resist arrest

[bambam1723]

watch the video carefully and you will see two large men who look like gang bangers getting out of a pimped up ride. and running at you with guns out in about 15 seconds. what would you do? will you ask them really nice what can I do for you? or will you try to get away as best you can. Ayers did not try to attack them. he was trying to escape

Unfortunately during his "escape" attempt he struck one of the PO's. That was viewed by the PO's as an "attack" against them. PO's have a split second to make these decisions, hindsight is 20/20, they don't have the luxury of that.

Putting myself in their shoes, The PO in the front saw a suspect backing up and running into one of his fellow PO's in an aggressive fashion and reacted with what he saw was appropriate.

Even if the driver was not trying to hit the PO and was trying to simply escape, he agressively backed into an Officer in an attempt to flee them. I can see how the PO's perceived it as an attack on them with the vehicle.

 

[mrokern]

It's going to come down to whether the officers identified themselves. As I posted on another forum:

You've got an entire vehicle full of cops, so it's not like they were deep cover. Why wouldn't you have flashers on the damn SUV? Could have avoided all this, perhaps...

 

[Chunkychuck]

These are some questions I have:
1) Did the undercover officers approach Ayers before or after he got in his car? The video is not clear. Would help address the issue of Ayers recognizing them as undercover police officers wearing badges and hearing them identifying themselves as police. I'd be dead too, because if all I saw (we don't know what Ayers saw) was plain clothes and guns, I'm not thinking undercover police.

2)Since they had been following him, even undercover I would imagine they had the means to pull a tag check. Why not contact him at home if he is not a suspect or use a uniformed squad to pull him over and then they question him?

 

[lobo9er]

BTW - In this case the video shows the "pastor" attempting to run over an agent and then the other while driving a littel crazy in a gas station parking lot. He was using a deadly weapon against these LEOs who had never tried to arrest anyone. The LEO's appear to be completely justified in shooting to defend themselves.

Looked to me like he was backing up trying to escape from armed men.

 

[Z-Michigan]

The video is not at all clear, but it sure looks to me like the deceased could have thought he was being carjacked and was just trying to get away. It also looks more like the officers ran behind his moving car than like he was trying to run over them. Judging from the small, grainy video, I probably would have thought I was being attacked, carjacked, etc. by the actions of the purported undercover officers.

I've said this in various situations: for judging the actions of someone targed by them, undercover officers should not be treated the same way as uniformed officers in marked cars. Absolutely anyone can yell out that they are police! Cadillac Escalades are not common police cars! The only other one I've ever heard of being used by police was Detroit PD using it as a limo for the mayor. I cannot tell what if any uniforms the officers were wearing, but the whole way it happened looks more like an attempted carjacking than like any legitimate police action.

Why wouldn't they have just pulled over his car right after he exited the gas station? Far, far safer for all involved. This looks to me like people who've watched too much Miami Vice. I also wouldn't be surprised if their version of the story was creatively written to make their actions look more justifiable than they really are.

 

[Cosmoline]

The black letter rule is you may use reasonable force to resist an UNLAWFUL arrest. But what really constitutes an "unlawful" arrest is quite complicated. Even if the officer is wrong, the arrest may be lawful provided he has sufficient evidence to pass basic Constitutional muster. In other words, just because you didn't do it, that doesn't mean the arrest is unlawful nor does it give you a right to fight. The circumstances where physical resistance is allowed are very narrow and rarely arise. Some drunk deputy deciding to arrest you for saying something bad about his favorite baseball team, for example. Even then if you resist you take your chances. It's better to let the magistrate do the smacking down. If an officer really has arrested you for no good reason, the better approach is to go to the jail with a smile on your face thinking about the money you'll collect in a civil action.

The problem comes when you're facing these individuals who happen to be cops, but who wear no uniforms and come screaming in waving guns around. Some of them have even taken to wearing facemasks, which is extraordinarily stupid and disturbing. On the spur of the moment you have no idea whether they're really cops or just yelling "POLICE!" to get you off your guard. There is no easy solution to this problem, and it's only going to get worse as more departments adopt this kind of strategy.