This is probably a common practice, but unless the police officers have a legitimate and genuine fear that you will become violent or otherwise interfere with their work, it is also a despicable practice. Enforcement of the law should always be open to public scrutiny, and when police officers try to prevent such scrutiny it can mean that the officers are doing something wrong and don’t want anyone else to witness it.
I am reminded of a similar incident reported by Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU project. Stallman was travelling and noticed the police detaining three fellow travellers. He walked up to silently observe what was going on, thinking it his civic duty to act as a witness. The police became agitated and asked him what he was doing, and asked him to leave. He responded simply, “I am being a witness”. The police started shouting at him, saying, “No witnesses!”, and again asking him to leave. Stallman then agreed to leave if one of the policeman would simply identify himself (via a name or a badge number), but he was given a false name. At this point Stallman left the scene, fearful that he too would be detained or arrested. (You can read this story on Stallman’s website.)
We weren’t drunk. We were not acting erraticly, or even uncooperatively. My friend did ask,“are you serious?” when they cops refused to let her sit on the stairs to take her skates off before ascending the staircase. I was dressed as a lamp and she was wearing roller-skates and pigtails. No part of our costuming was threatening in any way. I can’t think of any other factors. If I were them, I might have assumed we were drunk given the context (late Halloween night wearing costumes), but we were not drunk.
Yeah, that’d be my WAG too. Can we track down some authority on this?
It is an offense, but not an arrestable one (although my understanding of criminal procedure if obviously pretty limited). It’s like jaywalking. They can cite you, but not arrest you (I think).
Like Gfactor pointed out, it is a violation. It’s just that there was no reason to detain her in the main office instead of just writing a ticket. That was my point. (They did end up writing a ticket as well, for $50).
I wasn’t suggesting they did something wrong. I was asking what the definition of a lawful order is. It may well have been perfectly reasonable. I’m just curious. It does bother me a little bit that in this context the cop can tell me to stand somewhere from which I cannot see the rest of his interaction with my friend. Mostly I’m just after a delineation of what constitutes a lawful order.
Gfactor, it’s not clear to me how your article addresses my question. Isn’t it about when you’re required to assist an officer? Under extreme circumstances? I looked at the citations but I didn’t find one that applied.
Er. Good point, the statutes are a little different.
Not gonna give you specific legal advice. I’ll cite a couple of cases that I see as relevant, though.
Malone v. City of Glens Falls, 251 A.D.2d 838; 674 N.Y.S.2d 502; 1998 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 7344 (1998) (“While a refusal to obey the lawful order of a police officer can justify an arrest it would not be unreasonable to conclude, on this record, that the officer had no legitimate reason to order plaintiff to leave without making even a cursory attempt to verify his claim”).
People v. Zayas, 2005 NY Slip Op 25241; 8 Misc. 3d 879; 797 N.Y.S.2d 897; 2005 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1237 (“Obstructing Governmental Administration has been held to apply where an individual fails to obey the lawful orders of a police officer ( Decker v. Campus, 981 F. Supp. 851 (SDNY, 1997)), where an individual interferes in the arrest of another ( Matter of Samuel VV, 217 A.D.2d 863, 629 N.Y.S.2d 843 (3d Dept., 1995), or where an individual prevents the recovery of evidence by the police ( People v. Ravizee, 146 Misc. 2d 679, 552 N.Y.S.2d 503 (Crim. Ct., NY Cty, 1990)”).
I’ll have to say, if police routinely prevent citizens from acting as witnesses to exercise of their authority, that does trouble me.
It seems to me that courts generally give a lot of deference to police on matters like this, so if the facts are limited to the cop’s saying “Stand over there for 20 minutes while we deal with this,” then I think the cards are stacked against you – that’s probably going to be considered a lawful order unless there’s something else going on. Like “stand over there so you can’t watch us unreasonably threaten, intimidate, and harass this young woman.” Of course, if that’s the case, it’s going to be difficult for you to be a witness to that.
I think the only part of that statute that could apply is the interference part. Seems like an uphill legal battle to argue that observation=interference.
If the officer gave you a reasonable and lawful order that you refused and he has to give it again, you have at that point interfered with his duties. You are distracting the officer from the issue at hand. The officer does not have to worry about whether you will be convicted of obstruction, he only needs cause to arrest you for obstruction.
I can think of another reason for it to be a reasonable request (from a law enforcement point of view).
Lets say the police see two individuals presumedly heading home from a party. One is wearing roller skates (which are not allowed in the subway). The police approach the pair, with the intent on informing the skater to that his/her skates
aren’t allowed. (Safety hazard.) The non-skater becomes annoyed and somewhat vocal, and decides to dispute the rule as stupid.
So the cops seperate the two. Let the angry one go “cool off” over there… A lot of people get argumentative when the police show up.
Not sayin that this happened. I wasn’t there. Abuse of power happens. But not every cop is looking to hit someone with their nightstick.
The police may or may not be able to arrest you for violating the transit authority rules ( although I suspect they can, since a possible penalty is imprisonment for up to 10 days), but the same conduct could also fit the penal law definition of disorderly conduct, for which a person can definitely be arrested.
I don’t understand the distinction. It seems to me if a policeman doesn’t have the power to arrest me for not doing X when he says to do X, then ipso facto he does not have the power to order me to do X.
It may be proper for some reason in some circumstance for him to order me to do X, but in such a case he still doesn’t have the power to order me to do X.
Well, this seems a little circular to me. You argue that it was a lawful order by assuming that it was a lawful order. That is, you say it was interference because he was forced to repeat the lawful order, but presumably it wouldn’t be interference if his order was unlawful. If he had ordered me to punch his partner and I refused so he had to tell me again, it wouldn’t be interference since his order was unlawful. Right?
Though this is a bit of a tangent from my question, I would be surprised to learn that you can be arrested for such an offense. But then, I don’t know anything about when someone can be arrested! So I’ll go try and fight my own ignorance on this aspect.
p.s. I’m don’t really intend to criticize the police here or get into a debate about their conduct. I just want to get to the bottom of the whole lawful order issue. FWIW, I think that a rule against roller skates in the subway is obviously a good rule if for no other reason that liability issues.
After digging through Gfactor’s most recent cites, I’ve found some new information.
It appears that orders to disperse or generally leave a certain location are lawful when someone is in violation of Penal Law 240.20 (Disorderly Conduct) . My conduct did not fall under 240.20 which not only requires intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, but also does not include a single person’s failure to move so long as they are not obstructing pedestrian traffic.
The court did hold in People v. Galpern that “[a] refusal to obey such an order can be justified only where the circumstances show conclusively that the police officer’s direction was purely arbitrary and was not calculated in any way to promote the public order.” People v. Galpern, 259 N. Y. 279 (1939).
However, after the penal code was revised, in People v. Sharky, the court reversed Galpern (or at least seriously distinguished it). In Sharky, an officer ordered a defendant in a parking lot to move because there had been a fight near him that they had just dispersed. Defendant refused, and the court upheld his right to do so because the defendant was not violating the new statute of disorderly conduct (which requires intent). People v. Sharky, 293 N.Y.S.2d 262 (1968).
Of course, these cases don’t directly address the circumstance where an individual in a party is arrested. But I think it gives some idea of what constitutes a lawful order (i.e. you have to be violating some kind of statute). Presumably officers are given the power to order people to stay at a safe distance, but I cannot find the statutory authority for this. Also, this is distinct from ordering someone to go to a particular location.
I seem to recall that in at least one state, at one point, there was a set distance that the public was allowed to observe the police in the performance of their duties from.
In a documentary I watched, someone recounted that the Black Panthers would occasionally follow and observe the police in the performance of their duties… while the Black Panthers were running around with automatic weapons on display.