Bill St. Clair
Member
tcsd1236:
444:
And why this irrational focus on ID? The 9/11 hijackers all had proper ID. Had someone stopped Timothy McVeigh's Ryder truck on the way to the Murrah building, he would have shown his driver's license, and unless the cop noticed the smell of the diesel fuel, would have driven off to blow up the building. As the store detective told us in the supermarket I worked in for a few years, NOTHING about a person's appearance or behavior tells you whether they're going to steal from you. The only way to tell a thief is to catch him stealing. If you stop a man on the street, show him your badge, and notice he's nervous, it likely just means that he gets nervous around cops. You have neither reason nor authority to detain or question him.
I'm not surprised that you might watch our poster. I am surprised, that without any evidence that any crime had been committed, you would stop and question him, much less ask for ID or search him. Your job is not to invent crime. It is to capture the perpetrators of crime, after the fact, and, hopefully, by your presence, prevent the more honest of them from doing anything that would give you a real reason to arrest them.
444:
I agree with you that it's not surprising that the state, county, and city cop showed up. Once the "man with a crowbar" turned out to be a walker with a walking stick, and once he said that he was acting like a normal human and looking into the windows of stores he passed on his walk, it would be time to realize that there was nothing to see and to move along, as the state cop did. What the city cop was entirely uncalled for. There was no reason to ask for ID. There was no reason to call in for warrants. Maimatkes would have been right to report this misbehavior and to expect the cop to get a week or two of desk duty.
And why this irrational focus on ID? The 9/11 hijackers all had proper ID. Had someone stopped Timothy McVeigh's Ryder truck on the way to the Murrah building, he would have shown his driver's license, and unless the cop noticed the smell of the diesel fuel, would have driven off to blow up the building. As the store detective told us in the supermarket I worked in for a few years, NOTHING about a person's appearance or behavior tells you whether they're going to steal from you. The only way to tell a thief is to catch him stealing. If you stop a man on the street, show him your badge, and notice he's nervous, it likely just means that he gets nervous around cops. You have neither reason nor authority to detain or question him.
, Art
