overzealous officer

Factual Questions
1

Hi all!

I have a question regarding my rights - but first, here’s the situation.

I live near a college campus. Last night, I was walking through the campus when I was accosted by an officer. He asked if I was a student, and I said no. He asked what I was doing there, and I said (truthfully) that I was just walking through.

He then said that answer wasn’t good enough. Throughout the remainder of the exchange he repeatedly asked me what I was doing there - each time, I answered the same. The truth only seemed to piss this guy off. At this point, sensing some animosity, I offered to leave the campus area if I was somehow trespassing. Instead of allowing me to leave at this point, the officer searched me without asking for my consent or even saying that he was about to search me (in other words, he just grabbed me and started rifling through my pockets.

He then called for backup (any who have met me will surely laugh at this, I am clearly not an imposing figure to look at).

So now I’m talking to three officers instead of one. They ask for ALL of my personal information. I can understand wanting a few pieces of info to identify me and confirm that I am who I say I am… but my home AND work address? My car’s license plate? When I ask if all of this is necessary (reminding them that I’m really only taking a walk and will gladly get off the campus if it is a problem), the only answer I get is “give us the info and shut up”.

Eventually, they let me go. However, I really do feel violated by this encounter and am wondering if I have any grounds for a suit. I am pretty much completely unaware of how the law works, so I was wondering if some of my fellow SDMB folks might be able to enlighten me. Any and all comments are welcome!

Thanks
-BillyBoy

2

depending on the college, it may have been private property.

While the officer may have seemed heavy handed to you, let me point out some possibilities
A. There may have been a recent crime occuring.
B. Some one may have seen you and gotten afraid and called the police to investigate
C. there may have been some criminal activity around there for a while

Any of these things would explain why they’d want to at least queary some lone person walking around.

Basic rule of thumb with officers. They have no sense of humor while on the job. (I have no experience of them off the job). So, if they asked “what are you doing here” and you answered exactly the same thing several times without elaboration, yea, they’ll start thinking you have something to hide.

Example: what are you doing here?
Walking around.
What are you doing here?
I’m coming home from work. I work over there (point) and live over here (point) and I find this to be the nicest/most efficient way home.

I guess for me, if the cop had asked the question the second time, I would have started with “If I’m tresspassing, I was unaware of it, and will leave.”

Police do NOT need a warrant or permission if they have “Probably cause” I’m sure they felt that your repeated statement was probable cause (“I asked the subject what he was doing there. He replied ‘walking around’. I repeated my question several times, he kept repeating his answer”). Sorry you went through this. Find out from the college if it’s public or private property.

3

Well, I did post a slightly condensed version of the conversation. I elaborated as best as I could that I lived near the campus and that this was a simply a walk through the campus and nothing more (pretty close to how you . I have not seen this campus before, and wanted to walk through it. It’s not that I was just repeating a 4 word answer over and over again. I tried as hard as I could to be friendly and answer his questions as fully as possible.

I also did just as you suggested, stating that if I was trespassing, I was unaware of it and would gladly leave. That’s actually the part that burns me the most. If the problem was my mere presence, the conversation should have been over within 10 seconds, for that is how long it took me to offer to get off the property. He would not allow me to leave, however.

I agree with your points A, B, and C. The fact that they queried me doesn’t bother me at all. However, I don’t believe that I gave them any cause for concern outside of the fact that I was on their campus.

Even if they have probable cause to search (which I still argue they didn’t in this case), don’t they first need to notify you that they are about to do so? And did I mention that they searched me a second time when the backup came?

4

[ul]
[li]Were they real police or campus security? They sound like the latter. (The statement “give us the info and shut up” should never be uttered by a real policeman.) As to being searched outside of the realm of arresting you, 2 words: major lawsuit! whoever they were.[/li][li]Are you a member of a minority group? If so, they may have been using profiling to justify questioning you.[/li][li]Did you look “out of place”? Hard to imagine on a college campus, since I had classmates that wore everything from slacks and sport jackets down to hole-iest jeans and ratty T-shirts.[/li][li]Were you holding a knife dripping with blood? :D:D[/li][/ul]

Only the last would be a justifiable reason for them to detain you. It really sounds like over-zealous campus cops who have never studied the Constitution. I hope you got badge numbers, because I think you have a good complaint on your hands.

5

A great man once told me: (and I’m sure that it applies to most of you Dopers to…)

“Remember when you’re dealing with police that you’re smarter than most of them.”

These guys sound like goons. And you have to realize a lot of people want to be police just so they can go on some sort of crazy power trip.

By the way:

If police are 5.0s then what are campus security?
2.5s.

6

To be fair, these weren’t the officers exact words… this was definitely the sentiment of what he said, though

Nope. I am the average white male. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Pictures of the average American family from back in the 1950s bear a striking resemblance to my family portraits. They also bear a striking resemblance to the majority of students at this University, so I don’t think they were singling me out for that reason

Hehe… apparently I did…

That is what I was wondering… do you happen to know where I could find more information about the laws that apply here?

7

(sorry for making that whole post bold)

8

No, they don’t have to warn you before they search you. Being searched the second time, I would guess was to do a better search than the first pat down.

I have said this in another thread, but police can and SHOULD get backup and show excessive force. SHOW. Remove any hope of fight or flight and everyone is safer.

You never did answer, were they real officers or campus police?

CandyMan

9

Ok, now I’ve heard that they do have to warn me and that they do not have to warn me. Some folks say they can search me, some say they violated my rights by doing so… can someone point me towards any resources online that will lend some clarity?

As a general rule, I can see why you would say this… but I don’t think its valid in this particular situation. Why would you need backup just to talk to someone? If the answer is anything along the lines of “just in case”, then they should be travelling in groups to begin with. Who is more of a threat, me or one of the 4 packs of loud, angry, drunken frat boys that stumbled by us while all this was taking place? I can only hope that nothing bad happened elsewhere on the campus while they tied up all of their resources to talk to a lone man who simply wanted to walk.

They were campus cops… however, I can’t help but feel that my complaint would be the same if they had been real officers.

10

It might be worth illuminating the perspective of the guards and/or officers involved. The major concern of campus security is the safety of the students, particularly the female students. College campuses are some sexual predators’ preferred hunting grounds. Therefore anyone who is not a student and is wandering about the campus is bound to attract a large degree of suspicion.

Furthermore, they are going to want to know everything they can possibly find out about you. Just in case you turn out to be a baddie, they’ll have evidence they can use to track you down. It’s not cool, but they are trying to do a difficult job, and the intent is in the right place, even if their tactics aren’t in this case.

11

Can you tell us what college campus it is? They may have information online specific to their campus which details the powers their security officers do and do not have. (My best friend who is a police officer and formerly worked security for two different colleges, each of which had very different powers.)

Once you have that information (or even before), I would definitely start making phone calls, first to the head of security, then to the Dean, then to the President, then to the president of the Board of Trustees. As political as most colleges are, I can assure you that nobody wants the Trustees pissed off at them, nor do they want the image problem with the community that will result from the letters you will inevitably write to the mayor and the local press. :slight_smile:

12

your complaint may have been the same for real vs. campus cops, but the answers would be different.

** some ** campus police are fully recognized units of law enforcement. Others have very limited powers.

To find out the scope of their authority, 1. contact their post and ask questions. 2. also contact the city attorney of the city the campus is in. You may get two different answers.

Regarding the search question. My understanding is that the issue is usually “do you need the person’s consent” and usually, if the cop can say there was probable cause, the answer is “no”. I guess you weren’t looking for the answer about consent, but notification. I’ve got to admit that’s never been something I paid attention to. When I ran the correction center and needed to do a search, I simply stated that I was going to search the purse/pockets etc. but that was AS I WAS DOING IT. I didn’t “have” to say it, I just did as a filler. When doing room searches, as well, I’d knock AS I WAS ENTERING. So notification has never been a concept that I’ve paid attention to when discussing the law.

But. If you seriously believe your rights were mangled, contact the city attorney’s office, find out the scope of the powers of the campus cops and go from there.

On the side of what did you endure, I went through worse when I went through customs (delay, search, search, delay and no, I didn’t have anything).

13

What time of night was it?

If it was late, then the police (IMHO) were right to detain and question a lone guy who is not a student.

I don’t know about where you live, but around here the University campus is apparently the home of the sexual assault. We actually started a program called “Safe Walk” where students(mostly female) could call and have someone escort them where they wanted to go. While I did volunteer my services for this (it was a great way to meet women :D), I still think it is a pretty lousy situation when a woman can’t feel safe just walking to and from class.

If the police can prevent this sort of thing by ID’ing everybody who goes on the campus, more power to them.

Sorry for your inconvenience dude.

14

I agree. From the beginning, my issue was with their tactics, not the intent. The fact that they wanted to ID me is understandable. The rest, IMO, is not.

15

I do not know what state you are in, but in Texas, Campus police are usually a full Police force. And they have a wider jusrisdiction and more powers then most municipal police. My guess as to what happened was that there was some sort of crime that was committed on campus and they thought that you were a “possible” but they did not have enough to arrest you. They got all of the info so that if things pointed to you, they can find you. Wrong place, wrong time.

It seems that they handled it poorly on the PR end of it though. That sucks, and when it happens it gives all cops a bad name. But remember, cops have probably the worst job possible- Low pay, constant threat of danger, 90% of the people who talk to them lie, everyone thinks they are stupid, and 100% of the people who they interact with do not want to deal with them.

16

In California, most State colleges have camups police similar to those in Texas. In small towns they frequently work with the local police on Campus and in town. Police are human, and the ones I know (my wife’s family) have great senses of humor on duty and off. They have to. My brother-in-law spent Christmas eve running down the street in South Central LA, carrying a shotgun, yelling “Merry Christmas, which way did the guys with the guns go?”
Do you know what crime they were called there for? It is difficult to understand their behaviour without knowing the whole story. That officer might have just finished interviewing a young coed about a theft, or assault, or rape, and you might have in some way fit the description of the “perp” (TV cop lingo for person who did it). They might have seen something horrible and really been anxious to find the guy who did it. If you were there, and were the only person without a really good reason to be there, then you were probably their best lead at the time, so they were questioning you. Not a good lead, but the best available at the time.
If you really want to know, go to the station, identify yourself and ask about it. This might make them suspect you more, but if you explain your concerns you will probably find them more than willing to explain what was going on and why they did what they did. If you are hostile and threaten a law suit, then they probably will pawn you off on a PR guy, and you won’t learn anything.
Or search through the local papers for the police blotter, and check the place and time.

17

Here is the deal regarding detention, search, arrest, and other such matters.

There are three types of encounters between the police and private citizens. The first is a consensual encounter. The police are perfectly free to walk up to any person and ask them questions, as long as the person is free to disregard their questions and go about their business.

If the police have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that a crime has been committed, and that you are the person that committed the crime, or if they have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that you may be armed, they may briefly detain you and conduct a brief, non-intrusive search of your person for weapons – patting the outside of your garments, for example. This is known in legal circles as a Terry stop, from Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court case that laid out the ground rules for such encounters.

Note that reasonable, articulable suspicion is a standard lower than probable cause, but not non-existent. It means that the officer must be able to point to specific, clear facts that gave rise to his suspicion; a Terry stop may not be predicated on a hunch, a guess, or an inchoate suspicion.

The third level of encounter involves a seizure. Whether or not you are arrested, if you are seized and searched against your will (beyond the brief detainment and non-intrusive search I mention above) then probable cause must exist that a crime was committed, and that you were the person that committed it.

Now, there is no requirement that the police tell you all of this, or what’s going on. But in the end, if those standards are not met, any evidence they have gotten from you will be inadmissible - so they have a good motive for following the rules.

As wring pointed out, in the case you mention, you have no way of knowing if they just got a call from some frightened freshman that someone was peeking in her window, “…some guy with brown hair.” Now, if you happened to walk by two minutes later, that certainly gives them cause at the very least for a Terry type stop.

  • Rick
18

BillyBoy, I would not dare say that the police messed up or did something wrong because no matter how detailed your story, you may accidently leave out info that you dont think is relevant, but is. And as was mentioned before, you dont know if something serious just occurred that put the police in such a serious mood.
Of course it is possible they were just really bored and assholes…
I will give you all the info I think you need concerning frisks and searches and you can make the call yourself.

I do not have the cites for this. You can either trust me or search Google.com for “Terry vs Ohio” and “Carol Doctrine”

Here is the straight dope on getting searched:

If the officer has reasonable suspicion (this is LESS than probably cause) to believe you committed a crime, are committing a crime, or are about to commit a they can stop and detain you. You are not under arrest but you are also not free to leave. They have restrictions such as not moving you and such. They have to conduct their investigation right there.

Once Detained, they will almost definitely want to frisk or search you.
Search based on consent:
They will probably ASK for your permission to search your person, your car, your bags etc. If you give them permission, then of course they can search away! You also have the right to stop this search at any time. For example, if you give them permission to search your car and they start searching it, then they start to open the trunk. You just remember the Five kilos of cocaine you left in the trunk and you tell them to STOP. They MUST stop immediately. Now, they could of course bring in a drug dog at this point to obtain “probable cause” for a search, but absent some other reason, they MUST stop when you say so.

FRISK based on probable cause:
Once detained, if an officer has probable cause to believe you may have a weapon or other contraban on your person, he may FRISK you. This is much different and less invasive than a SEARCH. A frisk is just a pat down of outter garments. They may have you remove a heavy jacket or other item, but they cannot reach into your pockets or open bags or anything like that. Probable cause to frisk could be several things. The easiest justifiable reason for an officer is “the suspect made a furtive movement”. So if you scratch your belly the wrong way or something else, they can frisk you to make sure they do not feel any weapon.
NOTE: They cannot just search for “officer safety”. This is not a valid reason in court. Any officer who used that as justification is both an idiot and an… .ummmm a … well he is just a big idiot and he needs to go back to the academy before he faces a violation of civil rights lawsuit because that is exactly what he is doing.
Other reasons for a frisk could be things like a big bulge in your pants (shut up) or the fact that you fit the description of someone who was last seen holding a big bloody knife; you are personally known by the officers to be armed; weapons were just found on your buddies, etc. But remember, they need a REASON- probable cause.
THIS IS ALL JUST FOR A FRISK, a PAT DOWN.

Now for a SEARCH without consent:
After coming up with a reason to pat you down, they happen to feel something that seems to be a weapon, they can now go into that pocket or waste band or whatever and retrieve said item. If it is a weapon they can confiscate it. If you had a permit or otherwise were not breaking a law by possessing the weapon they must give it back AFTER the investigation provided you are not arrested for something else. If you are committing a crime by having that concealed weapon, you are now under arrest :). If it turns out the item was not a weapon and could not be used as a weapon, they must put it back in your pants.
If they are patting you down and feel something that they immediately recognize as drugs (a baggy of rocks or weed, etc) then they may go in and take out the drugs. If the item IS drugs, then you are arrested. If it is a bag of oregeno, then they have to put it back. (they will test it :slight_smile: )

Wow this is a lot of crap… I hope I do not leave anything out.

Last one
Search incident to an arrest:
Once you are arrested for something, they can search your ass until they are tired. (no butt jokes)
They can go into your pockets, your mouth, your bags… pretty much everything! If you were arrested in your car, they can even search the passenger compartment of your vehicle. Anything they find will be added to your charges.
For example, if you walking around with a beer and violating some open container law (if you have one), the officer can come up to you and arrest you. Now he can search your entire person. If he finds a concealed gun and some drugs, you will be arrested for those as well.

Note: Walking passed a NO TRESSPASSING sign is arrestable. Check the campus. Was it a public campus? Private?

If I have left something out or you need clarification, let me know.

19

Damnit!!!

I knew that by the time I was done typing, someone else would have beat me to it.
Good job Bricker.
Let me just add some info about the “Shut up and answer the question” comment. You ALWAYS have the right to remain silent. You NEVER have to tell an officer a thing. You can refuse to tell them your name if you wish!! Of course that would just give them reason to hold you longer and try to identify you, but you can play mute if you want! I have seen it done…

Though you have the right to not talk to an officer, you cannot LIE to an officer. So if you tell them your name is Joe, and it is really “Bob”, you go to jail. If you just keep your mouth shut and say nothing… well that will really piss them off and you will probably go to jail for something else… but not for lieing :slight_smile:

All that info about your car and your address and such did not have to be disclosed if you did not want to. Keep in mind that it would have just made them more suspicious of you and you would have had to deal with them a hell of a lot longer… but had you wanted to stay silent… it is your right!!!

20

Yeah, I thought Bricker would come by sooner or later :slight_smile:

“You ALWAYS
have the right to remain silent. You NEVER have to tell an officer a thing.”

I would not advise that. That would be a pretty stupid idea, unless you are unable to communicate said information.

However, sort of missing is the fact that when an officer confronts you, this is called ‘Voluntary Detention’ & you don’t have to stay. Just ask them first if you are under arrest, if not, inform them you are leaving [dont just run away for Pete’s sake]. Always say that you do NOT consent to any searches.

I once wrote out this stuff about no consent to a search, etc & asked the officers to sign it; but three of them refused. Wimps.