Gangsters in Blue

• Via the comments, a sheriff says of a dog shooting: “I want to stress that this dog was inside of a fenced-in yard when it was shot and killed. Anyone who would do something like this is cruel, cold-hearted and a coward to boot.” Wish police officials were as blunt when cops fire at leashed or fenced-in dogs.
• Tobias Funke would be proud.
• The Washington Post profiles libertarian Tom Palmer, who’s suing for the right to open carry in Washington, D.C. Palmer says a gun saved his life in the early 1980s when he was able to fend off a couple of homophobes intent on killing him.
• There’s a headline writer at Stars and Stripes with a bawdy sense of humor.
• The ever-reaching scope of the Plain View Doctrine.
• DEA raids another medical marijuana dispensary.
• …which of course would mean it isn’t all that bad at all.
• The first and only skateboard park in East Africa.

Neocon porn. After he crossed the river he converted the moose to Christianity, then killed it with his bare hands.

So maybe my skepticism was wrong. The FBI is now looking into the Pennsylvania webcam spying case.

NYPD will start experimental program to tape police interrogations. This should have happened a long, long time ago.

Make your URL shady.

Sex secrets of the Olympic Village. Think Olympic athletes get extra points for level of difficulty?

Hell, I’m with you, Scott. But as these things go, my opinion isn’t worth much.

Fun newborn photography.

Right out of The Wire: Retired NYPD police commanders say politicians, brass pressured them to juke crime stats data. Maybe “broken windows” wasn’t the overwhelming success its supporters claim, after all.

Women make up about 7 percent of the U.S. prison population, a small (but growing) group that’s nearly always lost amid the male-centric coverage of overcrowded prisons and worsening conditions.

Invisible, then, are acts of resistance by incarcerated women, a colorful history explored by prison abolitionist Victoria Law in the progressive journal New Politics.

read more

• New Yorkers embrace Bloomberg’s Nanny State. Bill of Rights probably wouldn’t win a popular vote there, either.
• Interesting reaction to my column on DNA exonerations discussing false confessions and the lessons for torture.
• Spies, assassins, and fake beards.
• This seems like a bad sign.
• See, we have to watch all this gay porn so we know how bad it is. Seriously. What? Why are you looking at me like that?
• This story about a school district using school-supplied computers to spy on students via webcam is making the rounds right now. Remember that it is one side of a lawsuit. I’m a little dubious. It seems awfully brazen to me. If it’s true, I’ll be the first to call for tar and feathers.
• He was immediately offered an internship at Dunder-Mifflin.
• What every parent should know about the TV show Glee. Wonderful bit of satire.
• Village of 292 people hires a Washington lobbyist.
• Atlanta woman arrested after asking a cop “why” when he demanded she move from a public sidewalk.

By Carlos Miller
In the above video, a news videographer is standing on public property when approached by a cop who demands his identification (starting at 1:40).

The videographer refuses to provide his identification on the grounds that he is not doing anything illegal.

The cop, of course, gets irritated and calls for more cops.

But the videographer continues to refuse. And he continues to film, much to the dismay of the cop who comically places his hat in front of the lens.

Did the videographer have the legal right to refuse to provide ID?

Yes.

But only because he was not being lawfully detained (the key word being “lawfully” as the officer did tell him he was being detained at 4:20).

After several minutes of bullying, the videographer was allowed to leave without producing his identification because they really had no reasonable suspicion to detain him.

However, he was ordered to leave the area when it is clear from the video that other civilians are casually strolling the same area. That was another unlawful order.

But at that point, he probably didn’t want to push his luck.

He was in Texas, after all.

Contrary to what some might believe, there is no federal law mandating that we must provide identification when asked by police.

However, several states have “stop and identify” statutes that require people to produce identifications if they are being legally detained. And police can only legally detain you if they have a reasonable suspicion you have committed or are about to commit a crime.

Texas recently joined the ranks of states that have these statutes. And the following 24 states also have stop and identify statutes, according to Wikipedia.

Alabama Ala. Code §15-5-30

Arizona Ari. Rev. Stat. Tit. 13, Ch. 24-12 (enacted 2005)

Arkansas Ark. Code Ann. §5-71-213(a)(1)

Colorado Colo. Rev. Stat. §16-3-103(1)

Delaware Del. Code Ann., Tit. 11, §§1902, 1321(6)

Florida Fla. Stat. §856.021(2)

Georgia Ga. Code Ann. §16-11-36(b) (loitering statute)

Illinois Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 725, §5/107-14

Indiana Indiana Code §34-28-5-3.5

Kansas Kan. Stat. Ann. §22-2402(1)

Louisiana La. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 215.1(A)

Missouri Mo. Rev. Stat. §84.710(2)

Montana Mont. Code Ann. §46-5-401

Nebraska Neb. Rev. Stat. §29-829

Nevada Nev. Rev. Stat. §171.123

New Hampshire N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §594:2

New Mexico N. M. Stat. Ann. §30-22-3

New York N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law (CPL) §140.50 (1)

North Dakota N.D. Cent. Code §29-29-21 (PDF)

Ohio Ohio Rev. Code §2921.29 (enacted 2006)

Rhode Island R. I. Gen. Laws §12-7-1

Utah Utah Code Ann. §77-7-15

Vermont Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 24, §1983

Wisconsin Wis. Stat. §968.24

The Wikipedia entry breaks down police interactions into three categories; consensual, detention and arrest.

A consensual interaction is no different than an interaction between two civilians on the street. It gives the cop the right to ask the civilian questions, but it also gives the right for the civilian to refuse to answer those questions, including providing identification.

A detention interaction is where a person is being legally detained, meaning the officer needs to have some sort of reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in a crime. This is generally known as a “Terry Stop.” In the states that have stop and identify laws, the person could be arrested for refusing to provide identification.

The arrest interaction is when police have probable cause to arrest a person, which requires more evidence than mere reasonable suspicion. This, of course, allows the officer to search the person for identification once the arrest is made. If the suspect does not have identification, it could be illegal to refuse to identify oneself depending on the jurisdiction. You might remember last year’s article about a New Hampshire man who spent several weeks in jail for refusing to provide his real name.

Some police apologists might argue that if a person refuses to provide identification during a consensual argument, then that automatically turns it into a detention interaction because it gives the cop reasonable suspicion that he is trying to hide something.

But even an article written by a senior legal advisor from the Plano, Texas Police Department published in The Police Chief, described as the “Professional Voice of Law Enforcement,” confirms that an officer must be engaged in a Terry Stop before he can demand identification.

To further confound things, the rules supposedly differ when a person is operating a vehicle because state laws usually require people to produce identification upon request.

But even that has been challenged by a couple of Arizona activists who were arrested after refusing to comply with authorities after having been stopped at Border Patrol check points, including one who recently had his charges dismissed.

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Take a couple of minutes and vote for Photography is Not a Crime in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best of Blogs Awards contest. The main category is the Best Overall Blog category. That’s the grand prize.

I was also nominated for the “Politics” category, the “Art/DIY” category and the “Photography” category. You need to register to vote, but once you do, you can stuff the ballot box by voting for each category at least once a day until the contest ends.

It only takes a couple of minutes. Think of all the time I spend updating this damn blog. It would be well appreciated.

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When Primo Levi, as a newly arrived prisoner at a Nazi concentration camp, reached for an icicle to quench his desperate thirst, a guard knocked the icicle out of his hand. To Levi’s question “Warum?” (“Why?”), the guard replied with what was destined to become a famous quote: “Hier ist kein Warum” (“Here there is no why”).

Gosh, don’t it make you glad to live in a free country?

My crime column this week calls for an end to the use of “flashbang” grenades during drug raids.

• No criminal charges against the NYPD officers who shot groom-to-be Sean Bell in 2006.
• A history of tech panics, going back to Socrates.
• Meet George Hutchins, the man who wants to lead North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District . . . into 1995.
• Make of this story what you will. Even if the guy was acting erratically, seems like the cops ought to show some restraint. And if true, the show of force at the hospital was ridiculous. Also, for goodness sake, drop the charges. Interestingly, the comments aren’t as pro-police as you typically see in these stories.
• Gulp!
• Audit finds the Census has already wasted millions, and it hasn’t officially started yet.
• Interesting article on the use of food and drink in police interrogations.
• How the Beatles contributed to soaring health care costs.

By Carlos Miller
The Akron police officer, who appealed a 15-day suspension after defying his supervisor’s orders in arresting a woman who filmed him, ended up with a 45-day suspension this week.

Despite the severity of his punishment, Donald Schismenos still deserves to be terminated.

After all, he not only arrogantly defied a direct order, he had a woman jailed for 18 hours on false charges.

The initial 15-day suspension came from the police chief. The 45-day suspension was handed down by Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic.

The mayor wrote the following in a letter to Schismenos, according to the Akron Beacon Journal:

“Your actions have brought disrepute to the Akron Police Department and yourself by causing both to be cast in a negative light to the public,” Plusquellic wrote in a letter to Schismenos. ”Additionally, you have been counseled previously about your interactions with citizens.”

”The severity of your disregard for your sergeant’s reasonable directive to you warrants the maximum penalty,” the mayor wrote in his letter. ”Your blatant disregard for your sergeant’s reasonable directive led to a citizen spending a night in jail prior to the charges against her being dropped.”

The incident occurred last June when Sarah Watkins filmed Schismenos arresting a man for disorderly conduct.

Schismenos then ordered Watkins to hand over her camera. She refused.

Schismenos’s supervisor, Sgt. David Hammond, told him to “let it go” because it was not worth confiscating the woman’s camera for a disorderly conduct arrest. Not to mention he had no legal right to confiscate the camera without a subpoena.

The following day, Schismenos had Watkins arrested on a felony warrant of tampering with evidence.

After spending 18 hours in jail, the charges against her were dropped.

She is now considering a lawsuit.

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