Ultimately the issue we’re all dancing around in this thread is that we as a nation employ too many police who cannot be trusted to do their job in a bias free manner.
So we’re trying to develop work-arounds to reduce the harm of evil-minded policing rather than going to the heart and reducing evil-minded policing as such.
Of course having scads of armed citizens and scads of criminals doesn’t make draining the police swamp any easier.
Why not? People acting under color of government authority are subject to strict restrictions that members of the general public aren’t. There are tons of people who aren’t allowed to carry arms based on their jobs.
Do we mean “pure BS” when we say “pretext”? To be valid, even a pretextual stop needs to be related to reasonable suspicion or probable cause of an actual traffic offense. Otherwise it’s an illegal seizure. Or do you mean that moving violations are pure BS?
I knew a cop whose practice was to follow a driver for a mile. If the driver “hit” the lane line, three times in the mile, he would pull him over. (Weaving within your lane is perfectly legal, but you can’t hit the lane line.) The stop was a pretext to see if the driver was impaired. If you were impaired, he’d arrest you. If not, he’d let you go without a ticket.
(Interestingly, some studies have concluded that minorities are more likely to be pulled over, but less likely to get a ticket, supporting the view that they are being stopped as a pretext for other investigations. Other studies have concluded that minorities are more likely to get a ticket, which I suppose doesn’t suggest that they are not being stopped as a pretext.).
But it was a pretextual stop (as that term is used) – he was legally justified in stopping the driver for a traffic violation (it was either failure to obey highway markings or an illegal lane change, I don’t recall), but there was never any question that that was not why he was doing it. I guess the distinction may be that being impaired might lead you to fail to signal when changing lanes, but carrying an illegal firearm or having an outstanding warrant isn’t related to failing to fully stop at a stop sign.
I understand the argument that allowing any pretextual stops invite abuse (although maybe we need fewer traffic laws if enforcing them is pure BS) and I hear (but disagree) with the argument that the going after drivers with only the level of intoxication that leads to mildly impaired driving isn’t worth the societal costs of traffic stops.
Perhaps no one should carry a gun while driving. Since this is not realistic in the US, surely the cops should be at least as armed as anyone they are likely to stop.
Interestingly, I saw an interview of Australian Prime Minister Rudd on CNN, for the 25th anniversary of a gun law passed there. He was talking about how Australia is a rural country which values guns and hunting, as did he growing up on a farm. However, it has no constitutional right to bear arms. 25 years ago, Australia introduced automatic and semi bans and restrictions following a shooting incident. These included some guns being outlawed and bought back, mandatory 28 day waits and similar things. The intervention was successful, with only one subsequent event involving a family of six in 25 years (according to Rudd), a decrease in the homicide rate to under 8% of the US and several other positive changes. Rudd has lived in the US for the last five years and favours a similar program using a limited and probably unrealistic definition of “well regulated militia”.
The number one “mistake” being not complying with the cop’s lawful orders. Yes, there are cases of officers shooting compliant people but they rare and those officers need to face the consequences. I’m not saying non-compliance should be a death sentence. Of course, it shouldn’t. But it immediately escalates the situation. I don’t have a cite handy but studies have shown that the best predictor of an assault on an officer is non-compliance by the subject. Its common sense. “Step out of the car” “No. I know my rights”. (They probably don’t.) How is this possibly going to end well? Officers are trained in this and can use reasonable force to gain compliance. How much depends on the level of resistance on the part of the subject. If you have a problem with a cop or his actions, the street is not the place to demonstrate it. The courtroom is. Run your mouth all that you want. Just follow commands while you’re doing it. Simply put, obey lawful orders/commands and the chances of being injured or killed by the police go way, way down.
If someone wants to develop a traffic enforcement equivalent of a meter maid, go right ahead. But it will take a looong time before people transporting drugs or guns, driving drunk, driving a stolen car or fleeing a crime come to realize that all that they are going to get is a ticket (that they will never pay) in whatever name they choose give the traffic maid. Until that happens, the traffic maids will have to deal with whatever comes their way. That’s what they’ll get paid to do, right?
I’ll don my flame suit now .
There’s nothing “surely” about this.
Agreed. But the cops wouldn’t. There are probably countries where if it was widely known the cops were unarmed, no one would take advantage of this. It works well in Iceland. I cannot definitively say whether the US is one of these countries, though I have my suspicions.
Officers should be trained to guide non-compliance to better outcomes. Escalation should not be seen as inevitable in such circumstances.
Why is force to gain compliance a reasonable thing? A LOT of violence is directed at people by the police under the guise of making them comply, making them obey. Nobody else gets to beat the crap out of people for being difficult, why should the police?
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but if traffic cops do not carry guns, bad people, some of whom are murderous thugs, will know this and take advantage of this fact.
This is all great advice, but in the real world, with thousands of people being pulled over every day, expecting everyone to follow it isn’t practical.
Why are we placing the responsibility of ensuring encounters with cops go well on the untrained, potebtially young, potentially intoxicated, and potentially stupid public, rather than on the (allegedly) well trained LEO’s?
We’ve been debating it for 100+ posts, but please, tell us what the murderous thugs will do to take advantage. Are they going to gun down unarmed cops in cold blood for daring to write them a ticket?
And since it is completely impossible for unarmed traffic officers to communicate with their armed compatriots at greater range than 50 feet or so, no one would even know a cop was killed!
To piggy back on this, the majority of people have no training on how to handle life-threatening situations, and have only experienced a life-threatening situation once or twice if at all and are extremely likely to just panic and do something stupid when they have guns pointed at them, get orders barked at them by police, have to deal with conflicting orders etc.
If Caron Nazario hadn’t been trained to keep his cool under pressure and had acted with slightly less composure than he did, he might be dead right now.
The solution to this isn’t for everyone to get trained on how to stay calm when someone with a gun is barking orders at them. The solution is for police training to allow them to deal more effectively with a much wider range of people they encounter, and for bad cops and bad departments to be held accountable.
If I don’t have any rights until I argue for them in front of a judge, then I don’t have any rights.
So much this.
And this.
The default should be that cops are held accountable for knowing how not to infringe people’s rights. Not that every layperson become an expert in dealing with cops. Cops are the ones trained by the government and given the authority to use deadly force in carrying out their duties. One hundred percent of the burden should be on the cop.
Or perceived non-compliance, but no matter, the point is that non-compliance, say due to impairment of any sort (mental illness, cognitive impairment, substance use) results in an armed law enforcement officer afraid of threat (primed perhaps by implicit biases about race or other) using lethal force.
It is a set up for such killings to occur, which they do, and the solution includes accountability, but more importantly must include altering the systematic approach that sets those needless killings up.
Note the Floyd murder demonstrates that guns are not required for wrongful lethal force to be applied, but guns involved in low risk circumstances, like simple traffic stops, amplify the risk many times over.
Can you flesh this out a little bit? Of course you have rights before a judge becomes involved. A cop can’t just jerk you off the street for no reason. We all have that right…well, right now. If he has a minimum level of reason (reasonable articulable suspicion; probable cause where applicable) he can restraint your freedom a little bit and perhaps absolutely until you go before a judge. It is a sliding scale upward from there whereby the greater and longer term restriction on your freedom/rights lie, the more process is due to you.
You’re not suggesting that a cop must leave you with the entirety of your rights fully and 100% intact until you see a judge no matter what the officer observes?
It doesn’t take that much expertise. If a cop tells you to do something, then do it. Then later argue if you are wronged. You will not win that physical fight with the cops.
By all means, get mouthy (as you are complying) and tell him he is a donut-eating prick. That is your First Amendment right (but not a recommended course of action). But how difficult is that to understand? Cop tells you that you are under arrest, then off you go. If he has outrageously violated your rights, then there will be lawyers waiting to take your case on a contingency.
Why is that not recommended? Is it because our police are so emotionally out of control they can’t take criticism without violently attacking their critics? I completely agree.
However, the idea that the public should just do as they’re told so that the police don’t get physically abusive is exactly wrong.