law dawg

This is the dumbest thing I've read in weeks, and that's saying something.

Hotel manager = police officer?

I'm pretty sure the ability to use force is ever so slightly different. Hotel managers having a need to use force as an adjunct to their jobs and all...

law dawg

You're still in school? That's telling.........

law dawg

Thank you. It's silly to point out the obvious, but thanks for the assist.

SgtScott31

sorry..."appellant"

ralfp

How? I'll quote what I was referring to:

I still think SgtScott31 is saying that one should comply with an officer's orders and later argue the lawfulness of those orders; i.e. one should always follow an officer's order, regardless of the order's lawfulness. To me that may be prudent thing to do (generally), but it's not always "acting like an adult." There are situations, such as the Rosa Parks case, where the adult thing to do is not follow an officer's order. (No: I am not equating the MSP bicyclist to Rosa Parks.)

Or is there a line to be drawn? What is a "lawful order"? As a citizen I (seriously) wish I knew. Are any of the following "lawful orders" that I could be legitimately arrested & prosecuted for? Obviously the last one is, and the first one clearly (hopefully) is not, but are any others?

1. An order to do something in violation of the law.
2. An order to do something stupid, random, but not illegal (hop on one foot).
3. An order to stop doing something legal, such as walking down the sidewalk, absent any justifiable law enforcement or other public safety interest in clearing the sidewalk (such as a sidewalk in front of a burning building).
4. An order (through a megaphone) to drive faster when doing 50mph in a 55mph zone and not obstructing traffic.
5. An order to stop doing something illegal.

dhuey

Heh. I know you're not making the comparison, but I'll bet Mr. Orsak thinks he's picking up right where she left off.

1. No, by definition that's not a lawful order. Keep in mind that some acts that might be ordinarily unlawful can be lawful under some circumstances (e.g., a cop directs you to make an otherwise illegal U-turn to avoid a road blockage).

2. It depends on state/local law, but this is probably not a lawful order in that the cop is using his authority to demand things that are really just for his personal kicks, with no connection to law enforcement. I can't believe you would ever face prosecution for refusing a request like this. And, of course, a cop is looking at discipline and maybe dismissal for such conduct.

3. This is getting close to the facts of the Orsak case. Yes, "stay clear of this sidewalk" is a classic lawful order. Maybe the cop is making a bad judgment, and you really should be able to walk on that sidewalk. Here we have to ask ourselves what as a society we want in this situation: i) let people disregard the cop's order or ii) force them to comply with it (under the penalty Mr. Orsak faced), and have meaningful citizen grievance procedures available to deal with unreasonable or abusive cops. I think ii) is by far the way to go.

4. Same as 3. If the cop demands that you travel at an unsafe speed, the order might cease to be lawful.

5. That's almost certainly a lawful order. Maybe there are some very odd situations where doing something illegal is necessary to prevent some grave bodily harm to another.

Let's see...how about a diabetic sees another diabetic in hypoglycemic shock. She is about to inject the victim with life-saving insulin. Doing so, however, would violate drug dispensing laws. A stickler for enforcing these laws, Officer orders the Good Samaritan not to inject. She does, regardless. Sounds like a Criminal Law exam, which sometimes present some really, really unlikely situations.

Wonderboynyc

While I cannot very any of the details on the story, I do know that I have run across a few airport officers with attitude.

And here is some proof of what happens when police offers get attitude:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkiyBVytRQ

dhuey

A police force, like any group of humans, will have it's share of unreasonable, and, sadly, a few abusive cops. Of course, their job is to protect us from some of the most unreasonable and often violent members of society. There can be no serious dispute of either of these things.

None of that is really at issue in the Orsak case. Mr. Orsak believed that he could disregard an officer's traffic order. He learned that he cannot do that. And that is how it should be, for the reasons I mention above.

ralfp

The problem is that we don't have either. Does anyone honestly think that anything at all would have happened had the cyclist obeyed every officers' orders and later filed a complaint? There is generally no real penalty for an officer that issues an unlawful order, yet there certainly is a penalty for a citizen who disobeys such an order.

[Rant warning]

I have never been arrested, am probably more law abiding than most people, yet I generally fear police officers. Excluding situations where I'm in immediate danger, I see an interaction of any type with a police officer as a risky thing, something to be avoided. This bothers me, and it should be something that disturbs LEOs, but somehow I doubt that it does.

I know that if I slip up and say something stupid (as happens during verbal disagreements) an officer can decide to arrest me using physical force before I have the chance to beg forgiveness. I know that I'm far more likely to get charged with a crime than the officer if the officer decides to physically harm me in the process of arresting me.

Several friends of mine who have served on juries in criminal trials have come back with the impression that police officers blatantly lie under oath, that they often don't even bother to make their lies physically plausible. This should shock me, but it does not.

Do police officers have the legal authority to issue orders that have no bearing on public safety or LE functions? If so, where do they get it?

I recall a somewhat similar situation that I witnessed twice in the same location (over a decade ago). An NYPD car tailgates a car going just under 40mph on a one-lane highway ramp (40mph posted limit). The NYPD car has no lights or sirens on and tailgates the other car by a few feet (literally). The other car then speeds up to get out of the police car's way (showing respect for the cop). After the ramp merges with a wide highway the cop pulls over the car for speeding (I assume).

What's the correct thing to do in response to such an implicit order to speed up?

Boston_Bulldog

Well forget Canada. Taxes are HIGHER. AND NOT application to live there/citizenship emigration is NOT FREE as it is in the USA.

Not happy here? Be my guest to go wherever you think you'll be able to do whatever -- however you'll find you're BEST being HERE considering all the freedoms that we DO HAVE under federal constitutional and state laws.

THAT said, YES indeed this was totally WRONG and airport police
in this case were complete JERKS.

Easiest way out of that kind of situation is to obey whatever at that point and file complaint and possible legal action AFTER you're safely home.

Boston_Bulldog

"Rodney" WHO ?

oh you mean the LA dude that got a couple million bucks for a book and
TV talk-show appearances ....

Top Tier

This practice is so routine and widespread that the police themselves have come up with a nickname for it: "testilying"

ralfp

Given the 300 million people and the half-million plus police officers in the US, I imagine that thousands of "unlikely" situations occur every day.

What should happen:

• Officer offers to assist the Good Samaritan (GS)
• Officer tells GS to show him/her the labels (is it insulin?).
• Officer calls EMS, everyone survives.
• Officer and GS get a brief mention as heroes in the local paper.

Reality:

• Officer tells GS to stop.
• GS tries argue; things get heated.
• Officer arrests GS for failure to obey a lawful order, resisting arrest, drug law violations, etc.
• GS listed in local paper as being arrested for illegal drugs, etc.
• Other diabetic dies.
• No penalty for the officer. He/she gets another arrest (+ for his/her record).
• Prosecutor offers GS a choice: release after a plea to some minor misdemeanor OR a loss of $1000s for bail (or remand) and, in order of likelihood, an eventual dismissal, not guilty verdict, or conviction.
• GS spends days in jail, loses $1000s and his/her job, irrespective of any court verdict.

.

Do I have it right?

ralfp

What?!? Immigration to the US is free? When did that happen? Permanent residence is almost $1000 and naturalization itself is another $600 or so (it's less than $100 in Canada). Total real costs are several thousand dollars.

Or by "emigration" do you mean that we don't charge people who leave the US? We do that too. You pay the $15 fee, plus US taxes. Want to change citizenship after you leave? Well, it better not be to avoid those taxes, because that's illegal.

Or are you saying that immigration to the US is free to those who chose to be born here or to be born to parents with US citizenship? Even then it's not free. Documents required to prove US citizenship (birth certificate, passport, etc.) all cost money.

dhuey

I certainly do. Complaints about police conduct by law-abiding citizens are generally taken very seriously. These can be a big problem for departments and for cops, personally. Even just a few of these cast doubt on an officer's fitness for duty, and they are heavenly for a plaintiff's lawyer in a later case trying to prove abuse. If you want to get an unreasonable cop worried, comply, and make it clear that you are taking down every detail.

Once you become a convict, however, your complaint will probably fall on deaf ears. The legitimate gripes of police abuse by convicts get drowned out by the very loud chorus of such complaints from nearly all convicts.