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Traffic Stops Involve More Than a Cite
This morning about 2:15, officers stopped a speeder near SE 128/Powell. Driver was felony suspended, so officers arrested him and located this 7.62mm rifle with homemade suppressor and altered serial number. He faces several charges including Felon in Possession of Firearm. pic.twitter.com/L0ZWT0dNHB
— PPB East Precinct (@ppbeast) October 22, 2021
Sometimes I would not write a cite, and sometimes I would. Traffic stops lead to a subject that has a warrant, or like the story above someone who is a felon in possession of a firearm.
It should come as no surprise that someone who is breaking the small laws might be breaking the big laws. I’ve stopped individuals that had outstanding warrants. The warrant is a court order and when you give the dispatcher a person’s name and date of birth the dispatcher will inform you if they have a warrant. The very next question is are they in custody?
Sometimes the reply is give me a moment. Once they are handcuffed and in the backseat I’d call the dispatcher and confirm they were in custody. Dispatch will notify the court that the warrant has been served.
The subject in the Tweet was felony suspended. That indicates that he has committed crimes involving the use of a motor vehicle. He is not only facing multiple charges involving state laws, he has also committed multiple federal crimes involving a firearm.
Published in Policing
The lie is the problem.
You speak very broadly as if “all” police have no liability. In the case of Derek Chauvin he got no immunity at all, nada, zilch, and little help from his employer. He didn’t even get the presumption of innocence. In fact he was convicted of added-on charges that were ridiculously inappropriate. I don’t think it’s always one-way.
It almost always is. Chauvin is the exception.
I once was sitting talking with a friend who was a cop and he said that they could always pull over anyone that they wanted. I objected that that was unconstitutional. And he laughed. And I said, No, really. And he just laughed harder and shook his head.
And there was once a little national brouhaha when a judge complained that police were always believed over motorists, indicating that in practice their testimony was essentially unimpeachable, and that this circumstance needed to be rectified. The popular counter argument was, of course they’re believed; the police have no reason to lie, and the people who are pulled over have every reason to lie, so of course the court gives credibility to the officer.
That’s another benefit of dashcam videos etc.
But another old line was “I swore to tell the truth, doesn’t that mean you have to believe me?”
I once had my rights “read” to me by a state trooper who went and thought I as engaging in some big crime because my tags were 9 days expired and the police registration computer had a glitch that hour. Now I know what my rights are supposed to be, I guess, but I don’t know how to employ them. For example, in the last few years I’ve come under the impression that in order to not answer questions you have to actually verbally say that you are invoking such and such a right not to speak and are going to avail yourself of that right — which seems like a fundamental controversion of that right.
Anyway, every time the trooper asked me if I understood my rights, I answered honestly Yes, and then added reluctantly, “I guess”. Finally he balled his fists and said that I had better not answer with the words “I guess” again, but I still wasn’t sure what my rights really were, functionally.
I later mentioned this to a friend who was a police detective and he said that if I had continued to answer with “Yes, I guess” they would have taken me to the station, put me in a room and had a police officer explain my right to me as long as it took for me to understand my rights and to answer Yes.
Strange legal system. Speech cannot be compelled, but I am subject to forced speech or alternatively arrest if I don’t speak.
Well, strictly speaking, that’s not the police’s fault, it’s because of Miranda, and the courts.
I tend to think that courts/judges are more of a problem really, than the police. It’s the courts that choose to rule in favor of police and other authorities even in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Any shenanigans of police would be useless if the courts didn’t go along. And judges frequently ignore or violate the law in deciding what they may have wanted to decide even before any evidence is presented.
Having been both a tenant and a property manager, I’ve seen it from both sides with “justice of the peace” courts where the judges may not have – and are often not required to have – any legal training or experience at all. Let alone that, like with police, there are no direct/personal consequences for them being even intentionally wrong, and appealing a bad decision likely costs more than just paying the fine. Even if you “win” the appeal you don’t get reimbursed for what it cost you, the “win” will come too late to matter, and they’ll just do the same thing the next time to the next person anyway.
All protests aside, there’s really no good fix for that, since people aren’t angels. Once again, no great hand comes down from the sky to force them to do things right.
You don’t need to say you understand your rights. If they take you to jail get your lawyer to explain them to you. Sometimes, though, it’s easy enough to answer yes to simple questions. I recommend saying, “Yes, I understand my rights and I’m going to remain silent.”
Yes, well, I was on my way to two very important interviews. And I can cite my “rights” from memory. But that doesn’t mean that I understand them when the rubber meets the road. So, Yes… I guess.
So say “Yes, I understand my rights” and “but I don’t expect you to actually respect them” is in your head. :-)
The problem is that there are many principled police officers and a lot of unprincipled ones. When you get pulled over you can’t tell the difference, and since they tend to have absolute power in any situation, it’s inevitable that they will, at least from time to time, abuse their power.
And then, along comes a cop like this one and the word goes out that there’s no reason to give them any credibility.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/florida-deputy-12-years-planting-drugs-78863551
All I had to say was Yes, and I was on my way again.
And just for the record, let me clarify. This all happened because I just throw my registrations in the glove box, and not organize them in an envelope. And for some reason he was belligerent from the beginning. The trooper must have just been having a very bad day when he stopped me.
He saw a registration card in my hand and said Give me that, even though I said I wasn’t sure it was the right year.
When he return to the car he kept, again angrily, repeating that the “This car is not registered,” but I never understood what he was saying. Maybe “registered” meant something else in police lingo.
He wrote me out $360 in tickets (in 1980s dollars) and had my car towed. (I’m leaving out all the bad stuff he said, and the accusations he made.) He recited me my rights and when I said “Yes, I guess,” the third time, he bared his teeth and balled his hands into fists, and he told me exactly what not to say, and instructed me what to say. That’s why I said “Yes.”
Six months later in court, I had a lawyer and my original current registration card. The trooper never made eye contact with me but explained to the judge that there had been a mistake. The judge fined me $5 for driving with expired tags.
It was all bullying and BS, but I was on the receiving end. As you can tell from my recitation here, his gross humiliation in court was not satisfying.
Perhaps this experience of mine is why I find the execution of Daniel Shavers’ shooting especially concerning.
The Shavers shooting is the most egregious police killing that I have ever seen on tape. It makes the treatment of George Floyd look like he was royalty. But Shavers was a white guy and nobody thought it was worth rioting and looting over. In fact hardly anybody is even aware that this atrocity took place. If I remember right, the officer either got off scott-free or was never charged. Skyler would be absolutely right in that case. I compare that case with Officer Chauvin and just marvel at the totally unequal treatment under the law.
And you had to pay a lawyer, most likely, because of his malfeasance.
I believe he was acquitted of 2nd degree murder. And he was later fired because violent behavior was not foreign to him. He was later reinstated for 30 days, and allowed to retire, I believe with a pension.
Actually, this was my second lawyer. My first lawyer I didn’t pay because after five months he still couldn’t tell me what the ticketed charges meant. The second lawyer was a friend pro bono at the last minute. But the six months were very unnerving, not knowing even what I was charged with. It turned out that apparently the trooper thought I had bought or stolen each of the front tag, the rear tag, and the registration sticker. He thought he had a real criminal, I guess, and told me that he knew I was guilty and he’d never been wrong before. Perhaps that’s why he was so embarrassed and hang-dog in court. Why it took 6 months to come to this determination I don’t know, either.
I think the majority of cops don’t misuse traffic stops. We need better mechanisms to remove ones that do misuse them. And by remove I mean destroy to the degree that they will no longer be considered for jobs of public trust.
I’m not against cops pulling people over with minimal
probablyprobable cause btw. It’s what happens after that bothers me.Yes. We clearly can’t function without police. I have great respect for police as a whole, but I feel they are being misused. And now mistreated. But power requires a high level of self-discipline.