Thank you for all the replies so far. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I did and these opinions really do help clarify my thoughts. I’ll try to provide more details now to clear up some of the confusion here.
First, some minor stuff: One, I wasn’t drunk. My friend basically designated me the driver that night, which is why I limited myself to two drinks – one at around 9pm, the other around 11pm. By 1:30am, I believed I was sober enough to drive for a number of reasons (two drinks wasn’t a whole lot to begin with; I’m 170 lbs; two hours had already passed; I usually have five to six drinks before getting drunk; I had plenty of food too, etc.). It was actually my friend’s idea to go to the park because she wanted to hang out and sober up. She had a lot more to drink than I did, and my original plan was to just take her home; this was for her benefit. Put it this way: Not even the cops, who were certainly upset at me for my actions, made an issue about what I had to drink. The alcohol is a non-issue and I mentioned it only in the interest of full disclosure and to explain how we ended up at the park; as far as I can tell, it had little relevance to the rest of the proceedings. Secondly, I’m not actually white, but I do not believe this particular case was racially motivated. And lastly, both parties (the police and me & my friend) behaved in completely non-violent, non-hostile manners. I believe each side did try their best to make the other comfortable without sacrificing what they needed to do. They were very professional and I was completely compliant except for the identity part.
Anyway, once we got to the park… I really didn’t know that the park closed at 10 or whenever. This might sound unusual to some of you, but I grew up in a different country and I would visit the parks there late at night (and others would too) and nobody ever thought anything of it. I know that in California, various state and national parks (as in “big outdoor places”) have gates and big signs saying things like “park closed from sundown to sunrise”, etc., but this was not one of those parks. It was just a small block of grass with some trees and a playground thrown in for good measure… the thought never even occurred to me that something like that could “close” any more than it could “open”. Sometimes we’d sit around there after drinking at bars in the area and there’s never been a problem before.
As for the knife, it was a Leatherman e304x folding knife / beer opener. I carry it for a variety of uses; I used to have a Swiss Army Knife, but I lost it while running because it didn’t have a pocket clip so I chose a knife that did. It has been an extremely useful tool and it sits in my pocket right alongside my flashlight. It has never been a problem except when I’ve been asked to keep it in my car at certain places I go to (courts, bars, whatever) and I’ve always been willing to comply with those requests. Anyway, I shouldn’t need to be able to justify this to anyone – and indeed, they didn’t even ask my why I had it – and I didn’t think that this particular city would have any special regulation against (what I thought) was just an ordinary tool, and I don’t believe the police officer considered it an actual threat, either. I surrendered it as soon as he approached us – the first thing he did was ask me if I had any weapons, and I very forthrightly told him I did and I put it on the table at his request. He didn’t seem at all bothered by it and proceeded to search the rest of me. Later, on the citation, he wrote down a blade length of 2.5 inches, which only makes things weirder because now that I looked up the code I was actually cited for (Sierra Madre Municipal Code 9.28.020. SM is a suburb or a neighbor or something of Pasadena, and the case is going to the Pasadena Superior Court), it seems that three inches is the maximum length and so there was actually nothing wrong with this one… unless I misinterpreted the code?
Those are the technicalities. Let’s talk motive. I’ll be the first to admit that I might not have made the brightest or wisest decision – I admitted my stupidity in the first sentence – but I did what I did only because I thought it was the right thing to do. I didn’t do it just to make life difficult for the cops (to be fair, I don’t think they did it just to make life difficult for me either, but more on that later).
I’m 22, not too worldly, certainly not “street-smart”, and I didn’t think hanging out with a friend late at night would constitute a crime. We were minding our own business and a cop comes along for a routine check. Okay, I thought, nothing wrong with that… they’re just trying to keep the neighborhood safe. I stand there calmly and deal with him respectfully and with 100% honesty and forthrightness, answering all his questions and doing everything he asked me to (except for my identity, which he didn’t ask until later). I willingly submitted to the search because I knew I had nothing to hide (and I didn’t know that it was within my rights to refuse to submit to the search, but even if I knew that, I probably would’ve allowed it in this situation anyway just because the officer seemed rather nervous and I wanted to put him at ease). I think it did put him at ease, since he was a lot nicer after that, and this whole thing probably would not have happened had I simply told him my name. And it wasn’t even that I was absolutely against giving out my name, I just wanted to know first WHY he wanted it and he kept dodging the question. I even asked him “Do you just want it for a background search or something?” and he denied that. And at this point in time, he wasn’t accusing us of anything, so I thought it was odd that he still wanted to know who we were. I vaguely remembered reading, somewhere and at some point, that I wasn’t required to identify myself to police officers – or am I? California doesn’t seem to require us to, but I’m not sure about this particular city and I’m not sure whether my actions would’ve given him some sort of overriding probable cause. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking about state and city statutes at that particular point in time… I just had a peaceful night interrupted by some very bright lights and two very demanding (but still very professional, to their credit) officers and I was just thinking “What the hell did I do?! If you’re not accusing me of anything, why do you care who I am?!”
I could understand his wanting to question our motives and our presence at that time of day, which is why I told him exactly what we were doing there, but if he believed us and were willing to let us go, he obviously did not consider us a threat and thus did not need to know who we were. Why would I want my name ending up in a random officer’s notes (he had his pad out) when I’ve done nothing wrong? If he had a legitimate need to look me up for something, he could’ve told me, but he refused to reveal that need despite me asking several times. I have no criminal history; I have no outstanding warrants; I had no weed on me… I was just a citizen trying to live a private life and I don’t like it when cops randomly try to intrude on that privacy without being able to articulate their reasons and even (it seemed) lying to me to get me to reveal information that they didn’t need in the first place. Okay, fine, so that makes me idealistic, naive, foolhardy and downright stupid, but regardless, should I really just be expected to “hand over my papers”, so to speak, anytime an officer feels like it even after they tell me I’m in the clear? It doesn’t matter whether they asked for just a name or a driver’s license (they asked for both, for what it’s worth) since they could easily look up my relatively unique name and find all the rest of the information.
If they’d plainly told me, when they first encountered us, “You’re in violation of blah blah blah because the park is closed” or “You can’t have this knife, it’s illegal. Give it to us and tell us your name”, I’d have been like “Oh, okay. Well, I did something wrong. I’m sorry, officer, this is my information”… but that’s not the way it went. Instead, he basically came up to us, searched me, suggested that everything was fine and then wanted my name anyway and then used the park and knife as excuses after the fact to fight my refusal. That’s what I found unfair or borderline abusive about this. It’s like saying “Citizen, you’ve done nothing wrong, but you better tell us who you are anyway or we WILL find something wrong that you’ve done – and believe us, we know the city codes much better than you ever would short of ten years of law school, so you better not try to fight us.” Why was I being treated that way? I had given the officer nothing but respect and honesty and I even told him “Just explain why you need my name if you’re not going to run a background search and you can have it. This just isn’t fair if I’ve done nothing wrong” and the only things they could come up with were the knife and park, which weren’t issues at all before I made a big deal out of my identity.
Sigh. I just got hired for a new job. I still remember reading the part on my application about past convictions, and of course I thought of that when he mentioned the possible arrest. Yes, I realized that it would be a very dangerous move, but still, I felt harrassed for no reason, and even moreso when they conjured up minor offenses just to aid their case, so I chose to stand my ground. It might not have been a wise decision, but I felt it was necessary at the time. I wasn’t even like “No, f* you, you ain’t having my identity no matter what”, but more like “Just tell me WHY you want to know first”. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? This seemed like a case of “Innocent, but do as we say anyway or we’ll find you gulity on a technicality” Come on, was this REALLY about the knife or the park? Why weren’t we cited for the park even after I was arrested for it? Why was the illegal knife not immediately a concern when I first surrendered it, and why was it given back to me afterwards?
I’m not “out to get them”. I value my freedom and my privacy and I didn’t want to surrender either just because a policeman asked. Not when he considered me otherwise innocent. What did I hope to gain from this? I dunno. Nothing except maybe a lesson learned. But which lesson? “Don’t fight the authorities”? “There are better battlegrounds… you should’ve revealed your name and then argued about it someplace else, later”? “Better to be smart than to follow your principals”? What?
I want to always stand by my beliefs… if they are justifiable and right. I’m posting here not because I regret my decision to follow my beliefs and accept the risk of criminal charges, but because I’m no longer sure if my belief was justifiable and right to begin with. I think it boils down to a few points of contention:
- Was I, or was I not, legally required to reveal my identity prior to having been accused of a crime? If I WERE required to reveal my identity and refused to, why couldn’t they simply arrest me on that alone instead of using the knife and park laws?
- If I wasn’t required to reveal it, is it then unethical for a police officer to deliberately find a minor crime just to circumvent #1?
- They always say “ignorance of the law is not a defense”, but should I really be expected to have believed that I was committing either crime when the officer didn’t even mention them at first, was willing to ignore them altogether halfway through, and still dropped one of them at the end? If I’m really expected to know these and every other obscure law, how can I educate myself to make sure I’m not blindingly violating city ordinances in the future… preferably without reading every single item in the municipal code (which seems like an awfully unrealistic and unfair standard to hold the average citizen to)?
If you can help me understand why I was wrong, I will accept responsibility for my ignorance, plead guilty, and consider it a lesson learned. The future employment consequences, while very unfortunate, were of my own doing and I will have no one else to blame.
If, on the other hand, this was more a case of police harrassment, I will at least try to argue it in court and see what the judge has to say.
Again, thanks for all the thoughts and insights. I’m paying very close attention to everything said here and still trying to digest it all.
Live and learn.