I disagree completely. Their actions were reasonable because they had no way of knowing that these attackers were, in fact, real police officers. If I'm in my car and some stranger in street clothes flashes a badge at me and claims to be a cop while multiple other people in street clothes are converging on me is going to be eating a lot of dust as I peel out and take off. And if one of those attackers jumps on the hood of my car, they're going for a ride until/unless they slide off or I get my pistol in position to shoot. I'll also be calling 911 at the first opportunity and notifying them of an attempted carjacking and where, etc. etc. These cops are lucky that these girls just tried to get away from their attackers.EEllis wrote:The girls may have just panicked but lets be honest their reactions were not normal, reasonable, or typical.
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Return to “Over-policing plus justified fear of impersonators”
- Sun Jun 30, 2013 2:16 pm
- Forum: The Crime Blotter
- Topic: Over-policing plus justified fear of impersonators
- Replies: 192
- Views: 22105
Re: Over-policing plus justified fear of impersonators
- Sun Jun 30, 2013 1:19 pm
- Forum: The Crime Blotter
- Topic: Over-policing plus justified fear of impersonators
- Replies: 192
- Views: 22105
Re: Over-policing plus justified fear of impersonators
mamabearCali wrote:Under cover agents really need to be used only in situations where one is trying to catch a known criminal and then with uniformed officers close by. Not in approaching a common person. Why? Because misunderstanding like this happen. Anyone can get a badge and yell "police!" If a person does not look like a LEO why should I treat them like one? That puts me a common citizen in a really bad position, stay still and hope to god this person is not going to hurt me, or try to escape and put myself in a position where the law might hurt me. That is not right.
If a person is aggressively yelling at me and they are not in uniform then I am going to think that most likely I am under attack (women can attack other women) and of course I am going to get in the car and lock my door and try to escape. The dipstick that jumped on her car is just stupid, watched too much TV perhaps. Hello.....that was way over the top for a case of beer.
If this was a consensual stop (as some have claimed), then the girls should have been free to ignore the plain clothes LEO and be on their way. If the person had reasonable suspicion (and I really don't see how appearing youthful is RS) then LEO's need to identify themselves as such and not depend on good lighting at night to display a badge while yelling at a person. She displayed a badge.....at what distance and at what lighting? Look, LEO's want us to immediately stop our day and attend to them at a moments notice. Is it too much to ask that we be able to identify them as LEO's on appearance. After all you might know you are a LEO, but if you are in plain clothes, I don't, until you identify yourself as such in a clear manner.
I am not saying the LEO's are lying, but they should not blame a young lady because they (or their procedures) were stupid in how they handled their job.
wholeheartedly. When I was in my late teens I worked in a convenience store in San Antonio. Our area had a HUGE problem with underage drinking and people buying alcohol for minors. We had undercover TABC agents who would come into the store and "work" (usually just pushing a broom around or stock shelves) late evenings & weekends. There were always, ALWAYS uniformed officers just around the corner who would approach the suspect and handle the actual arrest.Only one time did an undercover agent ever approach a customer, and that only because he was starting to get violent because my co-worker and I refused to sell to him. He pulled up right out front, got out, chugged his beer, and then came stumbling in to buy more. He reeked of booze and was obviously drunk. When he cleared a display off our counter and then found himself face planted into the floor with the officer on top of him. I never even saw him (the agent) come around the corner!
- Sat Jun 29, 2013 9:58 pm
- Forum: The Crime Blotter
- Topic: Over-policing plus justified fear of impersonators
- Replies: 192
- Views: 22105
Re: Over-policing plus justified fear of impersonators
I've always kinda wondered exactly how we are supposed to know that undercover officers really are cops. Anybody can yell, "Stop! Police!" And it's not like its difficult to get badges that look like LEO badges. Especially from a distance. I think the girl's reactions were extremely reasonable.
I could see something like this going very, very badly for a CHL holder and the officer(s) involved.
I could see something like this going very, very badly for a CHL holder and the officer(s) involved.