Let’s say you’re walking down the street and a policeman stops you and clearly detains you. You ask what their reasonable suspicion is and they refuse to give one to you. They ask if they can search your backpack and you clearly state that you do not consent to a search. You ask if you have permission to film this encounter and they physically block you from taking out your cellphone. They take the backpack off you, you do not resist, they search it anyway, find nothing, pack up everything neatly back into the pack and hand it back to you and let you go on your way. At the end, you are not hurt, your possessions were not damaged and the entire stop took 5 minutes.
Now, the police clearly violated several of your constitutional rights during this process. My question is, what is your realistic recourse against this? Can you file a complaint with the police department? Is there any realistic chance your claim will be investigated in your favor? Can you sue someone because of this? You can’t really show any substantive damages from this encounter so what would you sue for? What would a payout for something like this be and how would it compare to the legal fees for mounting a case?
Is there realistically anything stopping police from violating your rights with impunity, knowing they won’t’ be made to suffer the consequences?
You can complain to the Police Ombudsman or Complaints Commission, if there is one where you live. Chances of anything being done depend on whether that particular body actually has any teeth.
Assume for the sake of the hypothetical that you can prove all of the facts to the standard required by a court.
You can sue. You can look for declaratory relief (a declaration that the police behavour is unlawful), and injunction restraining them from repeating the behaviour, and an award of damages. As you haven’t suffered any quantifiable loss, you can look for damages to symbolise the signficance of the breach of your rights, and punitive damages set at a level not to compensate you, but to incentivise the police authorities to improve their training, awareness and culture so that this kind of thing does not happen.
You won’t necessarily get any or all of these reliefs, though at the very least you should get the first. Much is going to depend on the circumstances and context of the case - e.g. is there evidence that the breach of your rights was deliberate, for some improper motive, as opposed to being the result of an individual officer’s brainstorm?
To make a long story short, the town cops wrongfully removed my two dogs from my home because the schizoid dog walker decided we were not their owners, going so far as to falsify paperwork. When I went down to the station and said that I wouldn’t cause them any problems because they were in the wrong, they assisted us immediately in recovering them. Also, probably not coincidental, but my husband ‘rolled’ through a stop sign (hmmmmmm) and was stopped by same police officer,who then wished him a good night and let him go
Does this belong in the stolen dog thread? Because I have no idea what it has to do with this topic. And, either way, I’m not sure how the last sentence follows or why the (hmmmmmm).
My local news stations did a story a few years back about how to report police violations (like the ones in the OP). The story focused on how it was nearly impossible to do so. They brought in hidden cameras, went to the desk, asked to report an officer and recorded themselves basically getting tossed right back out of the station. I think in some cases they were even told they could have the form to do it, but it would just be thrown out. And they did this in all the cities around the county.
My suggestion, after seeing that story, would be to email the chief, but probably also CC the Mayor and anyone else you can think of.
One thing that’s nice about the 21st century is that you can go on the internet and get email address and it gives you the ability to bypass all the red tape. An officer did something wrong, in 10 minutes you can have the email addresses of the local chief, mayor, senator and all the politicians you want. There’s less need to go file a report, at least not at first.
The process for filing a complaint or how it is handled will vary greatly depending on the jurisdiction. In my state it is mandated that all complaints be investigated and documented. The entire proceeding is overseen by the next higher level of law enforcement. So all internal affairs complaints at the local level are reviewed for proper procedure by the county prosecutor. Some places have civilian review boards. There really is no way to answer this question in a way that will accurately show what is true throughout the country or even within most states.
I feel like I need to change that from ‘nearly impossible’ to ‘nearly impossible at some stations’. This story ran a long time ago and I think they may have said that at some places the process ran just as it should with no resistance.