Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just saw this story:

http://www.thesentinel.com/mont/SamaritanSnare

Basically a guy stops late at night and changes an elderly lady's tire. She seems out of it, so he flags down a cop that is driving by. Eventually guy gets tazed and arrested.

The officer should be charged with assault to the full extent of the law.

He had no justification for his actions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(I have no idea why suddenly can't go to California though. It doesn't sound like he had a job offer or anything. Does he have to wait a whole week for a plane ticket or something?)

Orkeosaurus wrote:The officer should be charged with assault to the full extent of the law.

He had no justification for his actions.

Since he was acting outside his limits by assailing a non-threatening, unarmed civilian wouldn't the officer not be covered by qualified immunity?

Orkeosaurus wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
(I have no idea why suddenly can't go to California though. It doesn't sound like he had a job offer or anything. Does he have to wait a whole week for a plane ticket or something?)

I think he was going for an event and missed his plane and the event.

Officer did go completely over the top and does deserve to be charged.
However I do think that the man should have left after the police had arrived as it was none of his business and judging from the description the old woman was not fit to drive.

Sorry... if a guy standing there asking questions (not being threatening,raising his voice, or using profanity at that) while you interrogate someone is too distracting, then you might need to find a new line of work. I mean if that situation is too intense, heaven help you if you have to deal with a real emergency.

Don't get me wrong, if a guy gets physical or abusive, taze his tail. But from the sound of the article (assuming not too much spin) the civilian didn't do anything to escalate the situation or make any threatening actions that warranted his getting lit up.

Excellent!

They must have some REALLY low standards for the Police Academy.
Although this by no means a singular case or typical to the U.S. All around the world these things happen. All you can say is "Well, sucks to be you dude" till it happens the same to you or someone you know. Seen it. Not funny

Still, even if it BY NO MEANS excuses the officer, the guy shouldn't have picked his nose there. It was none of his business. Police came, took the lady's license, starts asking about her family, at this point i'd be quite certain that she'd get safely home.

The cop should be charged with assault and the judge should be slapped upside the head.

I don't think its as cut and dry as everyone is making it. Without some video or audio evidence it comes down to a judgement call on how disruptive he really was being. After all you can be extremely disruptive to a conversation without having to yell or curse. Next time you see two people talking to one another just go up towards them and start prattling on about whatever. See how long it takes them to ask you to shut the hell up. If McCann was just standing there once in a while repeating his offer to take her home and not talking over the cop or the woman while waiting for his liscense to be returned then yeah, the cops went overboard. If he was making a complete pest of himself by talking over the cops and the woman then the cops had a good reason to tell him to leave.

As for the tasering, well that was probably unjustified as even the arresting cop didn't think McCann was an actual danger or threat to anyone.

The police officer is a fool and a bully.
The guy was probably being annoying, but policemen are supposed to be patient with that sort of thing. There are many other ways to resolve a situation like that, without fething tazing someone.
Disgusting.

Patience has a limit though. From the news story the officer repeatedly asked McCann to leave and he didn't, he continued to stay and continue talking. The police officer was obviously becoming agitated because of this behavior but rather than sit back and shut up he kept going antagonizing the officer. McCann could have diffused the situation simply by shutting the hell up but he didn't. He just kept pushing and in the end he got himself arrested. The tazering was out of line, yes. Everything leading up to it, not so much. I wouldn't claim the officer was completely in the right but there is certainly evidence that McCann played a role in his arrest besides innocent bystandard.

aka_tizz wrote:They must have some REALLY low standards for the Police Academy

You don't remember the series of documentaries from the 80's? They even let Steve Guttenberg pass.

If you don't want the cops to get involved then don't flag them down. The arrest was legal. The cops asked him several times to move along but he stayed. Thats fine as long as he keeps his mouth shut and lets the cops do their job.

The moment a cop says you under arrest, and you do not comply you are resisting arrest which is a crime in of itself. Even if you think the reason you are being arrested is bogus, then moment you resist you have broken a law.

Now the tasering was over the line, but that is a separate issue from him being arrested.

Since when can you get arrested for standing on a sidewalk and talking?

Since you tick off the cop after he's said move along.

Well to be honest, its both a case of overbearing citizen AND overreacting police.

The dude should have let the police do their job, but again, the officers took his license and didn't give it back, so he had a right to stay there (not to mention he had a right to be there anyways, especially since he had a vested interest in the safety of the elderly woman).

What he should have done, is stick around to get his license and made sure the woman was OK as the officers tried to identify the woman and her family, kept his mouth shut. The officers should have been a bit more restrained, I heavily doubt they needed to tase him, and they even admitted as such.

Sorry... the guy is right, just because the cop wants him to leave doesn't mean he has to... we do still have rights to speak our mind in public. If the cop doesn't like it, he has to do what every other citizen has to do when we hear someone that we disagree with them... suck it up and ignore them. Had the guy been the least bit threatening, the cop been alone (3 cops and dog were there), or had the guy been verbably abusive, it would have been completely different.

I love what the judge said, "You're not a criminal but you go too caught up in your rights." WTF...

Mind you... I do think the guy should have kept his mouth shut and simply stood there, but even as things were, I think the police response was disproportionate.

Gornall wrote:Sorry... the guy is right, just because the cop wants him to leave doesn't mean he has to... we do still have rights to speak our mind in public. If the cop doesn't like it, he has to do what every other citizen has to do when we hear someone that we disagree with them... suck it up and ignore them. Had the guy been the least bit threatening, the cop been alone (3 cops and dog were there), or had the guy been verbably abusive, it would have been completely different.

I love what the judge said, "You're not a criminal but you go too caught up in your rights." WTF...

Mind you... I do think the guy should have kept his mouth shut and simply stood there, but even as things were, I think the police response was disproportionate.

You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. You will be appraised of these rights as you are legally arrested for resisting arrest. You bad day has now offiically begun.

LOL... except they didn't read him his rights or even tell him why he was being arrested.

Gornall wrote:LOL... except they didn't read him his rights or even tell him why he was being arrested.

I am sure they read him his rights eventually. Its not relevant.

Gornall wrote:Since when can you get arrested for standing on a sidewalk and talking?

You can be falsely arrested for it.

Not moving along when the police ask you to can be taken as "obstructing the police in the performance of their duty".

That doesn't give the police a blanket right to order anyone anywhere to do or not do anything as such. It depends on the details of each case, as in this case.

What I mean is, the police can order you to get off a bus because they need to search it, but they can't legally order you to get off the bus because they are in a bad mood.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Gornall wrote:Since when can you get arrested for standing on a sidewalk and talking?

You can be falsely arrested for it.

Not moving along when the police ask you to can be taken as "obstructing the police in the performance of their duty".

That doesn't give the police a blanket right to order anyone anywhere to do or not do anything as such. It depends on the details of each case, as in this case.

What I mean is, the police can order you to get off a bus because they need to search it, but they can't legally order you to get off the bus because they are in a bad mood.

They can however, arrest you for resisting arrest. Its nutty but true, at least for most locales. (US only).

I think police very often over-react, and Im not very happy with the way police seem to behave in general, but i dont think its their fault, i think they need to train them harder!

@Frazz: The picture is too small.

Yeah... I still think the officer was the one escalating the situation and definately was taze happy, but at least the guy is just doing some community service and it's all good.

Gornall wrote:@Frazz: The picture is too small.

Yeah... I still think the officer was the one escalating the situation and definately was taze happy, but at least the guy is just doing some community service and it's all good.

Ayah I am not siding with the officer, just stating its perfectly ok with them to hit the guy with a resisting arrest charge.

I am remaining fairly neutral as I am generally pro-police but these are my thoughts:

1. The cop should have handed the liscence back.
2. The guy should have left when he had the chance.
3. If the cop wished to arrest the guy he should have stated that and then pulled out handcuffs. To grab someone and push them away is unacceptable unless in a riot.
4. There was no need to deploy a Tazer as McCann was in no place to endager the officer, his colleagues, himself, the old lady or another member of the public.

The OC-D

Frazzled wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Gornall wrote:Since when can you get arrested for standing on a sidewalk and talking?

You can be falsely arrested for it.

Not moving along when the police ask you to can be taken as "obstructing the police in the performance of their duty".

That doesn't give the police a blanket right to order anyone anywhere to do or not do anything as such. It depends on the details of each case, as in this case.

What I mean is, the police can order you to get off a bus because they need to search it, but they can't legally order you to get off the bus because they are in a bad mood.

They can however, arrest you for resisting arrest. Its nutty but true, at least for most locales. (US only).

That's what I mean, however if the original arrest you were resisting was found to be false, then charges proceeding from it would also be false.

Even so, as long as we don't live in a police state it's probably best not to resist arrest.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Gornall wrote:Since when can you get arrested for standing on a sidewalk and talking?

You can be falsely arrested for it.

Not moving along when the police ask you to can be taken as "obstructing the police in the performance of their duty".

That doesn't give the police a blanket right to order anyone anywhere to do or not do anything as such. It depends on the details of each case, as in this case.

What I mean is, the police can order you to get off a bus because they need to search it, but they can't legally order you to get off the bus because they are in a bad mood.

They can however, arrest you for resisting arrest. Its nutty but true, at least for most locales. (US only).

That's what I mean, however if the original arrest you were resisting was found to be false, then charges proceeding from it would also be false.

Even so, as long as we don't live in a police state it's probably best not to resist arrest.

Hate to tell you KK, but they don't need an original charge to arrest you for resisting (hence the nuttiness. I've heard it called "arrested for being a statute).

Routinely RA is dropped unless there are other bonafide charges or the BG gets real out of wack. Its the aggravation of that whole jail thing.

You mean in the USA a policeman can arrest you without any charge, then arrest you for resisting when you ask him what the charge is?

From the most reliable website in he world... Wikipedia

Resisting unlawful arrest
In some instances, an individual may realize they are the target of false arrest and attempt to resist or flee. This is known as resisting unlawful arrest, and is a possible justification for such resistance where it would otherwise be a crime (i.e. resisting arrest, flight to avoid prosecution, assault, or even murder). Justification for such action is often hard to prove in court, and only justified in certain circumstances. Simple mistake of fact situations would generally not warrant attempting to elude law enforcement. However, there are some that would, such as:

the person making the arrest never identifying themselves, causing the defendant to believe they are the target of kidnapping or robbery.
the reasonable belief that the person making the arrest is an impersonator with the intent of victimizing the defendant.
the reasonable belief that the defendant would be the victim of police brutality if taken into custody by that individual.
Many courts generally will not tolerate violence used in resisting an unlawful arrest, and even more rarely "deadly force," unless the police began to use violence before the defendant began to do so.


Even if the cop had no legal right to arrest him, the moment he resisted he committed a crime. Leason? When a cop goes to arrest you, let him. Make your case to the judge and not the cop. Who knows, you might get a wrongful arrest case in your favor. But if you resist you will not.