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Everyone Has the Floyd Arrest Wrong
I think the police and district attorney have the wrong problem and the wrong solution.
Based on the say-so of a store clerk, they arrested Floyd. That’s the real problem. They had no evidence that Floyd committed a crime except for the say-so of a store clerk. That’s weak sauce to arrest someone.
There was no threat of violence. There was no danger to society. The police should have taken the statement of the clerk and then gone off to the magistrate to issue a summons for Floyd to appear in court. They should have submitted evidence of the bad $20 bill to the magistrate. Then they should have sought out Floyd and issued him a summons to come to court for a hearing. There should have been no reason to arrest him at all.
The “terry stop” has been a disaster for law enforcement. Police only need a slight pretense in order to detain someone for an investigation, and that gives them the power to search anyone at any time. Terry stops turn our right to be secure in our persons upside down.
We need to overturn “Terry” and force police to have a more substantial reason to search someone. We need to outlaw civil asset forfeitures which gives police a powerful incentive to steal money and property from people.
And we need to stop granting life and death power to the police at any time they wish to issue commands to someone.
George Floyd was not an immediate threat to anyone that day. It is a perversion of the law to put anyone in a life-threatening situation when there was no immediate apparent danger and the police didn’t even have first-hand knowledge of a crime.
About twenty years ago I was accused of passing a bad twenty-dollar bill by a new waitress at my favorite restaurant. Thankfully she didn’t call the police, she chased me down in the parking lot. So we went back inside, I called the manager. She showed the “bad” $20 and the end result was she forfeited her tip and I never saw her working there again. Turns out the $20 was a silver certificate bill. I still have it in my collection. I suppose there might be a chance that it’s a counterfeit bill, I doubt it, but the point is that no one arrested me and society didn’t collapse.
The police have too much power. They have the power of life and death over us at any moment they wish, and it is rare that anyone questions how they wield that power. It’s a recipe for tyranny and it needs to end. We need police reform, not because of racism, which is laughable, but because the police have gotten too dangerously powerful and are a threat to our civilization as they operate now.
Published in Policing
Just trying to think this idea through….
it makes shoplifting more or less legal. Counterfeiting too. Consider…Store employees call the police on a shoplifter. Unless the police arrive in time to find the thief with steaks down their pants the crook is home free. Same with counterfeiting. And counterfeiting is a very serious crime.
Just what would be the odds that Floyd would appear for the summons?
I think the cops were just going to write a ticket for the fake money, but Floyd appeared intoxicated behind the wheel. There are too many interactions with police and many more things should be done by mail. Nobody ever needs to be pulled over for a taillight problem. But we have to recognize that people that break the law are not good about keeping their address up-to-date with the system.
They made it about racism because it ensures we will never have a productive and united conversation.
The last episode of The Rookie took that on in its very limited ability to do so.
We have more in common than those trying to divide us lead us to believe.
If he doesn’t, isn’t arresting more justified? Enforcing bench warrants should be allowed under this system. Or you are right, property crimes get another nullification check.
Good question. Not appearing for a summons should be sufficient cause for a judge to issue a capias and then have the police drag him into court. Not appearing in court is a good reason to arrest someone, and unless there is an immediate threat to the safety of the people, the power to arrest should be limited by the say so of a court. Police have too much discretion to arrest people. There is no reason to trust the police, who have shown far too often in the past few decades that they are quite willing to abuse their power. To be effective, the police need to be perceived of as impartial instruments. They do not have nor do they deserve such a reputation now nor have they for decades.
As for your shoplifter scenario. I think it is incumbent on the store to present evidence of the theft before an arrest is made. That is, they can describe (ideally through surveillance video) that property was taken. The suspect can be detained by the shop keeper. If there is evidence of a crime, then they can be arrested, but pre-arrest searches need to be made illegal. Terry needs to be overturned.
Counterfeiting is only a mildly serious crime. What harm does a counterfeiter do compared to a Congress that invents trillions of dollars seemingly every day?
There is little evidence that Floyd was a counterfeiter. Does he appear to be smart enough to make fake money? If he passed a bad bill, it’s likely someone else made it, not him. Even if it were him, there is no immediate danger to anyone, and it’s probably more useful to do a more thorough investigation rather than just haul him to jail based on a store clerk’s say so. Such investigation should be conducted by a detective, not a rank and file officer, and an arrest should be based on a warrant from a duly elected (or appointed in some jurisdictions) judge or magistrate. We need a better separation of judicial power and executive power.
Haven’t the last couple police shootings (Kenosha and Minneapolis) occurred when trying to arrest someone for having outstanding warrants?
Or are we just supposed to ignore the warrants too, because the thugs find it too inconvenient to comply?
He was behind the wheel of a car while in the process of dying from a phenomenal overdose of hooped narcotics. How is that not a threat to everyone on the street and his dealer in the passenger seat?
You need a better example than Floyd. We needed the cops to take him off the street, nevermind about his own safety. Floyd died because he ate a ton of drugs. The cops may have too much power, but saying so by pointing to George Floyd is … confusing. Counterproductive. Maybe unhinged.
I never suggested that people should never be arrested. If you resist arrest, you’re in big trouble and should expect to be roughly treated.
However, that rough treatment now comes at the drop of a hat if a police officer just wants to arrest someone.
I suspect a lot of people would prefer to have the opportunity to empty their pockets of drugs, weapons, or other contraband prior to being arrested on unrelated grounds. A very large percent of the country uses drugs. Not me, never did or will, but a lot of people do. Why are traffic stops so dangerous? Because people have drugs in their cars, on their persons. Why are so many police stops so violent? Because the police make them violent. I don’t care if people use drugs. It only makes me more competitive in the job market and life in general. And if it doesn’t, then good for the drug user.
George Floyd was not hurting anyone when the police gave him a death sentence. In the zeal to make everyone obey intrusive laws, we have endured a system where a man not really hurting anyone was killed. I can only speculate why, but it’s perfectly reasonable to presume that if drugs weren’t illegal Floyd would have taken much different actions that day. He probably would have died of drug abuse on his own someday. It didn’t need to be that day.
Or Floyd ate a ton of drugs to hide them from the arresting officer?
Yup. We were ready to have that conversation but that would not result in billions of dollars of money flowing into their coffers and a free pass for burning down our cities.
Quibble: Did the clerk tell them that the alleged perpetrator was George Floyd, or did he merely provide them with a description of the alleged perpetrator? They couldn’t issue a summons without the alleged perpetrator’s identity and a known address.
Even then, if this idea was followed-through to its logical conclusion the police would need a warrant to search the thief’s pants.
Furthermore, the police did not immediately arrest and attack George Floyd based merely on the clerk’s say-so. First, they wanted to simply ask him some questions, at which point he became “agitated” (in the parlance of our times). Is one arguing that police require a warrant merely to ask a citizen some questions?
With *extremely* rare exceptions, if you don’t act like a jackass when interacting with the cops, you’ll be fine. You might go to jail, but you’ll be fine.
The problem is, dirtbags would rather argue and/or fight than go to jail.
I have a very hard time feeling bad for dirtbags.
It’s likely Floyd was arrested for resisting arrest. And any time a suspect resists arrest, there is the threat of violence. It’s up to the suspect to determine what level of violence he receives in order to comply with an officers instructions. No sympathy for Floyd, all the sympathy in the world for the police . . .
Baloney.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
I know the courts have interpreted this otherwise, but what I’m arguing is that the plain language of the fourth amendment says that a warrant is required, that before a warrant is issued the proposed search has to be shown to be reasonable, and that the resultant warrant describes in detail the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized. The language is plain and it’s interpretation has been perverted for a very long time.
Why? A police officer can come to you with any trumped up reason if he’s clever enough and devious enough, and can require that you do whatever he says. If you don’t do what he says, he can use violence. It’s not terribly difficult to do what the Floyd killers are accused of doing (I have no opinion as to whether they were racially motivated or even if given the state of the law whether they used too much force). Once they start using force, they can almost always make it appear that you were resisting, cause you to flinch, etc. Most police officers are not devious and malicious, but you don’t know which ones are. My advice is to always treat every police encounter as a threat to your life. Record it if possible, say nothing unless required, and be as docile and obsequious as you can.
Remember the cops in Las Vegas that murdered the guy in the hotel? They had him crawling on his hands and knees. One cop was yelling “get down,” another yelling “put your hands up,” both screaming non-stop. It was like when you are encountered by two stray dogs. Alone, each dog would have been pleasant, but sometimes together they feed on each other and can be vicious. Police have too much power in our nation.
“Unreasonable” is the hang-up.
It doesn’t say “secure … against searches”.
So basically stores and individuals are on their own and will need to deal out their own justice.
Fine by me.
It says what it says very clearly. No unreasonable searches. Reasonable means a warrant must be issued unless there is an emergency. What is the point of requiring a warrant at all, if all you need is a police officer to say he has a reason? Our current interpretation of the fourth amendment is wrong and dangerous, and contrary to the intent of why it was drafted.
“Reasonable means a warrant must be issued unless there is an emergency”
“Reasonable” is not a synonym for “emergency” in any English usage I’ve ever heard of.
Why then is a warrant even mentioned? If all they need is some reason . . .
In law, usually “reasonableness” is a matter to be determined by a finder of fact, such as a jury or a judge. It is expressly not a matter for the executive branch (police) to determine. The founders were very insistent on separating judicial power (fact finding, reasonableness) from executive power.
And yet you’re complaining that the courts have gotten it wrong with their case law on what constitutes “reasonable”.
I’m fine with doing away with civil asset seizures. It’s really a form of punishment without a trial. It also allows city, county, and state governments to evade their responsibility to budget for law enforcement, as well as encouraging corruption.
Not quite. I’m saying that the Court was completely wrong in fabricating the Terry stop out of whole cloth. They had good intentions, but there’s a road paved with that motivation.
I’m also saying that an arrest should require a warrant unless there is an immediate danger.
Now you are reading from the text something it does not say, as it definitely does not define the word “reasonable”.
This is a good post that encourages thoughtful discussion on an important subject.
Some info from the Cornell Law School for those of you that are interested in this subject.
Probable Cause:
It doesn’t define the word “the” either, but that doesn’t change its meaning.
“Reasonableness” is always determined by a court, not a cop.
The store had Floyd’s counterfeit $20. That’s prima facie evidence of the crime.
Id much prefer that to living in a surveillance state ( not that we aren’t half-way there already)