Why Are Police So Hell-Bent On Getting Citizens' Information (When They're Not Entitled To It)

The latest in a series of videos of people getting unjustly arrested for refusing to show ID, answer questions about name and DOB, etc. I’m not interested in getting into parsing the legalities here, it’s obviously going to vary by state and jurisdiction. But in states where the law states, or courts have ruled, that a citizen does not have to provide ID just because a police officer asks for it, these cops still will move heaven and earth to get peoples’ ID.

What’s that about? Are they a) that ignorant of their laws? b) that power-tripping? c) paid a bonus for how many IDs they scan in a shift? Seriously, why do so many cops pick this as their hill to die on?

It’s probably the consciousness of guilt theory. The idea is that a person who knows he has done something illegal will behave in a suspicious manner while a person who has not done anything illegal will not. So when a police officer encounters a person who is acting like he is guilty of something, they will investigate what the person may have done - even when they have no other knowledge of any crime that might have occurred. The basic idea is “This guy is hiding something. I don’t know what it is. But the fact that he feels that it’s something he should be hiding from a police officer means I should find out what he did.”

So when a police officer encounters somebody who does things like refuse to produce ID or to answer questions without a lawyer, their instinct is to press harder in order to discover the crime that is causing this behavior.

The problem with the theory is that there may not be any crime. A lot of people have adopted the attitude of not co-operating with any police officer even when they have not done anything illegal.

Or in this case: cops killed someone who refused to get out of his car, when all the cops knew that he hadn’t committed a criminal offence, and the state highway patrol officer actually said they should leave him alone.

He got stuck, called 911 for help, wouldn’t get out of the car, so they broke the car window, shot bean-bags at him, tased him, and then shot him 5 times.

I think you’re right- they feel like if someone appears to be hiding something, or not entirely free with their information, that it MUST mean that they are doing something shady, and that it’s their holy duty to ferret that out by any means necessary.

Probably a good mentality for an inquisitor in 15th century Spain, but not a very good one for a 21st century American police officer.

I feel this is going to far in the other direction. The police are not religious inquisitors fighting imaginary supernatural battles.

There are people who are committing genuine crimes and those crimes harm other people. It’s a benefit to society when crime is reduced and the job of the police is to reduce crime. So it’s beneficial when the police are doing their job.

The problem doesn’t arise when the police are doing their job. The problem arises when the police go too far in their efforts to do their job and begin creating more problems by their actions than the crimes they are seeking to eliminate would have.

All I’m saying is that the attitude that if they aren’t totally forthcoming with any and all requested information means that they’re hiding something, and if they’re hiding something, they must be guilty of something, is kind of a series of logical fallacies that might fly in some sort of older, less rigorous sort of judicial system, like an ecclesiastical inquisition.

I’m not saying they’re inquisitors, but rather that the attitude they have IS very reminiscent of those of the actual inquisitors. If you approach from a presumption of guilt, it makes it a lot easier to disregard all the protections for the innocent.

We are not talking about police doing their job but rather talking about police

  1. Breaking the law then being protected by the blue line, DAs and qualified immunity, which allows them to act with complete impunity. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
  2. Just plain making up laws or ignoring what the law says to enforce their authority. Because apparently the worst crime possible isn’t rape, murder or treason but disrespecting a cop. Or (heaven forbid) standing upon your rights.

You are reading to much into it. If a cop asks for your ID and you legally do not show it, it’s not that you’re now suspicious. It’s “How dare you not do what I tell you to do. Fuck your rights. Fuck what the law says. I’M A COP. YOU DO WHAT I TELL YOU!”

A wise man once said “The problem arises when the police go too far in their efforts to do their job and begin creating more problems by their actions than the crimes they are seeking to eliminate would have.”

Well, I’m a middle-aged, middle-class, clean-shaven white male with short hair, so I kind of doubt it would go just like that.

More likely I’d start getting a lot of questions about why I don’t produce ID, or why I don’t consent to having my vehicle searched, etc… with a tone that implies that I’m guilty of something, if I’m not eager to cough up all that information, because you know, if I didn’t have anything to hide, why wouldn’t I want to cough it all up to the cops, who are the good guys?

I think you and @Little_Nemo are both right, at least part of the time.

In case anyone is interested, here is a link to a list of states where you DO need to show ID if asked (if a crime is being investigated.)

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/stop-and-id-states

Of course. But if you were a black man you would be thrown to the ground and arrested for both failure to produce ID (which is not a crime) and resisting arrest.

From your cite :

Even though all of these states have some form of “stop and identify” laws, they vary by state. In some states, name, address, and what a person is doing is all that needs to be disclosed. In other states, such as Indiana, a date of birth is required. According to Nevada’s laws, all that is required to be disclosed is a person’s full name. In seven of these states, there is a criminal penalty imposed for anyone that does not comply with identifying themselves under “stop and identify” laws.

There’s often a difference between “identifying yourself” and “showing ID”

That is not correct. You are only required to show ID if there is reasonable suspicion that YOU committed a crime. Just because they are investigating a crime doesn’t mean they can ask bystanders, witnesses, etc. for ID.

Yes, I should have been more clear. I’m not sure when police might request identification for random bystanders, but the distinction is important.

Here is a case of a Colorado cop arresting a random bystander for failure to ID.

You can’t be required to show ID if you are not required to possess ID. You are required to have your drivers license when operating a vehicle but that’s it. Failure to do so is normally just a ticket but the cops must satisfy themselves that they are issuing the ticket to the right person. Stonewalling on ID in that case could result in an arrest for obstruction. If the police have a right to determine who you are, then you can be held until that happens and a physical form of ID is not necessary to do that.

Unfortunately, you may have to make a choice. ID yourself or refuse and risk arrest. If there were no grounds to demand ID and you end up arrested, file suit. But don’t resist arrest. In most places that is unlawful, even if you know that the arrest itself is unlawful.

In any given case, you may be right in your belief that there is no basis for an ID demand but people often aren’t as well-versed in the law as they think they are. The are plenty of so-called “Karen” and Sovereign Citizen videos that bear this out. Just as there are many videos of cops that overstep their bounds with ID demands.

My advice from a pragmatic standpoint would be to ID yourself, even present your ‘papers’ and file a complaint/suit afterwards. Depending on the demeanor of the cop, you might even ask if you are legally required to ID yourself. If there is body camera footage, so much the better. Legal disputes are best settled in court, not on the street. Lawsuits, especially successful ones, have a way of influencing policy, training and behavior.

Such as:

When they do this, they’re not enforcing the law, not responding to a complaint, or a crime they witnessed. They’re investigating a person despite the fact they have no evidence that any crime has been committed, much less committed by the person they’re investigating.

That’s not very realistic. Some people really do commit crimes. A significant number of the people who are acting guilty actually are guilty of some crime (while acknowledging that there is also a significant number of people who act guilty despite not being guilty of any crime). So a guilty demeanor is evidence, even if it’s not proof.