I was saying that's what's going through Joe Citizen's head any time a cop asks him for ID. He's not thinking to himself "I wonder if this is a legal detention or just a friendly conversation...", he's thinking, "I really don't feel like talking to this guy right now, but if I tell him to **** off or even just turn around and walk away, there's an excellent chance I end up in handcuffs in the back of a police car"

How about this scenario:

Guy is standing on a sidewalk leaning up against a building. Cop drives by and sees the guy. For whatever reason, the situation just doesn't look quite right to the cop, so he decides to go talk to the guy and do a little fishing. The following conversation ensues:

Cop: Hey, how are you doing?

Guy: Ok.

Cop: What are you doing out here?

Guy: Just standing here minding my own business.

Cop: Do you live around here?

Guy: No.

Cop: You mind showing me some ID?

Is this guy being legally detained and given an order, or is the cop just having a conversation with him? The vast majority of citizens (myself included) have no f'ing clue. I think the cops often like to take advantage of this kind of ignorance (this is where the intimidation comes in).

Assuming this guy is not legally detained in this scenario: If the cop was required to tell him right from the start that he was not being detained and he was free to ignore any questions or walk away at any time, do you think the cop would have even bothered to pull over and talk to the guy in the first place? People don't know when they are legally required to cooperate and when they are not. The intimidation factor comes into play when people are not legally required cooperate but they do anyways because they believe they are and the cops intentionally do nothing to correct this false belief. If people knew they weren't being legally detained and could walk away at any time, most of them would. But since cops intentionally keep the legal status of the interaction vague, people are afraid they'll get arrested if they ignore the cop or attempt to leave.

No he's not being detained.

It's very very simple.

Not sure if you're being detained? "Am I being detained"?

This is part of what I was saying earlier, about perpetuating myths. The reality of this situation is that 90+% of cops arent going to do anything other than answer yes or no.

Of the other 10%, 9% are gonna use vague statements to attempt to confuse you and only 1% are actually gonna trump up false charges in an attempt to screw you.

People think asking if they're being detained is a sure fire way to a jail cell a beating or both. It's not. If someone doesn't know there detention status, they should ask. Furthermore no I don't think cops need another cute speech to learn.

Your situation is unique and you probably didn't realize it in that you wrote a hypothetical where if the guy goes "Am I free to go?" he's gonna get a snap "yes" from the cop since that's what he wanted in the first place.

I know this, but most people (both criminals and non-criminals) don't.

I totally agree with this statement generally, but I think these percentages can change a lot depending on where you are. The breakdown is going to be a lot different in New Orleans than it is in Montpelier, Vermont. Small podunk towns probably have the potential to be pretty bad as well.



I'm sure this is true for you, but I'm not so sure with the guys who are big into making drug arrests. Just to play out my hypothetical a little further:

Situation 1: Guy hands over his ID and cop runs his info. He lives in a quiet suburban neighborhood, drives a 2 year old Toyota Camry, has no outstanding warrants and no prior arrests. My guess is this scenario ends with the guy being told to have a nice day and the cop leaving.

Situation 2: Guy hands over his ID and cop runs his info. He lives in a fleabag motel in a bad neighborhood. He has no outstanding warrants, but has 3 prior arrests for possession of heroin and one for possession of stolen property. My guess is in this scenario, the legal status changes to a detention pretty quickly and it often ends up with the guy going to jail.


I think there are a fair number of cops out there that are hoping for situation 2, and that's the main reason they decided to go talk to the guy in the first place.

This is not true for me and pretty much every liberal I can think of. Many of them love the government and bash the police. They all don't trust the police and think they are completely corrupt. Everyone has a story where the cops did something awful to them or someone close to them.

Also to address your comment about minority viewpoints being affected by the media; I really think you haven't been in an inner city environment. I teach 9th graders in an inner city school and they are 14-15 years old. They have all been stopped and frisked many times over, and some of them joke (because they don't know how else to express it) about the cops that touch them inappropriately during the frisking. They have no recourse, obviously. What am I supposed to tell those kids?

I agree that your average run of the mill law abiding guy may not know this, but in my experience a criminal, even a minor one with only two overnight stays, knows this.


Yea, likely so.


Yea, but I really can't speak to that. The ID was a convenience thing for me. I had about 10 vagrants who liked to loiter when I did patrol, and I knew all of them by name anyway.

I'm sure a lot of the dope guys are like that though.

As an aside, I'd say that even if we concede for the sake of argument that drugs need to be controlled, these "strong arm" tactics of harassing everyone in a "High drug area" just don't work. Putting aside the obvious constitutional arguments, it just doesn't work. What does work is a strong combination of community policing and undercover sting operations.

That actually works on two fronts, first off by sending uniform cops out into the community with a focus on CP, you build a communication line within the community. Then, by the use of undercover stings, you build strong cases against dealers, rather than simply arresting every young black guy you see on this "young male in a high drug area dressed like a dealer, so therefore I held a reasonable belief he may be armed and while conducting a Terry Frisk felt what I know from my training and experience to be a bag of marijuana" bit.

These strong arm tactics just make the community refuse to cooperate.

Everyone? Bold statement.

All of them? The police sexually assaulted ALL of them? Where do you live? Either you're completely full of **** or I need to stay far far away from you.

Everyone of the people I was referring to.

As far as the kids go, they've all been frisked, only a few seemed to indicate the pat downs went too far (hence my use of the word some). Don't really understand the rest of your comment.

The rest of my comment would be my assertion your results in dealing with the police are atypical to the point of insanity, hence the question of "where?"

I guess I'm with you on the community policing thing, but not really on the undercover sting thing. To me, this a part of the problem with the war on drugs. You guys go out there and do this stuff and it really has no effect other than to enable you to say you're doing something, and to keep the jails and prisons running at/near capacity. If you go out an arrest a mid-level cocaine dealer that moves 3 kilos a month through your city, do you think that after you arrest him there is going to be 3 kilos less moving through your city? Someone else is just going to take the guy's place. It's not going to result in some kind permanent decrease in the amount of drugs on the street or some sort of local price increase that drives all the crackheads out of town. The worst part of it is, when you guys do these undercover stings, you generally go after guys that are even lower on the food chain. Guys that move a couple of ounces a week or whatever. Not only does this have no actual effect on market conditions in the local drug scene, you can't even make a remotely plausible argument that arresting this guy is going to do anything to decrease the amount of drugs available in the community.

NYC

I grew up in Virginia though and the personal experiences I mentioned were there, for the most part.

The most vivid one I can think of happened to one of my best friends when he was in college.

Basically it's a hot summer day and my friend is at home, alone. He lived in a nice neighborhood in an area that was home to a ton of college students. Anyway, as many people do, he left the big thick door to his house open, with just the screen door closed in front of it. Super standard for the summer. My friend decides to take a shower, and when he gets out is walking back to his room when he finds a cop standing in the living room, gun drawn, pointed at him. The cop asks him what he's doing, and my friend (scared ****less) just gestures to the towel he has on. The cop tells him that he suspected there was a break-in because the door was open. He asks my friend for ID and then leaves. I still can't believe this actually happened, but it did.

I agree with your sentiments on the War on Drugs. That being said, you and I are in the minority. We like to think we're not, hell everyone does, but we are.
The majority of US citizens want the War on Drugs.
We just have to convince them its a bad idea.

What?

I thought you were gonna tell me that your best friend was Rodney King or something. Granted this would piss me off, but aggressively investigating burglaries is not amongst the worst offenses of police by a long shot.

I'd be angry about this for a few days then thankful the police in my area were doing more than running a ****ing speed trap.

Yes but the mistake you're making is saying "hey a lot of people think X" and then jumping to "hey everyone must think X"

Oh, also the great thing about dblbarrel in this thread is that usually we hear how people need the government to protect them from cases where there are information imbalances and he's here proudly telling us how the people who are supposed to protect us from that routinely exploit that very imbalance against the people they are supposed to be protecting (well actually, they have no obligation to protect them, but they like to pretend that the do so they can get the hero worship that goes with that, but that's another thread).

A+++++++

When your message is "I hate the government" there really is no "other thread".

You post it in this thread, other threads, it's really all the same.

The problem is nobody knows he was doing that. Maybe he walks into houses that appear to be empty with the door open looking for something to steal and then says he thought there was a break in if someone is there. That probably isn't what happened, but it certainly creates quite a free roll for a cop to be dishonest if he can scope out a place under the cover of law.

You realize you weren't responding to me when you posted the "you don't hate cops, you hate the government" declaration of how you just weren't going to participate in the discussion anymore, right?

I quoted what I was responding to you in reference to. Were you confused about who I was addressing?

So you quoted CC but you were responding to me?

poast 1270 for those keeping score at home

I've gotta add some more posts to the cumulative score tally, but I am pretty sure we're all the losers.

All I've ever wanted to hear ITT.

GG all.

Lol passive agressivements

oh, yeah that was kind of passive aggressive but I only did that to needle dblbarrel for those times he's claimed cops actually DO have that obligation despite SCOTUS rulings to the contrary.