Originally Posted by
STS-134
If a law enforcement officer tells you to strip naked and dance in the street or else you'll be arrested, you'd comply? What if a LEO tells you (and all of the other <insert race here> people in a restaurant) that you all need to leave the restaurant, because the owner has ordered all <insert race here> people out of the restaurant? There are lawful orders and unlawful orders and you do not have to comply with unlawful orders.
Well said.
I work in law enforcement and I have unfortunately seen too many instances where people complied with illegal or unjustified commands from officers. It's typically the 'good' people with clean records who are more inclined to comply just to get by and not make trouble. It's typically the people with criminal records who are more likely to raise a stink.
Imho the system works best in the long run when if an officer does make a mistake and makes an unjustified or illegal request the public does not passively accept it and comply out of fear or convenience. And I am always super careful and instruct others to do the same when responding to any request from a business to remove somebody; you always need to at least know the context. So I'm glad Dao did what he did.