Yeah I've actually represented hundreds of people facing domestic violence charges. All misdemeanors and probably 50% of felonies are just little batteries like pushing, grabbing, throwing something in the other person's direction. The law wanted to crack down on DV, so the scope of what constitutes domestic relationship is very broad, the penalties are much harsher (for misdemeanors, usually a year of DV avoidance classes, higher fines, and additional punishments for priors, not to mention the stigma of being basically labeled a woman beater when in truth, you are not.) I think it's pretty out of line with the reality of human nature. which is that people in close quarters will squabble, and it's rarely a case of one-sided abuse.
From what I can tell, the most likely scenario was that it was some stupid little thing and either the girl got over it and didn't want to press charges (it's not her call whether charges are pressed, but in most misdemeanor cases, the charges will be dropped if the woman won't show up to court) or, to avoid the risk trials inherently bring, he settled for some kind of conditional dismissal where he probably did the classes or some DV program and they dropped the charges.
When I see a guy that big, and I know what I know about how these cases go, I can't believe that his incident was even remotely severe. He barely has to touch someone for it to be assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury. And if he threw any sort of punch or anything like that, she would have an injury that at least merited a felony with GBI.
Saying he's no War Machine, while I agree with the sentiment, is a dramatic understatement. This topic shouldn't even be discussed, and yet it's all we can talk about with him. It's bullshit.
