The Moral of the story…I was drunk,called my girl the “C” word and she called the cops. Her mom lives next door,but the police told me I had to go,and would give me a ride. She told the cops there was no threat,and I never threatened her. When asked where I would like to go,I explained…I am from NY. My G.F.'s Mother lives next door. Unless you take me to NY,I am not leaving my home. (Lease was in both of our names) Suffice it to say,the Police drove the really drunk guy to a bar. Is this even CLOSE to legal?
Whose house were you at? The title says “my Premises”, but the OP indicates you live in another state. I’m confused.
Of course they can make you leave your girlfriend’s house if she called them on a Domestic Disturbance. Should they have brought you, drunk, to a bar? I wouldn’t think so, since public intoxication is generally frowned on, as is serving alcohol to a visibly drunk person. But your other option was probably the local jail for a night, so I’m not sure you would have been happy with that, either.
ETA: Never mind, you added the bit about the lease on edit. I’ll leave it to the lawyers/police officers from here.
Not to be an A$$ but it sounds to me that the police were being nice to you. AFAIK, not obeying a police order & being drunk at all is a recipe for the drunk tank.
For the removal of you from the premises, its a tactic designed to allow you (and SO) a cooldown period. Time for to calm down, and you to sober up.
Basically they didn’t feel you needed to go to jail, but the situation demanded some response.
So that is my 2 cents.
Then why did she call them?
I guarantee you, the police hear this stuff all the time. A woman gets threatened (or is otherwise scared for her safety), calls the cops, and suddenly decides that “nothing is wrong” once loverboy is on his way to being cuffed and stuffed.
They’re not going to leave her with you, not while you’re drunk, not right after she called them for help. They’re not going to tell her to go next door, when they know damn well she’ll walk right back into the house when they leave.
So, you get dropped off somewhere, hopefully sober up, don’t cause any more trouble, and get home safely, with both of you in a better state of mind.
I don’t think the cops can make you leave your own home without placing you under arrest. But,
- They probably could have justifiably placed you under arrest at any point in your story, and
- They can certainly suggest that you should go elsewhere for a while, and you can decide to take them up on the offer or not. Given number 1 above, it sounds like you made the right decision.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be legal (though I agree that a bar doesn’t seem like the best choice of destinations).
And I’m not sure what difference you think it makes where your GF’s mother lives.
Your girlfriend called the cops because you called her the c-word? Either you’re leaving something out or you need to get a new girlfriend.
Short answer: no. Absent a restraining order, they cannot force you to leave your home.
However, I see two possibilities:
- They were wanting you to leave so things could cool off and made it seem like they had the authority to make you leave. If you pressed it, they might have left you alone.
OR,
- As another poster said, they may have had enough to arrest you. I don’t know the circumstances, but what constitutes domestic assault is very, very thin. Very thin. Physical contact is not required. So, they might have been saying, “Either leave voluntarily, or leave in handcuffs and stay with us tonight.”
They really don’t even need enough to arrest you, do they? Everyone on here seems to indicate that a cop can just arrest you for trumped up charges, and then remove them later without any problems.
But I do question the wisdom of taking a drunk person to a bar of all places. It seems like that would only make the situation worse.
Very much so.
Dude, a similar thing has happened to me b4 and it’s friggin shitty! Here in Florida, the locals can pretty much ‘right-rape’ the FUCK out of the populace. I thought I was relatively alone in my story but over the last year, I’ve discovered different. Sorry you had to deal with it, especially when your gf’s mama lives so close…
Sounds like it was your GFs home. It may have been yours too, but there are local ordinances that allow the police to seperate parties in a domestic disturbance. Maybe they’re not constitutional, but nobody actually cares.
My short answer: there’s not anywhere close to enough factual information in the original post to make any evaluation of what was “legal”, or even of what actually happened.
But police aren’t masters of the universe. Absent a court order, which we would assume didn’t happen since they arrived after a phone call, their options are either to arrest or not depending on whether they have probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed. And that’s it.
I understand that there are nuances in police practice (e.g. “We will arrest you unless you leave.”), but the straight-forward answer to the question in the OP is an unqualified “No.”
In most states, the police cannot legally leave a scene of a suspected domestic abuse without separating the two parties. This usually ends up with the arrest of one of the parties.
Was what the police did legal? No. The police should have arrested you, sent your girlfriend to a counselor, and tried to convince her to press charges. That’s what the official procedure probably says they’re suppose to do.
It sounds like the police thought that maybe there wasn’t any domestic abuse, but an argument that was getting out of hand. So, they skimped on the legality a bit. They separated the two parties, and probably gave you a stern talking to. The idea was to get both of you to cool down. Maybe they just didn’t want to bother with the arrest paperwork only to have the charges dropped later on.
By the way, it wouldn’t have surprised me if they had visited your girlfriend later to get more information about the whole incident.
Police have a right to detain you without charging you for a period of time. This varies from 24 to 72 hours, after they need to charge you with a crime or get a judge to issue an order to continue to hold you.
The police didn’t really do anything illegal. Most likely they were being nice as another poster said.
They probably said something along the lines of, “You can leave right now, or we will take you in an detain you pending charges”
This is legal. What would you rather do? Leave? Or go to the police station and be put in a holding cell?
Remember back when Jeffrey Dahmer had a victim and the poor guy was running down the street and the neighbors called the cops? Dahmer managed to convince the cops it was “domestic” and the cops allowed Dahmer to take the guy back to his flat and Dahmer killed him
The original scenerio probably played out as
- Cops called
- Cops presented the OP with a choice
3a) Leave
3b) Stay and be taken in to a holding cell, pending charges - OP chose to leave or felt obligated to leave but had no where to go
- Cop was nice and said “Where would you like to go?”
- OP said, “To a bar”
Now I don’t know what really happened but that sounds pretty much like what went on. Unless of course the cops physically forced the guy into a squad car and dumped him at a bar, it was a matter of “making an offer you can’t refuse”
bear in mind this is coming from an officer in texas, but we are most likely similar in practices.
first off, you’re post does not offer near enough information to determine legality. second, we receive (as noted above) these calls ALL THE TIME. I have a suspicion that you’re not telling the whole story as no reasonable person would call 911 after being called anything derogatory. so that aside, it is legal for us to separate you two, by way of arresting you for p.i. or any other nuisance city ordinance. you, pissed off and drunk, got off easy by the cops asking you to leave, saving you from all kinds of trouble. for all the cop-hate on the net you sure found some nice ones at least in their handling that situation.
lastly, here in texas if we’re called to a family violence (domestic in other states) scene and just “leave” cause you think we can’t legally separate you two, we’re liable for whatever happens afterwards. if she was hurt after we left the indictment hearing would probly contain the following question: “officer, why did you leave an angry, drunk man at the location who had made my client feel so threatened that she called an EMERGENCY number for help?”. your state may be slightly different, but here we are legally able (and required) to separate two parties in a family violence call.
He called her the c-word. She needs to get a new boyfriend.
Similar question. The girlfriend and I get in a mutual fight and she calls the cops. It is my house/apartment/condo and she is not on the mortgage/lease/whatever. The cops decide that we need to be separated for a while. Can the cops make ME leave and let her stay at my place.
Let’s live dangerously and say that they both need new SOs.
Best wishes,
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Well, I think that’s bad but not necessarily break up able over. Calling someone a bad name when you’re pissed is one thing but calling the police over that would make me think that someone is really seriously unbalanced.