I can take your point, he does have a compelling interest in correcting and educating.
But still, the thought is incomplete. Is he regretful, in the sombre knowledge that the average jurist is easily misled? Or confident that said jurist will easily see the solid argument the policeman offers?
For my two bits, that’s a hell of a lot of benefit for damn little doubt.
A sane and sensible proposal. Re-posted in the hope more people will read it.
In the current environment, what are the chances of changing Mimms and Atwater? What would it take?
It would have been more clear if I had said identical behavioral standards rather than “the same behavioral standards.” Obviously, there will be some overlap.
You still may have objected, though. idk.
It is entirely reasonable to expect more of police officers than we do of regular citizens especially and in particular when the officers are on duty and and exercising their powers and authority.
Granted, everyone should be treated with respect and courtesy by default.
It is quite different to be rude to someone whose form of retaliation would be to pack you canned goods on top of your bread vs someone who has a real potential seriously fuck-up (or even end) your life in the course exercising his various discretions as he goes about his duties.
But, again, everyone should be treated with respect and courtesy by default.
No “better than they absolutely have to” is quite different for the cop than for the cashier because of the great differences between the responsibilities of the two.
According to the transcript, the officer believed that he was de-escalating or at least wanted his supervisor to believe that he was:
**Encinia **(apparently to a supervisor): I tried to de-escalate her. It wasn’t getting anywhere, at all. I mean I tried to put the Taser away. I tried talking to her and calming her down, and that was not working.
Well, I know, that was when she was in custody, and now I tried to get her detained and get her to just calm down and just calm down. Stop throwing her arms. You know what? She never swung at me, just flailing and stomping around. I said alright that’s enough, and that’s when I detained her.
<snip>
No weapons, she’s in handcuffs. You know, I took the lesser of the uhh … I only took enough force as I – seemed necessary. I even de-escalated once we were on the pavement, you know on the sidewalk. So I allowed time, I’m not saying I just threw her to the ground. I allowed time to de-escalate and so forth. It just kept getting. (laughing) Right, I’m just making that clear.
We can call them street-judges.
There’s no doubt that any attempt to charge a motorist with failure to obey a lawful order would fail if the order were not clearly and unambiguously an order.
But what happened here seems to be that when the motorist refused what she thought was a request to exit the car, the officer changed his mind about issuing her only a warning and decided to arrest her. And his request for her to exit the car, in turn, arose because (for whatever reason) he asked her to extinguish her cigarette and she refused.
I don’t know of any particular principle of law that declares an officer cannot exercise his discretion in that way.
If I were a judge, I’d probably credit the trooper’s testimony that he thought it was a safety threat, assuming he so testified. And in my experience, so would the vast majority of judges in the country.
If I put myself in the place of that trooper, then no, I don’t believe I’d have considered it a safety threat.
Why would you credit that testimony?
Yes, please. Explain.
It seems that you and presumably most judges think of yourselves as reasonable persons.
If a reasonable person such as yourself would not have considered the cigarette a sufficient threat, why would you [or is it “should you”?] be inclined to credit the trooper’s assertion to the contrary?
Because presumably the trooper’s testimony would include an explanation, or examples of injuries inflicted with lit cigarettes, or specific training he had received concerning lit cigarettes, or even a personal example like an allergy.
If his testimony were simply the conclusory statement that he had unspecified safety concerns, no, I would not credit it. But that’s a very unlikely turn.
In fact, now that I think about it, I’m wondering what the reaction would be if the trooper said, “Well, after all the news stories about restaurants being forced to ban smoking because of second-hand smoke health concerns, and smoking being banned in all state and federal buildings because of health concerns, I have come to believe that second-hand smoke is dangerous enough that I don’t want it in my lungs.”
Not that I am suggesting this was his concern, mind you. But is that a legitimate view for a police officer to hold?
Plot twist - officer’s arms are covered with scars from cigarette burns he’s endured from irate drivers.
A test case to SCOTUS and they reverse themselves, legislative action at the state level, or constitutional amendment.
Good thing she didn’t have a cat, he might have ordered her to throw it out the passenger side window. Maybe stuff it in the glove compartment.
How much above the median do you figure he deserves? Or constitutes “pretty well paid”.
Not if you agree to it because it is more convenient to tell the cop yes rather than stand on your civil rights.
It may be reasonable to expect the minimum level of treatment a cop has to provide to be better than that a cashier should - it’s not reasonable, in my opinion, to expect either to provide more than that to someone who’s being a dick to them.
If we are going to give the police the discretion to not arrest some people they legally could, we should accept that they will use that discretion as they choose, and remember that the baseline is being arrested for it, that no-one who has been arrested has been treated badly by being arrested, and that a cop letting it slide is doing more than they have to - it should be considered a bonus, not be expected.
We are talking here about someone who did, provably, commit a crime that they could have been arrested for. They would not suffer unduly by being arrested.
That was my original assumption as to why he did it. As a general rule, and becoming more widespread, we don’t expect that people should be exposed to cigarette smoke doing their jobs. There’s no good reason that the police shouldn’t have the same right as a barman.
Yes. A barman can kick a guy out of his bar for swearing at him. That probably means a cop should be allowed tazer a guy for swearing at him. Why are cops so handcuffed by rules?!?
Ha! If you haven’t watched the dashcam video, please do, then report back and tell me he was all about de-escalating.
Do yourself a favor and watch the 2012 Dredd. Far superior film!
But yes, that’s what I was driving at. Giving the police power as law enforcement and judge… that’s a combo no one would really want.
Well, she was in private property, not a business establishment, govt bldg, or public place, and he wasn’t her employee.
On what basis could you argue for it?
