I’ll share my own story, rather, a case I defended. All criminal charges dropped. Civil lawsuit to follow.
This isn’t exactly an encounter but I’m relaying a conversation I was party to between an ADA and the public. The question of marijuana legalization came up and the ADA was totally against it. Why? Because it will keep illegal guns on the street.
You see, it isn’t that MJ is bad, it’s that MJ gives cops an excuse to search people and cars. When they say “I smell weed” and search a car, the purpose is to find other illegal things in the car. It’s a door opener, the legal end around they need to search your stuff.
Thankfully that is no longer automatically the case in Pennsylvania. Pa. judge rules police can’t search vehicle that smells of marijuana if driver has medical card
Little WTF from that story.
Okay, big WTF!!!?
They clearly see that Wyche did not do any of the things that he was charged with. I don’t see anything that he did legally wrong in any way.
But, being dragged from his car, beaten, degraded, and dragged off to jail and charged with bullshit was a “sufficient consequence”?
Sufficient consequence for WHAT? For fucking knowing his rights and expecting an officer of the law to respect them?
Law and order my ass. Anyone who sticks up for these cops is not for law and order, they are for tyranny and oppression.
I think that’s exactly the point.
But if you do not have a medical card?
It is not only those who actually possess weed who are accused of smelling or seeing it in order to get a chance to search your car.
There are ongoing cases in Pennsylvania. I would point out that anybody in PA who wants a card can get one, now that anxiety is an accepted diagnosis. There are doctors that will interview prospective patients and pretty much automatically (for a fee) diagnose you with anxiety based solely on the fact that you want to use cannabis and have hoops to jump through to get a card. Everybody has anxiety!
Or anxiety that you may be pulled over and have marijuana suspicion as a pretext to violate your rights.
Agreed 100%. They didn’t understand why my client wouldn’t just take a misdemeanor plea. A misdemeanor with a fine. Doesn’t he know he if facing a felony conviction with mandatory minimum time?
Thankfully my client was brave enough to tell them to fuck themselves. And I was able to rally some political and media folks on my side, sufficient enough to make the prosecutor realize this would be a huge problem for her reelection campaign.
I appreciate your service, and I am thankful that your client was able to resist the temptation of taking the offer and risking greater legal consequences to do what was right.
I personally fail to see how plea bargains are any more than extortion from the state.
Cop sexually assaults child at traffic stop, eventually has to pay for it…gets 14 days in jail and doesn’t have to register as a sex offender.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-sexually-assault-girl-traffic-stop/?fbclid=IwAR1B1cxv7DFNCkW880gPARX_c5xv_4vvEOaoTG9yMbMiQnYNiOO367dtEs0
Nice to know touching itties is $230 and 2 weeks in jail in Honolulu 
Newport News police gave Boogaloo protesters a PA system and chocolate milk.
Miami cop at polling place in uniform wearing a Trump 2020 mask will be disciplined.
Oh, and who caught him? The chairman of the Miami Dade Democratic Party.
Iowa cop shown on video waving a black man to cross the street, then stops him and arrests him for jaywalking. In the process, various other cops show up, throw him to the ground, and tase him. A judge threw the case out. But the cop has been named the city’s community outreach officer.
This happened this week where I live:
The shooting occurred after a Waukegan police officer was investigating a suspicious vehicle that had stopped near Liberty and Oak streets, Navarro said.
The driver sped away, but the vehicle was spotted minutes later near Martin Luther King Jr. and South avenues by the second officer.
When the vehicle began backing up, the officer fired his semi-automatic pistol, striking the driver and passenger, police said. Stinnette was taken to a hospital, where he died.
No firearms were found in the vehicle.
No video available yet, and lots of unanswered questions. I’ll update as more comes out.
Peaceful protest yesterday.
My question (in all earnestness) to any LEOs on this thread: It’s dark. A car you’ve been notified is “suspicious” starts to back toward you. Is it proper procedure to open fire? Or maybe just jump out of the way?
It’s not necessarily a matter of what they have to do, but what they can get away with doing.
Well sure, but I’m trying to look at this fairly. I’d like to believe the cop didn’t think, “Aha, here’s my chance to shoot up some [black people] and get away with it!” I suspect he panicked and improperly over-reacted, but with no public video there’s no way for me to have any more certainty.
FWIW the county prosecutor is a Republican but has a good track record that includes exonerating people of color improperly convicted by previous administrations. We’ll see.
Update: The cop has been fired:
The officer who shot at the vehicle … committed “multiple policy and procedure violations” in the incident and has been terminated from the force, said police Chief Wayne Walles in Waukegan, 42 miles north of Chicago.
Which confirms my suspicion that he just flat panicked. Thankfully, the city seems to be doing the right things and so far all the protests have stayed peaceful.