That’s under the current officer safety procedures (which you are so busily complaining about).
I can only guess how much more dangerous it would be under your rules!
Or how few people we would have willing to be cops.
But I see your larger point. Although most people are happy to receive the gift cards, what is happening is that the officer is using the power of law to command the driver to stop, despite having no lawful authority to do so, scaring the driver into thinking he or she is getting a citation and then showing the “joke” that it is really a Christmas present.
First, it is an illegal seizure. It is just good fortune that the driver is happy. It would be a few steps more intense, but it would be akin to me pulling a bag over my wife’s head, stuffing her in the trunk, driving a hundred miles, forcing her out of the trunk and then SURPRISE! you’re not really being kidnapped, it is me taking you to your favorite weekend getaway spot! The ends don’t justify the means.
Second, maybe that person that was pulled over valued whatever they were doing more than the gift card? What if the person was late for work (and they were on their last warning) or were going to the hospital to see a spouse? It is one thing to be approached by someone handing you a leaflet or a gift card that you can waive away and continue. This is an order to stop and I think it is pretty cavalier to use that authority in such a way, even if the intention is right.
Some videos on youtube have those. One I remember the man and cop went around, and the man said as such “Open carry, even of this assault type rifle is legal, so why did you stop me”. The cop said “We have to respond to a call when we get one”, etc.
Some of those videos, other subjects too, are hilarious, most have some slight knowledge of law, some more, and most quote Terry v. Ohio and won’t quit yapppin.
One person stopped said he did not need a Driver’s license because he was not a U.S. citizen by definition and his car was not a motor vehicle because it was not transporting in Interstate Commerce. He probably got that off that crazy dude who made a video that quoted the definition of “Carriage” from a law dictionary from the 1850’s.
That’s all standard Sovereign Citizen BS, it’s all over the place. And of course none of it has ever worked.
As far as the open carry stuff, an officer can talk to someone and make requests without it being a stop.
For the car stuff, there are distinctions that are important to make between what orders you might be required to follow or be subject to prosecution, times when it might be wise to follow an order, times when an order or subsequent action by an officer could violate the 4th Amendment, and what the consequences of that are, and times when it will be Impossible to know whether an officer’s orders and actions are lawful.
The two most important points in my opinion are that there are established remedies for unconstitutional police conduct. And the system is almost entirely set up to sort those determinations out in court. There are both policy and practical reasons for that.
Importantly, there are going to be times when neither the driver nor the officer can be truly sure about the constitutionality of the officer’s acts until a court rules. The court rules based on the totality of the circumstances, which can include many circumstances unknown to you as the driver of the car. You might have committed a traffic violation, and also fit the description of a person who robbed a bank 2 blocks away, with 3 other people and a bunch of guns. If you do fit the description, police can be justified in doing much more than in a plain old traffic stop, and you would not necessarily know what was going on.
At the same time, if the officer asks you to roll your windows down, you can make as clear as possible that you do not consent to a search, you can make sure it’s an order, and then comply. If evidence that can be used against you is discovered, you can move to suppress it. This is when a court will say whether the officer violated your rights or not. So, like the ACLU says, clarify that you are not consenting, that you are being ordered, and then, comply with requests.* If there’s no crime evidence discovered, but your vehicle is damaged, or you are greatly embarrassed by the police seeing noncontraband items, etc., you may be able to sue for violation of your constitutional rights.
- What you are required to comply with varies by jurisdiction, and won’t necessarily perfectly overlap with when evidence will be suppressed
** Lying is a bad idea. If the officer did not violate your rights, the fact that you lied can be used to show knowledge and consciousness of guilt.
*** This is not legal advice. We have no lawyer client relationship. Seek legal advice from a lawyer in your jurisdiction if you find yourself in any of these situations.
Or even worse, cop killing and escape is better than another 20 years.
That sounds like a horrible idea. I can see all sorts of ways it could go badly wrong. And you know, if you did that to me, I’d be really pissed. I want to be left alone and get where I’m going on time a lot more than I want some random gift card. And that’s without anything really bad happening.
Somewhat related question; flipping channels & one of those Cops / Live PD / etc. shows came on. If a private citizen or a TV/movie production company pulls out a camera & starts videoing me doing ____ in public they have that right but I have the right to turn & walk/drive away.
When a police officer stops me, I am not free to walk or drive away. That cameraman is then using my legal detainment to use my image in a commercial endevour which I do not agree to participate in; it is very different than the officer’s body cam which is for documentation purposes. If I am pulled over by a cop on one of those shows do I have any right to demand they stop filming/not use that footage in any show?
Probably not.
If a citizen walking by on a public sidewalk pulls out their cellphone and starts recording you, can you demand that they stop recording you in public?
If a news reporter sees this, and reports on it in their newspaper (a commercial venture), can you demand that they don’t report about you?
As far as I know, if:
- this is happening in public, and
- they are not interfering or obstructing the police,
then I believe that you are not able to stop them from recording, reporting, or publishing about this.
While this is mostly true, it does not give the officer cause to detain someone who is not doing something illegal. He can walk along side them and talk to them, but an actual stop, no. Just because somebody was upset over it and called the police does not make the reported act RS for a stop. People call the police all the time for stuff they don’t like. Doesn’t make that stuff illegal.
My state added a sub-section to it’s Disorderly Conduct statute specifically stating that openly carrying a firearm was not Disorderly Conduct, and a person could not be charged with DC for doing it. So when Granny Fanny Nesslerode loses her shit because someone is walking down the street exercising their right to openly carry a firearm, it doesn’t make the OCer suspect just because somebody doesn’t like it.
In a non police situation, I’m free to not talk or walk away if I don’t like you filming you.
In a police stop situation, the general public &/or news media can’t get the same close camera angle as the known-to-the-cop-&-working-with-him cameraman for Cops! or LivePD! You think a cop is going to let you walk up & stand right next to him &/or put your camera in the passenger window? Nor are you or I taking our audio feed from a mic that the cop is wearing.
In the episode that I saw, there were obviously two cameramen on the stop because you could see one running back & forth, side to side to get video of the drug dog sniffing the car. He was wearing a bulletproof vest with “Media” displayed on it & was in the area between the detainee’s car & the front bumper of the police car where the driver was now out of his car & standing while being detained. You try walking in that space when there’s four or five cops & a police dog & see if they don’t blink.
I believe the distinction is with the filming for commercial purposes.
Can you be filmed in public and put on youtube? Probably
Can you be filmed in public and be put on the news? Yes
Can you be filmed in public and you image used for commercial purposes? It depends.
I’m having some dissonance here. So a guy walking into a bank with an AR-15 is not RAS, but a guy having a passenger in his back seat (or maybe not) is? That seems silly.
I’m all for gun rights, but when you compare the two it seems laughable that the first is fully legal, nothing to see here, but the second requires an exposure of the private contents of a vehicle.
I understand that in the second instance you have pulled over the driver for probable cause of a traffic violation, but not the passengers, nor is there RAS that the passengers are armed and dangerous, or indeed if they even exist.
Banks can and do post signs forbidding such conduct. Thus it would not be legal.
As I have discussed before, the court has ruled that during a traffic stop all occupants of the stop are seized.
This is why passengers have the right to challenge the legality of the traffic stop even though they weren’t the violator getting pulled over.
If I am seizing a car load of people I am liable for their safety during that seizure. Shouldn’t I at least know how many people are in my care during the duration of the stop?
——————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Walking into/onto private property, even that private property generally open to the public, while openly carrying a firearm, can change the dynamic of a police contact compared to just walking down a public street. There are a lot of variables that could be involved.
Just to clarify, whether it is"legal" or not depends on the state. In my state, it is perfectly legal to walk into a bank with a gun either carried openly or concealed (with a permit, in the case of concealed). Even if the bank has a sign posted (most don’t), the “offense” is not illegal, but more akin to trespassing.
Remember, the laws stipulate what is illegal, not what is customary or accepted.
How would knowing that make any difference in how you handle their safety?
Yes, and trespassing is illegal.
I have every right and duty to know how many people I have detained. If someone is hiding in the trunk and I have no reason to look, then oh well. They got one past.
And, once again ad nauseam, this kind of thing just doesn’t come up. It’s very rare that I can’t see into the back seat of a car. Back in the mid-80’s with the little 2 door hatch backs it was a bit of a pain. But not impossible from plain view from outside the vehicle.
In states where signs have no force of law, someone in the business has to ask you to leave. It isn’t trespass until you refuse.
In the case of an open carrier into a bank, you’ll probably know their intent the first 5 seconds they appear. If it’s just to make a deposit they’ll probably be done and gone long before the police arrive.
The open carriers who are trouble are the sovereign citizen types. They are specifically trying to get a rise out of people and they want to sucker police officers into doing something that will give them cause to sue. They aren’t just your average person openly carrying a weapon minding their own business. They are a pain in the ass who want a reaction.