Showing ID is encouraging cops to mistreat people for not showing ID?
So what? Who said being a good law-abiding citizen is supposed to be easy?
She did identify herself to the police officers. You’re wrong here.
[QUOTE=The article in the OP]
Lucas said he gave the officers his identification when asked, but Watts refused.
Watts was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car, according to Lucas. Once police identified Watts, Lucas says they let them go.
[/QUOTE]
Cite?
According to the comments on the article (Unreliable, I know…), someone had called the police and reported them as having public sex, which is what prompted the police to ask.
If the man confirms it’s his wife, why exactly is further ID required?
Unfounded reason. Why did they think that?
Showing ID when there is no reason to do so increases the number of times cops ask people to show ID for no reason, resulting in an increase in the number of times cops mistreat people for not showing ID. Showing ID doesn’t do anything to fight this practice.
Well, there’s that. Is it possible that a single 60-second article from one TV news station might not possibly contain the entire breadth of the story?
No it isn’t, because they cannot back up their suspicion with anything other than “saw black woman kiss white man”. At some point that suspicion is going to be deemed “not reasonable” (like as soon as 4 working brain cells think about it), so no, their “reason” is not solid.
The article identifies Lucas as her “partner”, not her husband. I’m not sure where the OP got that word from.
If that’s true, and they came up and didn’t see actual sex perhaps they should’ve used their judgement and critical thinking skills…
Someone could call and assert anything. Bottom line, when they came up no one was doing anything wrong and they had it confirmed she was with her so/spouse/partner. Time to walk away, boys.
Are you under the impression that there is some law that requires people to have government issued identification?
Detaining them for not showing ID does, certainly. Why is this so hard to understand? Furthermore, it perpetuates the mistaken belief that showing ID is always a requirement rather than a simple courtesy, in doing so giving the state more power than it is entitled to have.
You strike me as a pretty conservative person. I thought conservatives were all about individual rights and small, non-intrusive government. A cop who detains someone for lawful behavior should be anathema to you.
When you can come up with THE REST OF THE STORY that can justify handcuffing a black woman for kissing a white man in public because police asked to see her I.D. (thinking she was a prostitute) and she rightfully refused, just let us know, o.k.? In the meantime, this shit about how it’s alright to have rights when it comes to interacting with police but lets not get too crazy about actually using them? Screw that.
Because both California law and the Supreme Court specifically grant police that authority?
I didn’t say that it was. I said that the cops have the authority to detain you until they determine your identity, so it’s in the best interest of everyone involved that you show them that simple courtesy instead of wasting your time and theirs.
Then you’d be wrong.
She exercised her right under CA law to not show identification.
And in so doing, she chose to instead be detained while the cops verified her identity by other means.
I don’t read Terry as giving that right. Perhaps you can look at my earlier post and point out where I’m wrong.
There is not, in CA at least. There is law allowing the police to verify one’s identity.
To play devils advocate, because I’m pretty sure that if the guy was with a hooker that he could plausibly come up with the same excuse. So, the police aren’t going to be inclined to take anyone’s word for it that the babe on his arm is really, really really his wife.
And looking at pictures of him, I guess I can kind of see how the police, if they didn’t know who they were, could jump to that conclusion, especially the part about them being called for a case of supposed public sex is true. It’s hard for me to believe that the police in California are going to pick up every black woman with a white man who kiss in public. I might believe that in Mississippi or somewhere else in the deep south, but California?? It’s not exactly an uncommon site to see a black man/white woman or white man/black woman pairing…hell, it’s not that uncommon to see a black man/white man or black woman/white woman pairing for that matter.
Yeah, it was stupid of the police to accost this couple. But it was kind of stupid not to simply resolve all of this by the expedient of producing ID and then going your merry way, perhaps going on Twitter afterwards to complain. For the life of me I can’t think of why anyone would refuse to produce ID when asked if that would clear things up, instead of going through all that hassle.