these things,
so knowing a lawyer of your caliber has looked at this
and cleared my name, it means I can rest a little easier
and there's a higher probability we'll do glitter bomb 5.0
and six and seven, and who knows where I'll be at
when it gets to glitter bomb 10.0.
But now if I ever get sued, I'm just sending them your way.
You're my representation at this point, so thank you.
- Thanks so much for joining, Mark.
I'll send you my engagement letter
and you can send me a retainer.
Now, that being said, I'm not saying that you should all try
to emulate Mark Rober's glitter boxes here.
These bait packages are works of clever engineering
that take great care not to hurt anyone.
And since most of you are not former NASA engineers,
you might screw this up.
And as a reminder, as always, this is not legal advice.
I am not your lawyer, and if you get in trouble,
I am not coming to court to bail you out again.
Now that said, this video isn't over.
My whole interview with Mark Rober is way longer
and we go into a ton of depth.
- Literally this year, it was like twice as hard
to get a package stolen.
We're kind of Batmaning our way
to like decreasing porch pirates.
- Did you ever consider something a little stronger
than glitter and fart spray,
like explosives or ninja stars or venomous snakes?
- I want a little bit of retribution
and I want a little bit of deterrence.
- The whole 20 minute interview is part
of an extended version of this video over at Nebula
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