Poli-Sci-Request@RUTGERS (Charles McGrew, The Moderator) (01/25/86)
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 25 Jan 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 2
Today's Topics:
Police Power
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Date: Fri, 8 Nov 85 09:37 MST
From: RWhitney@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Police Power.
Well, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I had not expected
the number of counter-arguments that appeared. I'm afraid I simply
don't have enough time to respond completely to all of it but I'll try
as best I can.
(By the way, as a quick geography lesson for JoSH, Phoenix is in the
SOUTHwest, not the MID-west. And for those who think Phoenix is a
small town, it happens to be the 9th largest city, population-wise, in
the U.S., and still growing.)
First let me say that I don't believe the police are always right.
Their human just like you are. They make mistakes like everyone else
and some do overstep their authority. Take any group or profession and
you're bound to find "bad-apples" (even if they're ex-navy criminal
investigators!). I'm even willing to admit there may be "bad"
departments out there. Often though what probably happens is that an
officer or officers screw up and it wins an instant reputation for the
whole department. There's an old saying that goes "You can build
bridges all your life, but suck one cock and you won't be known as a
bridge-builder. You'll be a cocksucker."
I think I'll start with Mr. Sybalskys' comments...
From: Sybalsky.pa@Xerox.ARPA
"I can't condone blatant trespassing and terrorism."
Whoa, wait just a minute! I'm afraid the facts presented in this
article (IF indeed they are facts, which I'm not quite so sure of) do
not substantiate a charge of trespassing, let alone "terrorism".
Obviously your concepts of trespassing and terrorism are much
different than mine. If you don't mind I'm going to throw out the
"terrorism" charge as ridiculus and concentrate on the alleged
trespass.
From: [same]
"If you'll re-read the article..."
Unfortunately I can't. Threw it in the ole bit bucket. Terribly silly
of me.
From: [same]
"...daughter describes the armed men coming up the driveway,
telling her to get out of their way."
Rude perhaps (depending on how and why they told her to get out of the
way), but not trespassing. I'll have to use AZ. law since I'm not
familiar with Californias' trespass statues so pretend it happened
just outside of Phoenix for a bit. Under AZ. statues one of the
following conditions must be true in order to charge for trespass...
1. The yard must have been fenced and posted "no trespassing" or,
2. The owner must have made a reasonable request for those persons to
leave, allowing them a reasonable amount of time to do so.
There are of course other conditions but I didn't think it useful to
enter all possible statues involved in trespassing since they didn't
really apply. Was the yard fenced? How long is the driveway? Is the
driveway distinguishable from a state owned road? (often not in rural
areas) How far up the driveway did they go? How long were they there?
Does the ex-navy man own that part of the driveway? Awful lot of
questions here that the article didn't even hint at. Questions I'd
have to ask as a police officer before I could arrest someone for
trespasssing.
From: [same]
"I guess I'm not willing to believe that they had a warrant
allowing them to search that property."
Why not? Seems like a pretty big asumption on your part.
From: [same]
"...WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY DOING THERE?"
I don't know, and neither do you. I'm willing to assume they're
looking for marijuana, you on the other hand have lept to the
conclusion that they were engaging in "trespassing and terrorism".
Tisk tisk. If you (as a civilian) did the same thing they did, i.e. an
armed man coming up the driveway, I couldn't charge you with
trespassing, at least not without more facts.
If you really wanted to you could describe every officer who came to
your door as "a heavily armed man who came trampling up my driveway"
no matter why he was there. See what I mean? I'm not saying those
officers weren't doing something wrong, but your claims based on this
article are simply unsupported.
From: [same]
"...but only granting that you had any business being on his
property to start with--and I spell that "observed
infraction" or "warrant"."
There are other instances in which police may enter your property even
though you have not given permission for them to enter. The obvious
example is a police officer who walks up to your door to to talk with
you (for any reason). Another in which an officer may actually
brandish a weapon is "hot-pursuit" of a suspect. If a foot pursuit is
going through a residential neighborhood it's more than likely that
the suspect will try and evade the officer by cutting through a back
yard. Yet another instance is the "check-welfare" type of search. Say
I'm outside your home and hear a scream. I'm going to want to search
that home to insure the welfare of the inhabitants. The courts have
generally upheld the officers' right/duty to investigate even though
the officer has no warrant and has not observed a crime. Phoenix has a
rather large elderly population and it is not unusual for us to break
into the home of a senior citizen to search for them if there is any
reason to believe they may have been injured or died.
From: [same]
"...(generalizing shamelessly--I KNOW this isn't true of
each individual policeman!) tend to do what makes their jobs
easier: they take short cuts."
Yes you are generalizing, shamelessly and incorrectly. The fact of the
matter is that if I arrest you for a crime your defense attorney is
going to love every short-cut I make because each one is an almost
sure bet for a dismissal when your case gets to court.
From: [same]
"--A broadening of a policeman's discretion to stop people
and search them, to investigate on flimsier and flimsier
grounds, etc. Stop-and-frisk laws are an example of this.
An officer doesn't need any probable cause to believe
that you've committed a crime, he only needs a reason
to believe that you may be armed (legally or not) and
he may search you. Forcibly if need be."
"Stop and frisk" is an area a large number of people don't like or
don't understand. When I stop and frisk someone my sole aim is to
insure my own safety. As it happens an incident occurred just last
week while I was on patrol. I feel it might be a perfect example for
this discussion...
While travelling along a major street in Phoenix I noticed the car in
front of us had out-of-state plates without a validation sticker.
Suspecting a possible registration violation I asked my partner (who
was driving) to pull the car over. As the car pulled over the male
passenger jumps out. "Watch out," said my partner, "Looks like he's
going to run." Thinking the same thing I had already jumped out of my
side and moved up towards the subject. The female driver (still in the
car) was hanging onto the male yelling "Don't go. Stay here. STAY
HERE!" He then tured and shook her off and, from my vantage point
appeared to be reaching back into the car as if to get something from
the dash or glove compartment. I suddenly realized I was in a
tactically bad position (out in the open without nearby cover and too
close to the subject). The subject then turned back towards me without
a weapon in his hand.
Me: "Put your hands on the car."
Him: "No!"
Me: "PUT YOUR DAMN HANDS ON THE CAR!"
Him: (Putting his hands on the car) "What the fuck you hasslin' me for
man?"
Obviously he felt we were needlessly hassling him. I didn't see it
that way. Would I have used force if needed to search that subject?
You bet. I believed at that point that he was acting extremely
suspisious and may well be armed. Someone watching from across the
street might believe I had searched that person for no reason. I'm
sensitive to rights violations too, but I'm even more sensitive to
catching a bullet. With this in mind the Supreme Court has ruled "stop
and frisk" a reasonable search, therefore it is not a violation of
your rights.
I would also point out that "stop and frisk" does not give an officer
the right to start pulling everything out of your pockets. Unless it
appears to be a weapon he has to leave it alone.
Not long ago another Phoenix officer was not so lucky. He saw,
approached and talked to a suspisious subject who, unknown to the
officer, had just commited an armed robbery. After the officer
finished talking to him the subject drew a handgun and fataly shot the
officer in the neck.
From: [same]
"--An increasing monopoly on the part of the police on
the means of defending person and property against
crime."
This is not really true. Police departments all over the nation
support block-watch and "Operation Identification" as well as other
community involvement programs. What the police do not support are the
"Guardian Angle" type operations. Why not? Because there is too much
danger that these groups will turn in to vigilantes. The police are
accountable to the legislative bodies who control their funding if
nothing else. Vigilante groups are accountable to NO ONE AT ALL.
That's often why they seem to be anti-citizen involvement.
It's ashame that your state (California) has adopted such assanine
laws in regards to firearms, mace, etc... I sympathize, honest. I
strongly support private ownership of firearms. My personal arsenal
ranges from .22's to fully automatic sub-machineguns. Pity the poor
burglar who finds me at home! As far as mace goes I can't for the life
of me understand why California would require a permit to carry it. I
always recomend mace for protection outside the house. (I perfer a
Colt .45 for inside my own home.) Mace is non-leathal and quite
effective if you get good stuff. I don't know what "watered-down"
variety you've heard about, but Smith & Wesson Mark IV is great.
From [same]
"Pray tell, then, why is it that the DEA and project CAMP
(the anti-marijuana campaign in Mendocino Country) never
want for one-time volunteers to go along. I have seen
published reports of interviewees saying they wanted to try
it once. NOT that they wanted to do their part in
eliminating drugs, but just to go along once. Why, if not
for the thrill?"
Curiosity and a sense of adventure is probably what drives most to
apply. I`d like to try it once to see what these kind of operations
are like, and I'd even bet you wouldn't mind tagging along yourself if
the opertunity presented itself. Secondly, I seriously doubt that
these "one-timers" comprise any significant portion of the DEA teams.
Too much training is required to spend it on "one-timers".
From: [me!]
"I'm more likely to be penalized
for shooting someone as a police officer than as an
average citizen, justified or not."
From: Sybalsky.pa@Xerox.ARPA
"Would it be out of place for me to point out that 11% of
police shootings of suspects wind up being adjudged
unjustified, vs 2% of civilian shootings of suspects?"
Kind of proves my point, no? These figures don't really suprise me
though. The police officer faces a couple of problems. First is that
a police shooting is typically scrutinized on a level that civilian
shootings are not. Also, police officers are, for obvious reasons,
involved in far more situations in which a "shoot, no-shoot" decision
must be made. Civilians also tend to find the situations they're in
far more obvious and typically have more information to work with.
Most civilian shootings involve the owner of a home firing on a
burglar. The homeowner is almost certain to know who is and is not
authorized to be in the home. The police officer is often operating on
less than complete information when he has to make the decision to use
deadly force. Let's look at an example...
Several Phoenix police officers responded to a possible burglary in
progress call at a large commercial yard. Finding an open gate they
entered and began a routine search. Unknown to the officers some
security guards were in the compound playing cards in one of the
buildings. The guards were apparently off duty and had removed their
uniform shirts. One of the guards heard the officers outside and
believed they were burglars. He picked up his revolver and charged out
of the building, gun at the ready, suprising the officer. The officer
fired one round wounding the guard. I'm sure this falls under your 11%
as a mistaken shooting, but at the time the decision to shoot had to
be made, and given the officers view of the situation it's hard to
find fault (at least in my mind).
This isn't to say that police officers don't screw up. Of course they
do and I certainly won't try to deny it. The shootings that Mr.
Sybalsky has pointed out may well have been screw-ups, but on the
other hand we really don't have all the facts. Since a shotgun was
involved it's certainly possible the weapon wasn't actually pointed at
the subjects head. He could have been killed by ricochet from a blast
hitting the ground several yards away.
From: [same]
"I have no comparable figures for murder and aggravated
assault--I'd be very interested in them, if you do."
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. I usually assume ALL
murders and agg. assaults are "unjustified".
From: [same]
"...and you agree that crime control should be
left completely to the police, apparently)."
No, I believe enforcement of laws should be left to the police. I have
no problem at all with people defending themselves. Things like owning
a gun (AND knowing how to use it) as well as installing an alarm
system are a part of this. Most people though are just too lazy. They
don't know the laws, they don't know how to fire a gun, they don't
have an alarm system and they don't think it will happen to them.
Citizens also need to get involved. Often people will see something
suspisious and do NOTHING about it, not even call the police.
From: [same]
"According to studies of criminals, the single most
important deterrant--the reason most given for avoiding a
particular target--is a fear that the occupant is armed.
This sounds like an argument for widespread possession of
guns to me."
This may be true if they think the home is occupied. Most burglaries
though happen when noone is home and the burglar has nothing to fear
from the residents. In my experiance an audible alarm (preferably a
motion detecting type) is your best bet to keep away burglars. When
they hear it go off they seldom stick around.
Mr. Sybalskys' problem seems to stem from a legislature gone whacko.
I`d suggest either moving to a reasonable state (like Arizona) or
working to elect legislators with more common sense.
In closing I'd like to say that there is a system for punishing the
police when they screw up. If they injure you in some manner then file
a lawsuit! Police departments learn when you hit them where it hurts,
in the budget. Phoenix doesn't have a "good" department just because
they thought it would be wonderful. We have a "good" department
because we don't like getting sued. And that's the way the world
works...
Whew! That's a mouthful. I realize I didn't get a chance to respond to
all the transactions I'd have liked to, just not enough time right
now. Sorry. I'm sure that this will be more than enough to fan the
flames already burning however. I'm eagerly awaiting the next batch of
replies.
REW
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End of Poli-Sci Digest
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