Poll: Stop and Frisk

[earlwb]

I think that stop and frisk would have to be used very carefully otherwise it leads to racial profiling real fast.

When I did police work, if there was a high crime area, they would establish a zero tolerance zone and everyone would be writing tickets for everything including the minor stuff. Naturally the criminals break laws right and left so they get rounded up pretty quickly. If someone had warrants out for their arrest they would get caught pretty quickly in these zones. Anyway that seemed to work pretty well without affecting other areas. But we didn't have this modern lack of respect for the authorities though. Today the people in some cities just do not respect anyone with authority, so maybe it won't work today.

I remember them setting up checkpoints for drunk drivers. They checked everyone. Otherwise it was a illegal checkpoint. But we would have some guys park back a ways from the checkpoint. They would go after the ones who saw the checkpoint and turned around trying to avoid it. Invariably those U turn folks were the ones that you really wanted to catch.

[Flightmare]

...how do you get the guns our if the gangsters hands if not S&F? The cops know who they are and everyday the ones doing the crime have more and more rights?

No, they have the same rights (4th amendment) as everyone else.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

[thatguyoverthere]

I voted for "unconstitutional" but I'm really more half-and-half. How's that for sitting on the fence!

Seriously, if a person is stopped ("temporarily detained" I think is the phrase?) then under certain conditions, the LEO may need to do a "frisk" for his own safety. I don't have too much of a problem with that.

However, the LEO better have a REAL good, clearly defined reason to stop that person in the first place. That's where I get the heartburn.

[mr1337]

However, the LEO better have a REAL good, clearly defined reason to stop that person in the first place. That's where I get the heartburn.

Exactly. A detainment without reasonable suspicion is illegal. You can't detain someone just because they look like a thug. If you reasonably suspect they committed a crime, they can be detained and subsequently frisked for officer safety.

Unfortunately, that frisk is often more of a search because of the nature of the frisk itself.

To those asking how to get guns off the street without unconstitutional detainments (detaining without cause and frisking someone), I don't know the answer to that. But I do know one thing, I would rather be free than safe. Infringing on 4th Amendment rights is just as bad as infringing on 2nd Amendment rights. Cops need to work within the bounds of the law to enforce the law.

[Javier730]

Unconstitutional.

[TreyHouston]

However, the LEO better have a REAL good, clearly defined reason to stop that person in the first place. That's where I get the heartburn.

Exactly. A detainment without reasonable suspicion is illegal. You can't detain someone just because they look like a thug. If you reasonably suspect they committed a crime, they can be detained and subsequently frisked for officer safety.

Unfortunately, that frisk is often more of a search because of the nature of the frisk itself.

To those asking how to get guns off the street without unconstitutional detainments (detaining without cause and frisking someone), I don't know the answer to that. But I do know one thing, I would rather be free than safe. Infringing on 4th Amendment rights is just as bad as infringing on 2nd Amendment rights. Cops need to work within the bounds of the law to enforce the law.

I think we once again have to wait for technology to catch up- metal detecting glasses or cops walking around with big magnets !!! HEY! I dont count anything out anymore!!!

[Antbanks_84]

How do Decide who u should stop and frisk ?

[rotor]

We have a government that we know is breaking laws, political motivation to deprive conservative groups tax free status, HRC lying and endangering national security, the POTUS creating laws without going through congress, spying on average folks communications without a warrant and we are worried about stop and frisk.
I happen to believe that good cops know which street thugs in NYC are carrying or not. Sure it is profiling and you go after the groups that are most likely to be criminals. If cops had those X-ray glasses that we all played with as kids and could spot a gun on a thug just by looking would we be upset? I think experienced cops have that ability, perhaps they don't have the glasses. Is it constitutional, I don't know for sure but I do know that gang members are treated differently, cities do have curfews for minors and the courts don't seem to know who should be allowed into a restroom that is labeled "men's room". I don't think that the LGBT community will save many lives with transgender bathrooms but stop and frisk did. The courts though don't seem to be consistent on a lot of these issues. It is not a perfect world.

[Dave2]

We have a government that we know is breaking laws, political motivation to deprive conservative groups tax free status, HRC lying and endangering national security, the POTUS creating laws without going through congress, spying on average folks communications without a warrant and we are worried about stop and frisk.
I happen to believe that good cops know which street thugs in NYC are carrying or not. Sure it is profiling and you go after the groups that are most likely to be criminals.

It has nothing to do with "profiling". The 4th amendment says the government needs a reason to search your stuff.

If cops had those X-ray glasses that we all played with as kids and could spot a gun on a thug just by looking would we be upset?

Yes, see above.

[C-dub]

Is profiling based on behavior illegal? IIRC, it has been mentioned many times that there are so many laws on the books that almost anyone can break at least a couple every day and not even be aware that they have. Isn't that the big problem with S&F, that for some other reason, usually not related to the actual intent of a stop, this is deemed to be legitimate?

[Liberty]

One of the things about New York policy is that they are looking for people with guns. Cops see someone printing they have reasonable suspicion, cause hardly any citizen has a right to carry. If I were to hazzard a guess, I bet most people actually carrying in Texas do so legally.

[Jusme]

One of the things about New York policy is that they are looking for people with guns. Cops see someone printing they have reasonable suspicion, cause hardly any citizen has a right to carry. If I were to hazzard a guess, I bet most people actually carrying in Texas do so legally.

The problem is, police are using "stop and frisk" not for officer safety, but for fishing expedition for any contraband. The example I gave for road side body cavity searches, cannot possibly be construed as ensuring officer safety.

[OlBill]

The problem is "reasonable".

[rotor]

We have a government that we know is breaking laws, political motivation to deprive conservative groups tax free status, HRC lying and endangering national security, the POTUS creating laws without going through congress, spying on average folks communications without a warrant and we are worried about stop and frisk.
I happen to believe that good cops know which street thugs in NYC are carrying or not. Sure it is profiling and you go after the groups that are most likely to be criminals.

It has nothing to do with "profiling". The 4th amendment says the government needs a reason to search your stuff.

If cops had those X-ray glasses that we all played with as kids and could spot a gun on a thug just by looking would we be upset?

Yes, see above.

I agree the government needs a reason to search your "stuff" and I pointed out that they are doing it now by gathering your phone records and who knows what else. That's why Snowden is in Russia. If a cop sees an individual that "looks like a bad guy that is probably carrying" is that not profiling? They probably don't frisk 80 year old ladies on crutches. And what about all those border patrol stops near the border with Mexico. I am sure that profiling discretion is used by those agents when they stop you. I am not saying that I like it but we all profile every day. I grew up in a bad neighborhood in NYC as a kid and I can tell you that I profiled people all the time. When I saw a bad guy coming down the street I immediately crossed the street or turned and went the other way. You get that tingly feeling when you know someone doesn't look right.

[The Annoyed Man]

I voted for "unconstitutional" but I'm really more half-and-half. How's that for sitting on the fence!

Seriously, if a person is stopped ("temporarily detained" I think is the phrase?) then under certain conditions, the LEO may need to do a "frisk" for his own safety. I don't have too much of a problem with that.

However, the LEO better have a REAL good, clearly defined reason to stop that person in the first place. That's where I get the heartburn.

My problem with it is that "I smell marijuana" is too easy to make up as a phony excuse to search. It's not quantifiable. It's not empirical. What if a cop claims that he smells marijuana, and uses that as the excuse to search your vehicle.......and finds nothing......because there is nothing to find? It invites two things, neither of which is good: (1) it invites an examination of a clean cop's reliability as an expert and "friend of the court"; and (2) it invites a crooked cop to plant something in your car to account for his untruthful claim of smelling marijuana (or crack, or gunpowder, or whatever).

I agree that there are situations where an officer should have the ability to temporarily detain someone, even frisk them, if it is for their own safety. The problem is, where is the bright line that distinguishes the legitimate application from the illegitimate? There isn't one, and it is far too easy for a bad cop to get away with this stuff, particularly when a lot of the people whom they will abuse this way have neither the education, resources, or inclination to confront a bad cop on his home turf (his chain of command at the police station) through the process of filing complaints and/or pursuing litigation - the only two forms of redress that will both correct a bad cop AND provide redress to the innocent citizen whose rights have been violated.

I absolutely believe in "backing the blue". It is a hard and sometimes dangerous job which, in my personal opinion, is underpaid. But good policing is an absolute necessity underpinning a just and orderly society, and so there can be ZERO tolerance for abusing the rights of a citizen under the color of authority conferred by a badge. If that means that sometimes a guilty party gets away without charges for some relatively minor infraction, like possession of weed, that is better than the wholesale disregard for the constitutional rights of the population at large. So if a cop smells marijuana - or at least thinks he smells marijuana - unless he sees the physical evidence laying there in plain sight, or actually sees the subject smoking a joint, he should just let it go. After all, how does he know that the smell isn't comin from the nearby bushes or houses where somebody IS smoking weed, having nothing at all to do with the subject in the vehicle he has stopped? And even if it is obvious that the smell is coming from inside the subject's car, unless he sees marijuana smoke drifting out the window at the time of the stop, how does he know that the smell isn't coming from someone else having smoked a joint in that car two days prior? The fact is, he doesn't. And finally, how much of a danger is someone who has a mild buzz on to an investigating officer? Heck, I used to smoke that stuff 45 years ago, and I was never a danger to any cop.....because like most people, including most people who smoke weed, I am not nor have I ever been predisposed to violence against anybody, let alone against police.

So I am uncomfortable with that kind of thing because it is ripe for abuse. Not saying that most cops abuse it. I'm just saying that it is too easy to abuse if a cop were so inclined. So when a fellow citizen is given that much authority by virtue of the badge, the standards of acceptable behaviors need to be tighter, not looser. I say pay the police better, hire only those who have a decent education with good grades, subject them to very high standards of evidence gathering, provide them with counseling without stigma attached to help them handle the job stresses AND to remind them that the people with whom they interact are, for the most part, their fellow citizens, train them to have a due reverence for what the rights and guarantees of citizenship means, and then come down like a ton of bricks on those officers who violate the standards.

It can be difficult to be a good cop, but it is not impossible, as demonstrated by the literally hundreds of thousands of good cops who go to work every day to make our world a better place. God love them for it. But this nation BADLY needs to return to a due reverence for our most basic rights, because the bad apples in the police barrel are a direct reflection of the society we live in, and the gov't under which we labor. I won't say we deserve better, because we get what we vote for. But I will say that we should deserve better......because we should vote better.