It’s because racism, dontchaknow?
*After *the fact, right?
Perhaps because nobody is suggesting that. The concern is an overreadiness, perhaps eagerness, on the part of *some *to decide that it is.
No, and let’s get the “bad guy” nomenclature taken care of first. If you think of someone as a “bad guy”, that gives you permission, as the “good guy” to define him as a threat and treat him as such, doesn’t it? Does a good cop, using precise terminology, include “bad guy” in a report, or even in casual conversation?
The person needs to act in a threatening way before he can be considered a threat, to us mere laymen. That does not include sitting motionless in a car, or reaching for a wallet. Those incidents, and similar ones, are the topic of this thread. I understand you have a professional desire to find ways to excuse them, but they just don’t exist.
I have no idea where you get that from. The issue is as described above - imagining or inventing threats that do not exist.
Except for the other 20%, hmm? :dubious: There are indeed trigger happy cops, we’ve been discussing a few here, and no doubt you do know of some personally, don’t you? “So much for” them indeed. :rolleyes:
You don’t need to train them that way. That’s instinctive. You do reinforce it by calling anyone a “bad guy”, though.
And the reality is that some, *some *of the enforcers will see something happen they can interpret that way, or even assume it will, and thereby *initiate *violence that would not have otherwise occurred. Such as in the cases now under discussion.
It isn’t the laws at fault, and it does not help you at all to continue to misrepresent what you are being told and imagine the rest of it. :rolleyes:
It’s *some *of those chosen to have authority to enforce the laws, that are at fault, and with support from some who look for ways to excuse them.
Police misconduct is real and needs to be addressed and fixed. Please don’t waste time pretending otherwise; that only makes you part of the problem.
"Originally Posted by Shodan
Who cares what he wanted or didn’t want to do? Get out of the fucking car.
When the police give you a legitimate order, you don’t get to say No and waste everybody’s time arguing."
Shodan, what I think you’re (purposely or not) failing to comprehend (it seems fairly trollish to me, unless you’re wholly miseducated) is that the request/order to cough up identification was NOT a “legitimate order”. The police officer was free to ask the passenger to tell him his name and where he lived, and the passenger was free to say “Huh? Please give the driver a seatbelt ticket and let us be on our way.” The officer also had no lawful basis to demand (or request) that the passenger (or driver) get out of the car. (If there was a lawful articulable basis, I’ve yet to hear it – refusing to answer a question is not reasonable suspicion of anything more than a citizen who is exercising a right. The officer would be free to refuse to answer any questions I had of him, such as “what is wrong with you and what is your IQ? Did a brown person beat you up as a child or what?”) A citizen is free to resist and refuse to respond to actions that are taken without a legal basis.
Instead of backing off and saying “never mind” – the gods/powers forbid that a male EVER suffer the “indignity” of having to so do, let alone because a brown person expected their rights to be observed, the officer decided he’d take his unlawful power trip to a level that, ultimately, was not just unconstitional but ANTIconstitutional.
Should the realities of what the law allows and does not allow fail to penetrate the brain of even a reasonably intelligent person – few people are capable of being neutral or objective – then that simply is another example of what’s wrong with the human animal and why minorities becoming the majority in this country cannot come a moment too soon.
You are wrong. The order was for both ID and to exit the vehicle. Ordering passengers to exit a vehicle during a traffic stop is a legitimate order. Maryland v. Wilson.
Do you agree you were wrong?
Dopers are “taking sides” in the Hammond incident, but a middle ground would acquit both sides in this incident, and fault American culture.
The Hammond victims are not to blame. Sure, they might have avoided trouble had they complied fully with police orders, but no one is completely rational under stress, and American blacks do have a real well-founded fear of police brutality.
I think the cops got much too carried away for a simple seatbelt violation, but I can understand the point of view that police orders should be obeyed. Police couldn’t be effective if they responded “Oh, you won’t obey? Well, no problem. Just drive off then.”
The real problem is the increasingly contentious and racist behavior of many American police. Reading about brutal cops who are not dismissed is discouraging. And it’s very hard to support the Ferguson police in the on-going confrontation there.
Yes, policeman is a dangerous profession, but it isn’t that dangerous. Many occupations have higher fatality rates, including simple construction laborer. At least five times as many Americans are killed by cops as cops are killed. About as many taxicab drivers are victims of homicide as police, even though police are much more numerous. Would we want taxi drivers to tase any customer who seemed suspicious? Here’s a bar-graph comparing killings by police in U.S. with countries like England and Germany.
The importance of incidents like the one in Hammond is not to single out an innocent passenger and say he responded poorly to stress, nor to single out one policeman, but to awaken us to the fact that America’s law enforcement has gone “off the hook.” Police are there to “protect and to serve” but increasingly the reality is much different.
(my bold)
And just in case you read the previous citation to refer to just the passenger, here is the older SCOTUS case regarding the driver specifically, Pennsylvania v. Mimms
434 U.S. 106 (1977)
You are wrong.
“You are wrong. The order was for both ID and to exit the vehicle.”
I don’t believe I said there was no order for the passenger to produce an ID and no order to exit the vehicle. You’re confusing me.
Without going too far down a rabbit hole, it might worth asking you to offer what your takeaway is from Bush v. Gore, and then I can assess whether you understand how narrow and fact-specific that was and what it boiled down to.
Most people misapprehend how very, very narrow and fact-specific was that decision (just like the Supreme Court case on DC gun law, District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 554 U.S. 570, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), didn’t stand for the proposition that most gun nuts claim). There’s a reason why opinions first go into (what laypeople may perceive as unnecessarily gory detail about facts, among other things). Stand-outs to the contrary like *Miranda v. Arizona *or *Brady v. Maryland * are not common, and a phrase summarizing the case that one sees in parentheticals after a cite doesn’t usually represent what laypeople believe it does. If *Maryland v. Wilson *were the law of the land as it were like Miranda, we wouldn’t be debating the topic and there’d be no practical need for a case like *U.S. v. Sentillian * in NY … again, a very fact-specific case related as it relates to what may happen under a given set of circumstances (and only in NY).
Put another way, can you conceive of there still being a debate over, for example, Miranda-generated standard protocol with regard to telling someone that (s)he has the right to a lawyer and the right to remain silent as of 1983?
“Do you agree you were wrong?”
About … what? It’s hard to discern to which issue you’re referring. If you narrow it down to something specific, perhaps. 
Relatedly, I suspect we will eventually see new case law as it relates to the danger of being brown vis-a-vis the very real possibility that an officer is acting with unlawful motives and has no reasonable articulable suspicion or basis (or bases) as recognized by the law to do that which a brown person may reasonably perceive as presenting him or her or a loved one or passenger with personal danger. In other words, flipping the argument such that the pendulum swings and sticks at neutral center, and focusing on facts.
It’s abundantly clear that no matter what someone does, depending on their color and socioeconomic background as compared to the biases (in favor of or against X) or miseducation of the officer – whether you comply or do not comply with a request-turned-demand – it is not statistically so that the police officer is more in danger than the object of his/her interest (except, i.e., being accidentally hit by another vehicle in a traffic stop … which is the most likely source of injury). In the instant case, there was not even a traffic hazard (no passenger on the left side of the car that the officer needed to speak with outside the car for safety reasons), and no reasonable articulable suspicion that the guy wasn’t who he said he was and wasn’t on his way to the hospital with a child and two (?) other relatives.
I’ll clarify.
This is what you said:
This is false and you made an incorrect statement of fact. Do you agree?
Elvis says:
“From what I understand about being tased, it’s pretty much equivalent.” (to a severe beating). Clearly, you have no understanding about being tased. The whole point of tasers is to minimize injuries. They are very effective at that. Extremely painful? Yes. But when its over, its over.
“Maybe you missed the part about smashing the window and tasing a guy who was just sitting there.” Evidently, YOU missed the part about the guy refusing a lawful order to exit the vehicle.
Regarding reports - “After the fact, right?” Are you proposing we write reports before the fact?
“Perhaps because nobody is suggesting that” (that officers are trained to assume deadly force is warranted). Somebody DID suggest that and I was replying specifically to it. I don’t have the time to find the exact post right now.
Sorry about the use of the term “bad guy”. I meant “subject”. I don’t define someone in my mind as a bad guy unless he gives me a reason to do so. Like failing to comply with my lawful order to exit the car.
"The person needs to act in a threatening way before he can be considered a threat, to us mere laymen" That is exactly wrong. In Graham v Connor the Court said that officers are to be judged based on how another officer with similar training and experience would react under the same circumstances. That seems pretty clear to me. So, not a mere layman.
Many people take issue with the idea that cops are trained to go home at all costs. They then turn that into “itchy trigger fingers”. The training is to not jeopardize your own safety by placing a suspect’s well-being over yours. And, when in a fight, to do whatever it takes to go home.
“Except for the other 20%, hmm? There are indeed trigger happy cops, we’ve been discussing a few here, and no doubt you do know of some personally, don’t you? “So much for” them indeed.” What, exactly, is your point with this one? The other 20% did not feel that there were ever legally justified to use deadly force and failed to do so. So, that means either a) they have never been in a situation where deadly force was justified or b) they have been in such a situation and did use it. If they were legally justified, what’s the problem? Hmmm?
Sorry to disappoint you but I don’t know any trigger happy cops. Given the number of police/citizen contacts that take place, the percentage of times where any force is employed are rare. By one study about 1% of the time. That’s not deadly force, its any force. Are there some cops that are over reactive and employing excessive force? Absolutely. The vast majority are not.
“You don’t need to train them that way (to see every person as a threat). That’s instinctive. You do reinforce it by calling anyone a “bad guy”, though.” How is instinctive? If its an instinct then you must feel the same way. If you are going to break my balls on terminology, please hold yourself to the same standard. So I shouldn’t call anyone a “bad guy”? Really? Should I wait until they have been convicted in court and then call them a convicted felon? If I respond to your house on a domestic and find you drunk and your wife with two back eyes, guess what? You are a bad guy.
“It isn’t the laws at fault, and it does not help you at all to continue to misrepresent what you are being told and imagine the rest of it.” Please point out, specifically, what I have mis-represented.
“Police misconduct is real and needs to be addressed and fixed. Please don’t waste time pretending otherwise; that only makes you part of the problem.” I am well aware that police misconduct is real. I am not pretending otherwise. Rogue cops need to be dealt with. I am saying that the vast majority of cops are professionals. How about you stop pretending that its only the police that are the problem? I will repeat, in almost all cases of police use of force there was UNLAWFUL non-compliance or resistance on the part of the subject/suspect. Its seems personal responsibility for non-cops is no longer important.
In the incident under discussion, the whole point of tasing the guy was to inflict pain. Someone sitting quietly does not need to be immobilized and subdued, does he? If your point is that tasing is better than shooting, then you’re missing the point - there was no reason to assault him at all.
You are still missing a couple of inconvenient but key points: 1. There was no law-enforcement value to the order, this being a fucking seat belt stop, and 2. Unless you can point out otherwise, the police training you are so proud of cannot include *initiating *physical violence as a response to passive behavior. Does it? :dubious:
How fucking dense are you? The comment was to offer a point about reporting a situation in such a way as to make it appear that the necessary elements of using force were present and were considered, even if they were not. You complain about defense attorneys twisting and contorting testimony, but isn’t that what you yourself are doing?
Of course not. :rolleyes:
Too late. The use of the term indicates all it needs to about your mindset.
For which he needs to be punished immediately, right? The taser is very helpful then, isn’t it?
No, that speaks to the commonality of police training, not to its relationship to basic human conduct.
And what exactly was the guy sitting in his car doing to constitute a threat to the cops? :rolleyes: You can go home safely sometimes by just going home.
To dismiss your laughable “So much for trigger-happy cops” claim with your own damn words.
Given that the mindset you demonstrate here prevents recognizing the existence of the concept, no wonder. But that’s what we’ve been discussing in these threads, isn’t it? Real examples.
Some behaviors become unconscious through repetition and immersion, such as by being in a culture that defines contact with nonmembers of the culture in terms of the threat or potential threat they present. That psychology is malignant, and obviously the source of much of the problem here - whether or not it comes from formal training programs.
How about waiting until the guy does more than sit there and passively decline an inappropriate demand before smashing the window and tasing him? You’re not helping yourself with this strawman shit.
If we had been discussing such a case, you would be right. But, in the case under discussion, just who better meets the definition of “bad guy”?
Damn, you really are that dense. Nobody has claimed the laws are faulty and you cannot find a post that says so. Would it get through to you if I said you were simply lying?
Because, in this case, as well as in many, many others, the evidence says that they are.
More of your “if you’re not one of us, you’re the enemy” mindset. If you weren’t inside the Blue Bubble, you might be able to see that the mindset is itself a problem. No, the added rights police have, of carrying and using weapons and even killing, as well as the training they undergo and which you’re so proud of, do in fact create greatly added responsibility. It’s remarkable, and tragic, that you don’t recognize that.
MikeF, how do you explain or otherwise respond to this studythat shows that young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than young white men? Do you believe young black men are 21 times more dangerous to police than young white men?
I’m still looking for the point where it proves the cops wanted to inflict pain instead of just immobilizing him so that they could pull him out of the car. I actually believe that they meant to cause pain but unlike your mindset I’m considering that they might just have gone with the idea that an immobilized man is easier to remove from the car than one who is isn’t.
The fact that you stated a probable situation has some validity but not necessarily a universal truth. Kind of like bringing up the possibility that a person could act passively up to the moment they attack a cop. I’d start screaming for a “cite” but that’s kind of a shitty tactic. When any sane person can grasp the possibility of something I’d look like a fool calling for a “cite”.
Yes, the line’s been drawn. You must stand on one side or the other. Frothing at the mouth preferred.
I think that’s actually the best course of action. They should have tried that. They didn’t. I can only guess as to why not. I do understand that they had a lawful right to extricate him. Even though their demand was inappropriate some here have cited that it was lawful.
Bad guy could either be the cops acting like bullies or the guy who willfully refused to obey a lawful order. Depends on which side of the line you want to stand on. I think that this whole situation is just yet another example of stupidity caused by bad protocols, training and lack of common sense.
It’s the pit. I suggest you spice up your lying accusation with a little profanity.
This is a perfect example of your mindset. The statement you rebutted in no way equated to your paraphrase.
You should demand that police be more accountable but I fail to see why you believe that a statement bemoaning the lack of personal responsibility for others is an adversarial position.
He was just sitting there. How much more immobile could he be?
How are you coming on finding some examples of that for us?
You weren’t claiming a possibility, but a fact. You gonna cut the shit or ain’tcha?
Go right ahead and guess, then.
I was asking MikeF, for whom the situation is clear: The guys wearing blue are the good guys by definition.
There isn’t always a line, is there? The line-drawing mentality you’re demonstrating is pretty much the same as the good guy / bad guy line MikeF has.
Couldn’t be protocols, we are assured. Or training, either, since we are told how thorough that is. So what does that leave, and how did it get to be that way?
I’m trying to be welcoming to the n00b. 
Your sharing of the mindset I’m deploring is what makes you unable to understand criticism of it.
Because it puts the bulk of the responsibility for this event and others like it on the people who do not have the authority, weaponry, or training that the aggressors do. That pretty much defines adversariality, doesn’t it? It also defines a lack of understanding of the concept of responsibility, btw.
Now go find an actual example of the thing you insist is real before you get dismissed as a pathetic liar. Claiming you meant it hypothetically only shows your lack of awareness that everything you’ve posted is still in this thread.
I guess to me there’s a HUGE line between a cop who has multiple legal paths and chooses one that is unnecessarily confrontational and disproportional, but which is within the rules and regulations and training laid down by his department; and a cop who takes action which is never legally sanctioned at all. Tasing and dragging-through-a-window fits into the first category (apparently, based on legal analyses discussed in this thread, I’m not an expert), as do many examples of handcuffing people and detaining them temporarily. Stealing money, beating, various types of abuse of power, and shooting someone who is complying with your requests fit into the second.
This is important for several reasons:
(1) Doing things that are legal is better than doing things that are illegal
(2) As long as there’s a very distinct possibility that the cop is doing what he perceives to be a legal and reasonable thing, then there’s a very real possibility that cooperating with that cop will basically end up well, with deescalation. If that cop is already breaking laws and violating regs, then there’s far more reason to fear that cop as if he were just a common criminal (which, arguably, he is)
(3) The level of “corruptness” or “badness” required for a cop to make a few incorrect judgment calls, mispercieve a level of threat, and end up taking what seem like totally disproportionate actions, but actions that are still within that broad first category, is totally different than the level of corruptness required for a cop to be taking actions in the second category
A few other comments:
(1) Given a bunch of apparent-abuse-of-police-power incidents that have happened recently, and are being discussed together, I think people are somewhat conflating situations in which someone ends up tased and in which someone ends up shot. Those are INCREDIBLY different. If someone gets tased unjustifiably, well, they had a shitty day, and I hope they can sue and get recompense. But it’s not even in the same BALLPARK as someone getting killed unjustifiably.
(2) I’ve been avoiding talking about race here, because it’s hard to really say anything useful about it. It’s simultaneously kinda-irrelevant and SUPER-relevant. On the one hand, whether or not there are legal and reasonable situations in which what starts out as a seat belt stop could end in a tasing without the cops having done anything heinously wrong really ought to be debatable with no mention at all of anyone’s skin color. On the other hand, anyone who claims that the cops weren’t almost certainly more alert and suspicious from the moment the incident began due to the occupants of the car being black is kidding themselves. So one side it’s silly to discuss the individual details of an individual incident and pretend that it’s totally isolated. On the other side, if you refuse to actually discuss what happened without also bringing in race you really can’t get anywhere at all because the issue goes from being “here’s an incident we can discuss” to “here’s an enormous and intractable social problem”.
Originally Posted by Bone:
“I’ll clarify. This is what you said: ‘The officer also had no lawful basis to demand (or request) that the passenger (or driver) get out of the car.’ This is false and you made an incorrect statement of fact. Do you agree?”
It’s unknown whether you analyzed the follow-up, and I didn’t look at time stamp of reply. Whether the officer had a lawful basis – not the same as authority – to demand the passenger get out of the car under the circumstances is a question of both (Indiana) law and fact. I’m not talking about whether the cop had the *authority to demand X; if I didn’t make that clear before, I am now.
As for facts, we know the folks weren’t pulled over next to a busy highway that would play a factor (even had they been, this passenger was on the right-hand side). We know the officers fixated on the black male passenger, which is dumb protocol in terms of threat assessment even if one accounts for the cops’ irrational perceptions as valid: EACH person in that car – the driver, the 7-yo and 14-yo – was capable of accessing or producing a gun and starting to shoot. The question is WHAT thing created this supposed fear (you can tell that I don’t believe there was actual fear). So far, I’ve heard nothing and noted nothing that indicated a reasonable assessment, but instead that these officers are miseducated and personally predisposed to X by bias resulting in a horribly wrong default posture. That was combined with the usual human tendency to keep digging and not knowing when to stop or walk back a bad decision.
As for facts, the evidence to date anyway fails to show any reasonable, articulable basis for the path taken by the one cop, backed by the others, and overall from the moment the stop took place forward … up to and including the supposed basis for suggesting-asking-then-demanding the passenger get out of the car when he couldn’t (not refused to) produce formal identification, and he’d supposedly done something suspicious by looking for something to show them … despite no rational basis upon which to believe he was reaching for anything other than what he’d stated.*
Relatedly, I’d want to see whether the town’s police force produce evidence to reflect that it’s standard practice in a traffic stop to put down spike strips before approaching the driver, and to reject the passenger’s offer to show you a citation that reflects why he didn’t have identification (DL) if one insists that they had a rational basis for demanding same (not required to issue a seat belt violation). Instead, the officers decide to justify behavior that someone reaching toward a console or toward a book bag (vs. other movements) (and presumably for the citation or copy of it that he wanted to show them) was so suspicious as to put them in fear for their life when that’s objectively and legally nonsense. What remains by virtue of Occam’s Razor is that there is an irrational bias against or fear of brown people (it can also happen based on irrational bias against people of a given socio-economic background, e.g., a not-wealthy looking person being in a wealthy neighborhood).
I don’t see how the citizens reacted unreasonably under the circumstances: the driver is on the phone with 911 trying to explain what’s happening and asking for a (presumably police) supervisor. The officers had a choice to do what was rational and advisable, and at least one elected against it and the others backed him up. If it boils down to a question of safety, the vehicle occupants had far better, objective reason to fear for safety, not the police. The police drew their guns early on, without reasonable articulable basis.
Circling back to the fact that as of the reply you mightn’t have digested the follow-up on the topic of case law. If you produce Indiana law that speaks to a similar fact pattern as this case, I’ll reassess whether I must “stand corrected” on the topic of IN law. (However, please note that there is such a thing as bad case law; courts aren’t immune from political and practical pressure any more than the average citizen, and legislatures are often loathe to correct statutes to address deficiencies made clear by court rulings.) Please note any reported opinion that may seem on point even in Indiana or the 7th Circuit has to be analyzed before one concludes it stands for X proposition. Taking info out of context is a bad idea.
I don’t know if you’re a lawyer or, if so, what type(s) of law you practice. If you are, rather obviously, also can’t know how good a lawyer you are even if bailiwick is appellate law. Regardless, even top flight appellate lawyers can and regularly do choose to interpret something in a preferential way even if there’s plain language, let alone room for debate.
- That said, plenty of cops routinely act outside their authority; they’re no different than any other human, including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, court clerks, etc. Sometimes it’s benign/harmless, but more often than not it isn’t (esp. in overall corrosive effect on the foundation of the legal system). You can become so comfortable with breaking and ignoring the law that it becomes muscle memory; that so doing isn’t always a criminal act on its own doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.
I’m currently in the middle of a petition for writ of cert action in a state’s highest court, the genesis of which is a circuit court deciding it was free to blatantly ignore its constitutional mandates, the law generally and the procedural rules in flatly bizarre acts of obstruction in protection of a district court that’d done the same, and also acted without authority/jurisdiction in the doing. The routine human habit of engaging in misconduct and terrible behavior to cover up merely awful behavior or flatly poor judgment just reflects how certain institutions far too comfortable operating beneath the law and the (warranted) confidence they have that no authority will put a stop to it.
*** The officers now claim – as I suppose they must in a furtive attempt at CYA – that he refused to identify himself, when the video shows that’s not true by contemporaneous contextual reference. (I wouldn’t believe he refused to tell them his name and address even if there wasn’t evidence to indicate he did, given the circumstances.) I believe it’s true that he offered to find and show them a citation that was the reason why he didn’t have a DL; though I’d refuse to feed into their nonsense, I can see why most people would. It isn’t as though they don’t know how to investigate if need be, and find him through the driver of the car, etc. even if it turned out he’d given them a false name.
Did you answer the question? I couldn’t tell in the 10 paragraphs of reply. It’s direct and unambiguous. Can you do so?
Let me reiterate:
[Quote=Bubbadog]
You know, your talking points can be flipped. Threatening, violent cops are a real possibility. But the flip side is that there exists violent people who will try to appear confused scared etc while looking for an opportunity to harm the cop. So a stalemate occurs until somebody makes a move.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
Got an example of such a person you can cite for us? Somebody who suddenly became belligerent and violent before the cop did? It would be fascinating.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
Keep trying, though. BubbaDog’s assertion is fascinating.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
How are you coming on finding some examples of that for us?
[/QUOTE]
Cite1
Cite2
I’m pissed at myself for even playing this little game with you.
Pat yourself on the back for having such awesome debating skills.
It took me about 2 min to find these. I’m sure there are more just like there are more video examples of big bad police. This really shouldn’t have been a big debate point but your insistence in whining about this just got tiring.
I was involved in some pretty hair-raising incidents in England when I interviewed drivers by the side of roads or motorways with a police escort.
Several times the copper noticed someone wasn’t wearing a seat-belt, and he’d lean in and tell them to buckle up. Slightly chidingly.
Bricker may need to abdicate the throne to Fallen.
I hope he called for back up. Surely he had his weapon drawn; do they keep a round in the chamber? And what in tarnation did they do if, God forbid, both driver and passenger were unbuckled? :smack: