CCW holder killed reaching for ID.

[quadraginta]

Human nature is such that when a group is criticized, the group often gets into a siege mentality. To me, the behaviour of a lot of US police forces when faced with criticism, including the not ratting on a fellow cop, could be explained by this.

Cops don't rat on fellow cops because they know if they do they will be ostracized (at the very least) by their other fellow cops. None of them are going to get congratulated for being honest and ethical. They are going to be ignored and harassed. At best. At worst they will be put in danger or lose their jobs.

This isn't a siege mentality. It's a gang mentality.

 

[Ron Swanson]

I'm not sure if I concur with "rightfully". Was it determined that the caller provided erroneous information maliciously.

Even if they had, I'm not sure it should matter.

This same feeble, lukewarm excuse for the behavior of the police has been proffered as a defense for the behavior of the cops in the Rice killing. I don't buy it.

911 calls by their very nature are going to be rife with errors and exaggerations. They are generally brief, rushed, and often being made by people in a state of near panic, panic, and/or hysteria. This don't even include any transcription errors made by the 911 operators themselves, who are at least as rushed and stressed much of the time.

If cops enter blindly into a situation ready to react based solely on the dispatch from a 911 operator, without doing even the simplest, most basic reconnoiter of the actual situation as it is actually presented when they arrive on the scene, then it baffles me how anyone could find the 911 caller culpable while at the same time holding blameless the cops who didn't even bother to assess the real conditions before they rushed in with guns blazing.

This is cop apologia at its very worst. Scapegoating anyone they can get away with while evading any responsibility for their own actions.

Also agree

 

[newyorkguy]

A reply was made to a message that has a link to a Canadian Citizen's Guide to Rights When Dealing With Police which stated:

You're required to identify yourself (verbally is fine) any time a cop asks ... it's the law.

The Guide doesn't say that. It states very clearly:

If stopped by the police, they will likely ask for your name and address. They may also ask you for identification. In most cases, you are not required to provide this information.

Police officers can stop you under three general circumstances:

• If they suspect that you have committed a crime
• If they see you committing a crime
• If you are driving

In other words, outside of when you are driving, police need a specific reason to even stop you.

 

[jimbob]

That could most certainly be a part, maybe even the biggest part, of it, yes.

What i found interresting about the Ferguson stats you linked to is the fact that rate of contraband found per search is higher for white people, the number of arrests OTOH is again higher for black people. So black people are stopped more often, searched more often and arrested more often, but contraband is less often found with them. This is a bit suspicious, i think.

I really think that such stats have to include the reasons for the arrests, split up in broad categories, and what became of them afterwards. It's easy to trump up charges to arrest someone. Then it shows up in the stats as just another arrest. But when shortly after the person is released, or in a trial it was found that the arrest charges were wrong, that number isn't taken off of the stats. I think that is problematic.

Greetings,

Chris

Yes - it is analysed in that fashion in the report you have downloaded. But the superficial analysis that both you and I have done on the whole figures suggests that too. Similarly with the rate of police shootings in the whole of the US.

Most people who are shot are armed and most of those are white.

Blacks are far more disproportionately represented amongst the population of those who are shot whilst unarmed.

To me the above two are consistent with the data we have been discussing. The simplest explanation is that police are likely to shoot armed criminals and these are usually justified - however, for whatever reason, they tend to be more wary of unarmed blacks than unarmed whites.

The use of force is depressing - not arresting 50 white people involved in a mass brawl whilst arresting people for playing loud music when there had been no complaints.

 

[Ron Swanson]

A reply was made to a message that has a link to a Canadian Citizen's Guide to Rights When Dealing With Police which stated:


The Guide doesn't say that. It states very clearly:


In other words, outside of when you are driving, police need a specific reason to even stop you.

Exactly .. so unless you can PROVE the cops just stopped you for no reason and they have no reason to stop you, you have to ID yourself.

The reasons police have to stop you do NOT have to be told to you and need ONLY exist in their own minds (you resemble a person with an outstanding warrant)

With thousands of outstanding warrants, they have reasonable cause to question anyone based on that alone.

You speak of the letter of the law ... I speak of how stuff actually works in the real world.

 

[banquetbear]

You're required to identify yourself (verbally is fine) any time a cop asks ... it's the law.

...cite please. I've provided a cite stating that this is incorrect.

Here is another.

http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/pacer/know_your_rights.pdf

Informal Interactions

-snip-

Your participation is voluntary.
You can speak with the officer or you are free to leave at any time. This contact will not be documented.

Investigative Detention

-snip-

You are not obliged to say anything, unless you wish to do so, but whatever you do say may be used as evidence.

Arrest

-snip-

You are not obliged to say anything, unless you wish to do so, but whatever you do say may be used as evidence

http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/pacer/know_your_rights.pdf

Here is another cite:

If an officer stops you for no clear reason and begins to ask questions, generally, you do not have to answer. The law does not require you to identify yourself or supply any information, unless the officer gives you a legal reason for making such a request.

Although:

If the police stop you for any offence, you must give them your name and
address. If you refuse, the police can arrest you.

http://bcrcmontreal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Under-Arrest.pdf

So in Montreal at least: you are only required to give your name and address when stopped for an actual offence. As far as I can tell you are not required to identify yourself (verbally is fine) any time a cop asks ... it is not the law. Perhaps you could go out and tell all those kids in your neighbourhood they are doing it wrong.

 

[banquetbear]

You speak of the letter of the law ... I speak of how stuff actually works in the real world.

...no: you claimed it was the law. Are you now admitting that it isn't?

 

[Ammonitida]

Yes - it is analysed in that fashion in the report you have downloaded. But the superficial analysis that both you and I have done on the whole figures suggests that too. Similarly with the rate of police shootings in the whole of the US.

Most people who are shot are armed and most of those are white.

Blacks are far more disproportionately represented amongst the population of those who are shot whilst unarmed.

To me the above two are consistent with the data we have been discussing. The simplest explanation is that police are likely to shoot armed criminals and these are usually justified - however, for whatever reason, they tend to be more wary of unarmed blacks than unarmed whites.

The use of force is depressing - not arresting 50 white people involved in a mass brawl whilst arresting people for playing loud music when there had been no complaints.

Most black people who are shot are also armed (70% vs 77% of whites, according to The Guardian's database). For the unarmed category, the sample size is rather small which can give unreliable results. Last year, only 40 unarmed black men died as the result of police gunfire. 47 for white people. Blacks were 36% of those shot unarmed, higher than their overall percentage of being shot by cops which was 26%. That's inconsistent. Could there be more media scrutiny of cases where blacks are killed by cops, leading to more findings of unarmed black men?

The same issue is seen with those contraband studies, where the amount of white people being stopped are so small that skewed results are to be expected. In one example, only like 10 or so whites were stopped vs dozens of black people.

 

[Ron Swanson]

...no: you claimed it was the law. Are you now admitting that it isn't?

Yes ... it's not the letter of the law you are correct ... so it's NOT the law ... my 'street smarts' and experience (or inexperience) just made me assume it was actually the letter of the law.

BUT it still has the force of law if the officers wants it to, or needs it to, or if the suspect actually does, resemble someone who they are looking for.

The suspect could also (I guess) just be silent and wait for their lawyer to show up after a few hours of being held in custody (or after they are out of hospital)

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Yes ... it's not the letter of the law you are correct ... so it's NOT the law ... my 'street smarts' and experience (or inexperience) just made me assume it was actually the letter of the law.

It's not your "street smarts". You've been conditioned to believe something that isn't true; specifically, that you must submit to authority to a greater degree than is actually required by law.

 

[ponderingturtle]

You don't even have to say it yourself. Merely the word "gun" is enough to set off an alarm reaction.

Now imagine how they will react to open carry.

 

[ponderingturtle]

In the old west did Sheriffs gun down everyone they saw with a firearm? ... Guns are perfectly legal and VERY common in the US ... you can't just shoot someone who has one!

Yes they did, see the shootout at the OK corral for a historic example of this.

 

[ponderingturtle]

There are a lot of problems with this premise (which usually goes unstated by the folks who rush to defend police in all circumstances), but I can see a rather obvious conclusion here.

These things go both ways. I see no reason for police to be granted such wide leeway in terms of using force, that anyone else shouldn't get as well. I do see some *need* for police to be allowed to use force, under limited circumstances, but nowhere near the level of "that teenaged girl talked back to me!" or "that girl wouldn't leave her seat in school!", or "that guy said the word 'gun'!"

Or, as yet another absurd example, this one here.

He should have known better than to be so uppity clearly.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Many people think he was ... how could he cash out the toy with no bar code? (it's on the box not the toy)

Which is why we needed to clear the charges against the woman in michigan who opened fire on shoplifters in home depot, because that is what one needs to do in that situation. She lost her carry licence for like 7 years because of that!

 

[ponderingturtle]

As even the ACLU has advised, in cases where citizens do have the right to decline to produce ID, when the police HAVE NO reasonable suspicion with which to demand your ID, exercising that right is very likely to lead to your arrest. Nothing is more frustrating to a citizen then being arrested by a police officer who refuses to follow the law.

But there is really nothing you can do about that, no one really wants to enforce constitutional protections citizens have against the police in that case. See the Ferguson report where the police openly admitted to violating the constitutional rights of people with no consequence.

 

[jimbob]

Most black people who are shot are also armed (70% vs 77% of whites, according to The Guardian's database). For the unarmed category, the sample size is rather small which can give unreliable results. Last year, only 40 unarmed black men died as the result of police gunfire. 47 for white people. Blacks were 36% of those shot unarmed, higher than their overall percentage of being shot by cops which was 26%. That's inconsistent. Could there be more media scrutiny of cases where blacks are killed by cops, leading to more findings of unarmed black men?

The same issue is seen with those contraband studies, where the amount of white people being stopped are so small that skewed results are to be expected. In one example, only like 10 or so whites were stopped vs dozens of black people.

You don't need to concentrate on a single year for Ferguson

From 2000 to 2015 there were 58054 Blacks stopped and 14844 Whites

6229 Blacks were searched and
921 Whites

Which I make as being almost twice as likely to search a car driven by a black as a white.

10.73% Black
6.20% White

Looking at the contraband hit rate form searches, 1048 for blacks and 211 for whites you get the following.

Contraband hit rate from searches
16.82% Black
22.91% White


The numbers are sufficient to say something is fishy.

 

[Ron Swanson]

It's not your "street smarts". You've been conditioned to believe something that isn't true; specifically, that you must submit to authority to a greater degree than is actually required by law.

I think is a fair statement ... it's kept me alive for 55 years though

Just got stopped TWICE last night by the cops too.

 

[Ron Swanson]

Yes they did, see the shootout at the OK corral for a historic example of this.

Good point ... historical accurate example.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I think is a fair statement ... it's kept me alive for 55 years though

Do you honestly think that not giving the police unnecessary private information would have gotten you killed at any point in your life? And, if true, that that isn't a sign of something rotten, something to be deeply concerned about?

 

[Ron Swanson]

Do you honestly think that not giving the police unnecessary private information would have gotten you killed at any point in your life? And, if true, that that isn't a sign of something rotten, something to be deeply concerned about?

No ... that part was a joke

I'm rarley concerned about anything