a great horrible example of the possible results of resisting LE

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Because you cannot simply assume that police, and other elements of the criminal justice system, are acting consistent with the law, department policies, and your best interests.

Not every officer is like Dudley DoRight. Some, unfortunately, are more like Lisa Steed.


Steed was eventually fired for having lied about DUI-related investigations. DAs had to reverse convictions that were based on her testimony.


When your freedom and good name are at stake, you cannot trust the police and "do what they ask you to do."

You have to understand the rules, and act accordingly. You never know whether you are interacting with Officer DoRight or with Trooper Steed.
What a horrible series of events. I'm glad they took her off the street. Do you know what happened to her after that?
 
She was sued in civil court. Together with her employer. The civil suit was settled before it reached a jury.


All that I care about is that her rise and fall serve as a powerful example to current officers, to police administrators, and, especially, to private citizens.
 
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Phoenix needs to find officers that have an IQ higher than their shoe size. They fried the wrong guy and should be fired and lose their retirement
 
Police can detain you if they have reasonable suspicion. They can't just do it for no reason at all, but the bar is not very high either.

Some departments may have a policy that requires officers to tell a detainee why they are being detained, but there is no constitutional requirement to do so. In other words, the fact that they don't tell you may violate department policy, but it doesn't violate your rights.

You do not have to answer questions while detained but you may have to provide identification. If you choose to talk, do not lie, either in answer to questions, or when providing identification, or when volunteering information.

If you try to evade detention or leave while you are detained, you can generally be arrested. That is true even if you are innocent of any other crime. They have the right to hold you for a reasonable amount of time while they investigate.

You are not going to better your situation by trying to prove to officers that you know more about constitutional rights and police procedure than they do. It doesn't even matter if you are right and they are screwing up by the numbers--if you decide you're in control and start trying to run the show, you are going to end up the worse for wear and may accumulate some charges in the process.

Comply, be polite, and if it turns out that they have violated your rights, you can subpoena the badgecam video, testify against them in court, get them reprimanded, fired or put in prison, and perhaps recover a civil judgement as well. And because you complied, you can do it uninjured.
 
Wasn't completely satisfied with my first response so I'll take a second shot here... Defiance of authority is as American as apple pie... and for those not aware of that - doing a ride-along with your local cops on a few occasions will remind you... and that defiance really doesn't say much at all about whether the one being defiant is actually the guy (or gal) that a young officer is looking for on a "suspicious person call"... It also doesn't mean that it's necessarily good for the citizen who's doing their best - not to co-operate with the officer they're dealing with - but that's for another day. More than a few folks any officer comes in contact with will have warrants outstanding but unless the officer checks he'll never find that out - and more than one citizen - officer encounter might just involve someone who's wanted for something serious - or had just committed a serious crime and is hoping to evade detection - that's what field interviews are all about. The officer(s) in most cases have never encountered whoever it is they're detaining (or trying to detain and interview) - but the individual they're dealing with is usually worried that their problems will come to light - and that colors how they react to the usual questions ( a skilled and dedicated bad actor usually learns quickly that keeping a low profile and appearing co-operative is in their best interest and often that works for them). Someone with a warrant outstanding usually reacts badly when they believe it will come to light if they co-operate. Skilled cops pick up on this very quickly in my experience - lazy cops rarely bother (and might have cheerfully allowed a really bad actor to slip away - through simple negligence...). The actual survival chances for any officer that doesn't pay close attention to any suspicious person they encounter might not live very long in the real world - and that fact does color officer - suspect interactions...
In this case the guy re-acted badly to that first encounter - then resisted strenuously and had to be taken into custody with force - and that is the situation that lead to his alleged injury -claims by any lawyer on behalf of their client really do need to be examined carefully at every level.
It's all too easy for anyone to make claims of injury - particularly when there's a possible cash reward... at the end of the process. If an exaggerated claim is believed by the general public - and by extension the folks who will make pay-offs instead of going to court... that's a very bad outcome in my opinion. I'd be interested to see how this particular case plays out as it moves through the "system"...
 
I'm 59 years old, excluding speeding tickets I've only ever really had one bad run in with the cops in my life.

35 years ago somebody accused me of a crime I didn't commit. I got arrested. The detective who was investigating the case actually told me that he did not think that I was guilty. Then he asked me to confess the crime anyway so he could clear the books.

He even did the thing where he typed out my statement and got part of what I said "wrong". I've since been told that they will occasionally do that and then have you make a handwritten correction to the statement and initial it before you sign it supposedly as evidence that you read and understood the statement. That seems a little much to me because all they had to do was put a space in the bottom of the form that says I have read and understand this and it is true then had me sign that.

Anyway, I refused to sign the statement I refused to speak to him any further and asked for a lawyer and that was kind of the end of it. They didn't have sufficient cause to hold me so they released me and several months later I was told that the charges had been dropped.

That one bad encounter colored my view of the police forever.

I want to say I wouldn't talk to the police without a lawyer. I want to say if a cop started questioning me about anything the first thing I'd ask is if I'm free to go and if I was I'd leave.

I'm pretty sure that those things are true but as I mentioneed at the beginning of this post I haven't had such an encounter with the police in 35 years.

So, I guess that's all conjecture on my part.
 
That's the thing to keep in mind when interacting with LEOs. They receive instruction in how to do their jobs and do them full time for years. We interact with them rarely, if ever. Who do you suppose is better at it?

The last thing I want to do is get on the radar of someone who is under a lot of pressure, is having a bad day, or feels the need to take out frustration. Cops are people, and people often respond in the way that they are treated, in my experience.
 
Why not just do what they ask you to do?
The number of warrants issued where cops end up going to the wrong address would be a reason for me. About 7 years ago, late one night, cops showed up at my door demanding access. Claimed they had an emergency call. "Not from me" I assured them. Turns out my address is "123 W Apple Tree St" and they were dispatched to "123 E Apple Tree St"

Isn't basic literacy a requirement for LE these days?

Sometimes these encounters end with cops killing innocent citizens because they simply went to the wrong place.

Simply out, the police are not always right.
 
People often forget that the police can stop you based on reasonable articulable suspicion (a very low standard barely above a hunch) that you are committing or about to commit a crime and that just because you yourself happen to know your own intentions and that you didn't commit any crimes, it doesn't mean that your actions don't cause reasonable suspicion for law enforcement. They don't know until they investigate.
 
Right.

And many people forget, or don't understand that once you are detained, you can be arrested if you try to escape detention, even if you are innocent of the crime being investigated.

And many people don't know that it's not a violation of one's rights if the officers don't tell you why you are being detained.
Simply out, the police are not always right.
Police make mistakes just like all human beings. When it happens, it's important to be careful about how the mistake gets straightened out as taking the wrong approach can be harmful to your health. In this case, the man was innocent of the crime under investigation, but his mistaken belief that he was therefore free to leave detention resulted in a pretty horrific injury. Had he just complied, he could have avoided that injury. Something to consider.

Of course, some people may believe that proving oneself right in the moment is more important than their physical wellbeing. Those who fall into that camp would take a different approach than I recommend and the outcome can be pretty unpleasant, but at least they've been true to their beliefs.
 
When I was younger, a "family trait" of lead-footedness got me a few speeding violations over a number of years. Despite the fact that ILL-ANNOY's tickets have a form to fill out on the backs of the citations to avoid multiple appearances, the judges never paid attention to that. As such, I would always choose to fight the tickets and, in at least 75% of the cases, the cops never showed up for that second appearance and the case would be dropped.
 
The number of warrants issued where cops end up going to the wrong address would be a reason for me. About 7 years ago, late one night, cops showed up at my door demanding access. Claimed they had an emergency call. "Not from me" I assured them. Turns out my address is "123 W Apple Tree St" and they were dispatched to "123 E Apple Tree St"

Isn't basic literacy a requirement for LE these days?

Sometimes these encounters end with cops killing innocent citizens because they simply went to the wrong place.

Simply out, the police are not always right.
It's not always a literacy issue. Dispatch often gets it wrong and puts it out wrong over the radio or in the computer. A warrant should be less likely to have mistakes because there's time to do it right and it gets reviewed by multiple people. It still happens though. An emergency call could easily get dispatched go the wrong place and often does.
 
It's not always a literacy issue. Dispatch often gets it wrong and puts it out wrong over the radio or in the computer. A warrant should be less likely to have mistakes because there's time to do it right and it gets reviewed by multiple people. It still happens though. An emergency call could easily get dispatched go the wrong place and often does.
That just shifts the literacy issue to the dispatcher.

Come on. Policing is serious business. Screw ups are not acceptable under any circumstances. Competence isn't optional.
 
That just shifts the literacy issue to the dispatcher.

Come on. Policing is serious business. Screw ups are not acceptable under any circumstances. Competence isn't optional.
That's not realistic. Dispatchers can be juggling multiple calls at the same time usually from people who are highly excited all the while transmitting and responding to other urgent radio traffic. Even highly competent dispatchers can only do so much.

It's a chaotic business. More training and more staffing can mitigate mistakes but you'll never eliminate them and it's not realistic to expect it.
 
The officer(s) in most cases have never encountered whoever it is they're detaining (or trying to detain and interview) - but the individual they're dealing with is usually worried that their problems will come to light - and that colors how they react to the usual questions ( a skilled and dedicated bad actor usually learns quickly that keeping a low profile and appearing co-operative is in their best interest and often that works for them). Someone with a warrant outstanding usually reacts badly when they believe it will come to light if they co-operate.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court has ruled that self-incrimination is an exception to the "stop and identify" standard.

If the person being detained has reason to believe that revealing her identity will somehow implicate her in a crime, then she can refuse to "self-identify" under the statute.

This standard defines one way in which 4th and 5th amendment rights interact.

But a diligent cop will respond by using every means available to him to identify a person he has contacted who claims a 5th amendment right against identifying herself.

While the right is real, choosing to rely on it is a poor tactic.
 
That's not realistic. Dispatchers can be juggling multiple calls at the same time usually from people who are highly excited all the while transmitting and responding to other urgent radio traffic. Even highly competent dispatchers can only do so much.

It's a chaotic business. More training and more staffing can mitigate mistakes but you'll never eliminate them and it's not realistic to expect it.
When public officials (like cops and their support staff) are dealing with life/death situations and possibly depriving citizens of their freedom, they HAVE TO BE RIGHT.

No excuses for screw-ups. None.
 
When public officials (like cops and their support staff) are dealing with life/death situations and possibly depriving citizens of their freedom, they HAVE TO BE RIGHT.

No excuses for screw-ups. None.
That's never going to not happen. Ever. The question will always be was it through negligence or in good faith.

The best we can do is make sure our actions don't exacerbate their mistake to the point of no return. That's the world we live in until policing is turned over to AI and robots and I don't think any of us truly want that.
 
When public officials (like cops and their support staff) are dealing with life/death situations and possibly depriving citizens of their freedom, they HAVE TO BE RIGHT.

No excuses for screw-ups. None.
Sounds like the Blue needs more perfect people such as yourself. Have you graced our presence by your police service yet?
 
If I were asked to briefly describe police service to young'uns considering that line of work... I'd point out that it involved long hours of routine boring stuff - with occasionally more excitement than you ever wanted - and no way to tell on any shift what you'd run into... or the actual outcome. All of it involves people that range all the way from angelic to demonic - and everything in between. My Dad when I told him that I was considering police work - all those years ago, pointed out that I'd be entering a world that showed people at their very best - and their very worst (only he told it in much more graphic fashion.. ). In the years that followed I was to learn all of that was very true. Most entertainments about police work show a very unrealistic picture of that world, understatement...

As far as encounters with police -every citizen has their own expectations and actual experiences. As a result both sides of the encounter will bring their own attitudes to each situation. Anyone on the street expecting trouble from a police encounter - will usually find it - the opposite will happen if your expectations are that the officer will be reasonable, and be providing assistance instead of the other end of the spectrum - and so it goes.

Agencies that encourage citizen involvement and actual ride-along opportunities (as long as you're not someone on the criminal side of things) are usually above average and I'd urge anyone that has that opportunity to participate. In our department you could choose the date, the shift, but not the specific officer you could ride with. The officers we chose for ride-alongs were the same ones that also trained new officers fresh out of the Academy (or experienced officers hiring on from other agencies). That shift might be nothing but boring paperwork (or writing crime reports from victims...). However, at times you'd get the opposite chance - like going to a robbery in progress (and getting shoved underneath a patrol car for safety) by the officer who was getting shot at...

I also enouraged any young officer candidate ( or someone considering that line of work) to do as many ride-alongs as possible with as many different police departments as possible. Working conditions, and the actually different worlds you might enter vary widely. At times so widely as to be as different as night and day...
 
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