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Don't Jaywalk in Sacremento

A different video I found had a full transcript of the conversation.

The officer did not ask what was in the jacket, but he did tell Mr. Cain to take his hands out of his pockets.

Unless there is yet more information to come, I can't imagine the cop winning this legal showdown. It is not quite as cut and dried as it seemed from the first video, but it's close.
 
Has anyone thoroughly vetted the so-called victim? There must be something in his past which would serve to delegitimize his 'victimhood.' How about his immediate family? That should be close enough.

In all seriousness, though, a good friend who spent thirty years as a uniformed New York patrol officer has told me (I've heard this from other cops too) that roughly half the officers he worked with were somewhat nuts. Looks like the same ratio holds true in Sacramento.
 
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Garrison said:
You are expected to look both ways and make sure there is no oncoming traffic, that's as far as it goes. The emphasis is on drivers maintaining situational awareness and watching their speed in residential areas.
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And of course never being able to go anywhere because people keep blocking traffic. With the constant stopping for people crossing the street your cities must be a total nightmare.
 
newyorkguy said:
Has anyone thoroughly vetted the so-called victim? There must be something in his past which would serve to delegitimize his 'victimhood.' How about his immediate family? That should be close enough.

In all seriousness, though, a good friend who spent thirty years as a uniformed New York patrol officer has told me (I've heard this from other cops too) that roughly half the officers he worked with were somewhat nuts. Looks like the same ratio holds true in Sacramento.
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I've heard a few cops say about a third of them shouldn't be cops for various reasons, temperament and what not.
 
fagin said:
Or is it? Some people do seem to think that without force/law, people will naturally do silly/bad/evil/nasty stuff.

Like burning in hell.
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It's the assumption that people will do what they're allowed to do without, the assumption goes, without considering what is reasonable that I find odd.
 
ponderingturtle said:
You can just walk into traffic at any point on the road at any time?
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If you want to, yes. Most people, though, will use a crossing if it's close enough, or at least only cross when there are gaps between traffic. We even have street furniture which are not crossings where traffic has to stop for pedestrians (e.g. zebra, pelican, puffin), but which nontheless facilitate crossing when there are appropriate gaps in traffic:

Pedestrian Refuge Islands
 
Agatha said:
In the UK, except on a motorway (freeway) or some dual carriageways, yes. You can cross a road anywhere you please, it's not an offence. It's sensible to wait until until there is no traffic, but there's no laws mandating that you be sensible. After all, if you cross where there is traffic, it's you that is likely to be wiped out.

Pedestrians found on a motorway are mostly drunk or foreign or mentally ill; they'll get picked up by the police and taken off to the nearest exit. It is very rare that they'll be prosecuted, it's a great deal more likely that they'll be referred to other agencies such as social services or refugee charities.

What with jaywalking and Home Owners' Associations mandating that you mow your lawns, and not being allowed to live in a hoarded house, and having to shovel snow, I sometimes wonder if the USA is as free as it thinks it is.
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A hoarded house????
 
newyorkguy said:
Has anyone thoroughly vetted the so-called victim? There must be something in his past which would serve to delegitimize his 'victimhood.' How about his immediate family? That should be close enough.

In all seriousness, though, a good friend who spent thirty years as a uniformed New York patrol officer has told me (I've heard this from other cops too) that roughly half the officers he worked with were somewhat nuts. Looks like the same ratio holds true in Sacramento.
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One news article I read said he had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant, which might have been a factor in his not wanting to deal with the cop over the jaywalking, since a warrant check would likely have been done.
 
I was always raised to understand that you do what a police officer tells you to do, when and how they tell you to do it. To remove a coat when you weren't instructed to creates uncertainty. To reach under a seat or into your glove box in your car when you weren't told to creates uncertainty. I never want to put a law enforcement officer in a position to have to guess my motive. It's a dangerous job, and uncertainty triggers a defensive response. Although, some operate under the idea that a good offense is the best defense!

This is not a blanket defense of all LEO's. It is however, a concession that sometimes people make situations more threatening by not considering the position the LEO is in.
 
Guy offers a cop a fist fight. Cop obliges, guy gets beat then cries to the media.

The cop should be sacked for being unprofessional, and a lunatic, but the guy should man up and stop playing the victim.
 
baron said:
Guy offers a cop a fist fight. Cop obliges, guy gets beat then cries to the media.

The cop should be sacked for being unprofessional, and a lunatic, but the guy should man up and stop playing the victim.
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It's also not too bright to try to start a fist fight with someone who's carrying a gun, whether he's a cop or not.
 
fuelair said:
A hoarded house????
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Spock Jenkins said:
I think the poster is referring to hoarders who have their houses condemned because of years worth of trash, and 30 cats, and living with animal waste.
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Yes. I've seen on American TV programmes where people living in hoarded houses, not always with animals, get told by 'the city' that the house is uninhabitable and they have to move out. It was just another thing that occurred to me as another instance where we can pretty much do what we like and the USA is more regulated/less free; like jaywalking and being told by HOAs not to fly sports flags unless the team is playing that day. I didn't mean to derail, though, it was just an aside.
 
Agatha said:
Yes. I've seen on American TV programmes where people living in hoarded houses, not always with animals, get told by 'the city' that the house is uninhabitable and they have to move out. It was just another thing that occurred to me as another instance where we can pretty much do what we like and the USA is more regulated/less free; like jaywalking and being told by HOAs not to fly sports flags unless the team is playing that day. I didn't mean to derail, though, it was just an aside.
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US citizens appear to be mostly free from governmental interference but private organisations can impose as they wish. The justification for this seems to be that one can avoid dealing with companies that have onerous service terms but I think this is flat out not true.
 
Garrison said:
I'm still amazed that the USA has managed to turn what's called 'crossing the road' in the UK into a criminal offence.
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It's slightly more in-depth than that. For those that wish to talk about the legalities of pedestrians crossing roads in California:
California Law said:
21954. (a) Every pedestrian upon a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway so near as to constitute an immediate hazard.

21955. Between adjacent intersections controlled by traffic control signal devices or by police officers, pedestrians shall not cross the roadway at any place except in a crosswalk.

21956. (a) No pedestrian may walk upon any roadway outside of a business or residence district otherwise than close to his or her left-hand edge of the roadway.

(b) A pedestrian may walk close to his or her right-hand edge of the roadway if a crosswalk or other means of safely crossing the roadway is not available or if existing traffic or other conditions would compromise the safety of a pedestrian attempting to cross the road.

21957. No person shall stand in a roadway for the purpose of soliciting a ride from the driver of any vehicle.

21961. This chapter does not prevent local authorities from adopting ordinances prohibiting pedestrians from crossing roadways at other than crosswalks.
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leginfo.legislature.ca.gov


Yeah, some of the (a) have no (b), I presume those were removed by later laws. I think there was a (b) without an (a) somewhere...
 
This is a good example of why cops need to learn and use deescalation techniques. Let's grant for the moment that the coat was removed as meaning he was willing to fight. There's a good span of time between the removal of the coat and when the cop turns the confrontation physical.

During that time it appears the suspect wasn't doing anything aggressive other than mouthing off at the cop with a decent amount of space between the two. I don't see why violence is a necessary reaction in that situation. He jumped right to direct violence.
 
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