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The behaviour of US police officers

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SuburbanTurkey said:
A part of this whole conversation we're having about our out of control policing that is being missed is the criminalization of everything. We've given the cops all the tools they need to hassle people by making everything illegal.

These localities need to start asking "are we willing to arrest people for this" when passing laws. If the answer is no, they should rethink what they are doing.

This city requires, by law, a license to ride a bike. Cops hassling black people for not having their bike license is a very predictable consequence of this.
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The larger point is true, but does that apply to cars as well? I mean, requiring a lisence to operate a vehicle on public roads makes sense to me.
 
eeyore1954 said:
Where I live all people being arrested are cuffed. Suffolk County NY. Not sure what the justification is. My kids saw their science teacher arrested and cuffed. Turns out it was for a bench warrant on a traffic matter.
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But the "crime" here would be a violation of a local ordinance, something that I am pretty sure can only be punished with a fine. So the question is why arrest instead of cite the person for not having this registration.
 
Belz... said:
The larger point is true, but does that apply to cars as well? I mean, requiring a lisence to operate a vehicle on public roads makes sense to me.
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But that isn't done at the local level, so you are unlikely to drive from somewhere you do not need this license to somewhere you do. For a motor vehicle comparison it would be some added sticker to legally have a car in a certain town as a local ordinance, not for parking or anything, just to drive through.

And I am not sure that the operator is licensed instead of the bike being registered.

Here are the Poughkeepsie bicycle registration requirements. Though it seems to only apply to residents.

"It shall be unlawful for any resident of the City of Poughkeepsie to operate, use or permit to be used or operated or rent for use any bicycle with a wheel size of 20 inches or larger upon the public highways, streets, avenues, parks and public places in the City of Poughkeepsie without first registering the bicycle with the Police Department and obtaining a certificate of registration and identification sticker."

https://ecode360.com/27010005
 
Because people don't act right until they are forced to.

When the prevailing social attitude is "The ultimate goal in life is to be the biggest possible dickcheese you can be and still stay technically within the rules" what option other than "Make more rules" do we have?

The everything is a hammer and nail metaphor works both ways.

And I don't mean this snarkily or disingenuously. There's someone doing something I don't want to them to do. What other viable option do I have?
 
Honestly there should be no "local" laws. State level really should be the lowest level a new rule on society is allowed to be created.

The lower on the scale someone is the more ego and power tripping and trying to justify their own existence feeds into thing.

A town of 40 people shouldn't be allowed to make laws.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Honestly there should be no "local" laws. State level really should be the lowest level a new rule on society is allowed to be created.

The lower on the scale someone is the more ego and power tripping and trying to justify their own existence feeds into thing.

A town of 40 people shouldn't be allowed to make laws.
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Then all zoning goes to the state level?
 
ponderingturtle said:
Then all zoning goes to the state level?
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We could quibble but "zoning" isn't a law in the sense I'm talking.

Yes I know technically it is and stuff like this still is open for misuse, but it seems that, for lack of a better term "behavioral" laws are where the problem is.
 
JoeMorgue said:
We could quibble but "zoning" isn't a law in the sense I'm talking.
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But that is exactly the level or law we are talking about with bikes. These are not criminal laws but local ordinances.
Yes I know technically it is and stuff like this still is open for misuse, but it seems that, for lack of a better term "behavioral" laws are where the problem is.
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Please provide an example of what kind of law are you against, because local ordinances such as zoning certainly do have a place.
 
My point is inconsistency of what the laws are is a type of injustice.

If I can might right turn on red in Mayberry but can't in Metropolis, that's a law I can't be expected to remember, and therefore it's wrong.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse" was never meant to be a dump stat for law enforcement.
 
Belz... said:
Well that's not always true. Plenty of people do the right thing in the absence of laws or enforcement.

The issue is those that don't.
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That's why my point though. Our toolbox for interpersonal conflict is pretty bare, and most roads in it stop at "police" if one side presses the issue hard enough.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Then all zoning goes to the state level?
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In the two states I've lived in in the last many decades, it already is, in a sense. There are overarching zoning limits and legal principles. Towns are empowered to enact zoning codes (or none at all) within those limits, but the state sets those limits, and prevents towns from many actions. In Vermont, for example, the state does not allow any town to zone out mobile homes. In Connecticut (where I was for some years chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals) there were a whole slew of regulatory limits to insure against various wrongs such as spot zoning and confiscatory zoning. Appeals from the local appeal process do go directly to the State level.

Leaving enforcement up to towns allows a certain amount of autonomy and saves the state some complication in administration.

I have no problem with local ordinances and enforcement, but I do think that there should be over-arching State laws that regulate what can and cannot be done, and among those would be a uniformity of codes for anything that can cross town lines.

Bicycle licensing strikes me as a troublesome subject. Most places with licensing and helmet laws have an age specification that seems to enforce the idea that both cycling and helmet use are for kids (they need not be licensed but do need helmets). But if there are to be such laws, I think they must be state laws, so that a person does not find himself in trouble when he accidentally crosses town lines, and if enactment is left as a local option, there must be reciprocity. The alternative is the kind of scene we see here, where unnecessary hassle is dealt out by cops with discretion to act with racist bias and to make up impossible criteria that guarantee their ability to handcuff kids and arrest them. One can predict that the charges, whatever they are, will be dropped, but one can also bet that it will difficult if not impossible for kids so arrested to recover their bikes, and that their hatred and distrust of police will forever be justified.
 
bruto said:
Bicycle licensing strikes me as a troublesome subject. Most places with licensing and helmet laws have an age specification that seems to enforce the idea that both cycling and helmet use are for kids (they need not be licensed but do need helmets). But if there are to be such laws, I think they must be state laws, so that a person does not find himself in trouble when he accidentally crosses town lines, and if enactment is left as a local option, there must be reciprocity.
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The question is, why do there need to be such laws? Any law is a balance between the cost of loss of civil liberty against the benefit of preventing behaviour that harms others. In the case of cyclists, what's the harm that's being prevented, and does its prevention actually compensate the loss of liberty that this exact case exemplifies? Cars kill people other than their drivers when improperly operated, so we accept the cost because reducing that death rate is a very clear benefit. Deaths of non-cyclists in cycling accidents, while not unknown, are so rare as to be far less of a cost. What's the justification for restricting or regulating cycle ownership here?

Dave
 
Captain_Swoop said:
A license for a bike otherwise you are carted away in cuffs?

Does this apply even even to kids?

Apparently it does

Video in link

https://twitter.com/begin_therevolt/status/1384262598380515331

It seems to me a lot of these laws and 'local ordinances' are just there as tools of oppression.

I thought the USA was the 'land of the free'?
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Nanny state. In the UK we can ride free :D

Is it possible that there are places where it is required to have a licence to ride a bike, but not to have a gun?
 
Nessie said:
Nanny state. In the UK we can ride free :D

Is it possible that there are places where it is required to have a licence to ride a bike, but not to have a gun?
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Sure. Lots of states allow local jurisdictions to regulate bicycles and some of these states are ones that don't require any permit for gun ownership and possibly carry and concealed carry.

"States with uniform bicycling traffic laws means that only the state can regulate bicycling, so laws are uniform throughout the state. However, if the state laws are bad, they are uniformly bad throughout the state! Conversely, states that allow local regulation means that each city and county can write their own custom bicycling laws and any strange restrictions they decide to enact. In these red states, bicyclists are just one city council election away from what happened in Blackhawk, Colorado, where bicycling was banned on the main road through town. And let’s not forget the infamous Chicago right-of-way law that requires bicyclists to ride at the road edge and yield to ALL moving vehicles. Local regulation is very bad, and renders any benefits the state laws may confer to cyclists as transient and fragile."

https://iamtraffic.org/advocacy-focus-areas/equality/u-s-bicycle-laws-by-state/
 
https://twitter.com/ConLawWarrior/status/1384515633019240448

Remember that scene in A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson admits he ordered the code red and Tom Cruise is so shocked he doesn't even know what to say next? This is exactly like that.
#AbolishQI
#EndQualifiedImmunity
@AbolishQI
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Documents embedded in tweets. Basically, New York has abolished qualified immunity, and lawyers have sent out a letter to cops advising them that now they should not engage in stop & frisk or other searches of people or property unless they're actually sure that what they're doing is legal. It also advises them to avoid using physical force unless it's actually necessary.
 
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