This news I came across where a professor (Dr. William Burke - funny that there's another William Burke, who passed away, accused of child sexual abuse, who later died in a house fire in 1995) was assaulted by a man (Rodrigo Herzog) who claimed that his wife was sexually harassed by the professor 7 years before. Herzog can be seen in the viral video, grabbing and slapping and making death threats against Burke. When someone shouted "call security", Herzog walked away acting as if he's above the law. Many comments were on Herzog's side. I for one do not agree with Herzog's action. But I write this not because of this news itself, but because a few weeks ago, our church's Thursday Bible study touched on forgiveness and when I questioned about cops asking victims if they wanted to "press charges". Frank, the prosecutor immediately responded that there's no such thing as victim pressing charges, because that's the DA's job to press charges. Frank then gave the example of the murder of a family member, that the surviving family do not get choose to press charges. I think this is a lame example because it's a murder case. There is no question that murder is not the kind of damage that is inflicted only in the victim's family, but the tax paying society as well. A better example to show would have been small crimes like theft, or simple physical assault.
TV shows weren't the only time I've witness a victim given the right to press charges. Pak Tong was faced similar situation when he was victimized in theft and such and he often refused to press charges in order to give the young perpetrators a chance to turn a life around.
One can easily googled discussions about the topic of pressing charges. To my disappointment, most people seemed to be on Frank's side. That the victim do not press charges, the government does that through District Attorneys, and the victims could only opt for "not pressing charges" by not being cooperative in court.
After trying to understand the culture of this, what I gather is that it seems that "pressing charges" and "suing" are interchangeable. "I don't want to press charges" = "I don't want to sue". I didn't read into the words in the phrase "press charges", because that would otherwise be more appropriately used by law officials, who have license to press charges. So those who read into the words too much: press charges, who probably not think that it is interchangeable with "sue". But I think the TV culture treats them interchangeably and that it's more colorful or dramatic to say "press charges" rather than "sue".
Here's the proof from this news that "pressing charges" is a legit term used by victim and not just the government officials:
Although Burke initially rejected charges, a Baltimore police spokesman told DailyMail.com on Monday that the doctor has up to a year to change his mind. If he wishes to proceed, he would have to file a new statement of charges detailing what happened to the city's Court Commissioner's Office. Police, with evidence that would include the video, would then execute an arrest and likely charge the perpetrator with common assault, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
~ If this language doesn't mean pressing charges, I don't know what is.
Further searches landed me on this page with a good distinction of the two terms:
Legally, it refers to a formal accusation made by a prosecutor or the government against a defendant in a criminal case [criminal court]. However, in everyday conversations, “pressing charges” is often used to describe the act of reporting a crime and seeking legal action [civil court].