That’s the thing. She was totally out of line from a civility perspective. But well within her rights, and not a threat to the cop. Irritated and mouthy are not crimes, as much as that might irk the cops. She probably had a legal duty to comply with the order to get out of the car, but he was morally and ethically wrong to take it to that level.
Those arguing she was in the wrong have pragmatism on their side, but you do have the right to give a cop a piece of your mind. Maybe cops should know that.
If that’s all she did, she would have gotten a ticket, but she wouldn’t have gotten arrested. Her problem was that in addition to “giving the cop a piece of her mind” she also refused a lawful order, then resisted arrest, then kicked the cop, finally getting arrested for “assault on a public servant”.
Quite a bit more than “giving the cop a piece of her mind”, wouldn’t you say?
Gant deals with the permissibility of a vehicle search incident to an arrest. It doesn’t limit the arrest itself, only the state’s ability to search a car at the time of the arrest.
Atwater rests in part on the Texas law permitting warrantless arrests for minor traffic offenses. I don’t think this is a country-wide situation. The decision basically says that the Texas law does not offend the federal constitution. I don’t know that it creates a police state, but it certainly vests in the police officer on the street a lot of discretion, more than the huge quanta of discretion police typically have.
For this reason, most police departments have policies that forbid such arrests, even though they are not otherwise illegal.
So a citizen arrested under such circumstances will be able to raise hell (figuratively speaking) by means of complaint to the department for violation of those policies.
It’s just never a good idea to try to assert such defenses at roadside. But the office behaved horribly.
You’re ignoring the fact that the lawful order stemmed directly from her giving the piece of her mind. She did nothing to warrant it. I’m giving the benefit of the doubt that he had the authority to order her out of the car, based in part on what I have read in this thread. I don’t claim to be an expert on these matters.
But if you won’t acknowledge that the cop escalated specifically in response to the attitude and bitching, then I am afraid you and I are in different realities.
No HIS problem was he never gave a lawful order to extinguish her cigarette. He asked, she refused and was well within her right to do so. He then told her to get out of the car, she refused citing there was no arrest Only then did he give her the "lawful order"put his claws on her and pull his taser, while she was trying to sign the traffic warning he gave her. By the way it’s amazing how she is “resisting arrest” when he didn’t even know what to charge her with until after she was cuffed and in the cruiser.
Of course he did. And if she wanted to continue giving him that “piece of her mind” she should have obeyed the lawful order. After she repeatedly didn’t, that was not about her talking anymore. It was about her actions.
Texas Law is going to get a lot of scrutiny given the circumstances of this incident which occurred on July 10. If Sandra lived maybe she’d be at the mercy of an archaic law, but in her death there is outrage and should the family autopsy be at odds with the official ME, quite likely since they are in “cover my ass” mode right now then there just might be enough people fed up to demand change.
Absolutely. The cop just gave her a warning summons. He was not in danger. He had no probable cause to arrest in the first place. Her being belligerent is not against the law. However his abuse of his authority could be challenged in a court of law, he knew it and so did she.
It’s discretionary. The idea is you serve the damn public.
It is utterly stupid to waste a citizens time and the departments time to process an arrest for this offence - it’s what you do in some para-military hell hole.
Exactly right, Texas might be hell but last I heard it’s not a police state. But for those Texans scared out of their minds they should read up on this article that clearly delineates how the cop abused his authority and how Sandra was well within her rights
It not only says she was within her rights, but the cop did indeed violate laws, such as not giving her a reason for arresting her, especially when she asks him explicitly, he gave her no response other than call on for back up. She had no idea what was going on, and he got physical with her.
Also, they’re saying pointing the taser in her face and telling her “he’ll light her up” is a threat for unessesary violence.
So he actually may be on the line for some unlawful shit he pulled. Interesting read.
Unfortunately, Mr. Harrington fails to identify any citation to statute or case law, and when he says things like “has to,” he does not make it clear whether he us asserting Texas law or police department policy. For example, by police courtesy policy, the trooper should explain why she is under arrest, and the trooper violated that policy.
But there’s no legal requirement that he do so, and his failure to do so does not vitiate the arrest.
These points were made earlier in the thread, when Mr. Harrington was first quoted.
