Pixiq

This makes me wonder if there are some good test cases regarding the question: at what point, if any, is a party subject to lawful arrest legally permitted to resist his arresting officer for reasons of self defense?

It seems that in a case like the one described, or any other where an officer is using excessive force, the arrested individual would enjoy the liberty at least to resist the force that was excessive and perhaps, if reasonably in fear of further excessive force during subsequent restraint, to flee.

I am bewildered by this. Thanks for bring this to my attention.
Matt Warren recently posted..Boomer- Gen X- and Millennial Slapfight

Again, we see the police themselves giving ordinary people all the reason in the world not to trust them.

Hold your horses! Wait for Johnny!

I like how it’s improper use of force for cops and ‘assault’ for us regular mortals.

Well, it’s good to know that the higher-ups didn’t try to justify this.

Not counting when he assaulted a lady in front of her home for no good reason-he was a great officer.

ongtroi // Jul 14, 2010 at 4:10 PM

Hold your horses! Wait for Johnny!

***************************************

Oh Darn..

You beat me to it Ongtroi.

Seeing we know how “Johnny Law” usually responds, maybe I can do it for him.

Hmmmmm.. let’s see.

“We don’t know what was done or said beforehand.”
“We haven’t see all the video.”
“We need to read the incident report.”
“Let’s wait until all the facts are in.”
“It’s not that bad.. Officer Smith’s working at CCSO.”
“_____________________.”
(Fill in blank with whatever excuse “Johnny Law” always comes up with.)

Rail Car Fan

This is one of the reasons I think no one should be hired as a cop below the age of 25. Also not right out of school or the Army etc. I feel that they should work a year or two at a job in contact with people first. Would give a little prospective.

Thanks for posting this, I’ll be sharing it and alerting others as to the dangers these savages pose to our communities.

JL, I have been involved in shoving USC up a few officers’ asses for criminal acts and color of the law violations such as this. Your view of an IA investigator is obviously the result of some kind of guilt. How many rights have you violated in your short career? That is, of course, no surprise.

JL: “She was more than capable of doing what he said. She just wanted to lay there and play drama queen.” You made up her intent. You have no idea what was going through the mind of the innocent woman at the time she was being tortured into compliance. Therefore “I haven’t made anything up about the “victim”. ” is a lie.

“You want to rush to judgement and blame the police no matter what?” You made that up, too. Give me solid evidence that the cops on the scene were tasering someone threatening them, and I’ll back the cops. You can’t, because there’s no evidence that the cops were being threatened. Your “no matter what” argument falls. As it should, since it assumes an attitude that doesn’t exist.

Your descrition of the incident was more biased than mine, and shorter on facts and longer on speculation. The woman called 911. Fact. The cop pepper sprayed her. Fact. The other cop tasered her to get her to obey orders (tortured her). Fact. She was taken into custody. Fact. The cop on the scene could not charge her with a real crime (“obstruction” doesn’t count, she was not required to answer his questions about the “suspect” he had let go). Fact.

You invented the speculation that she was fighting: “she may have been kicking and thrashing”. Unsupported speculation. “The only reason the officers left is because the sheriff is using personal feelings to make this into a bullshit racial issue”. Unsupported speculation. “The actual call was about a person trespassing but refusing to leave and not some window peeping prowler”. Ignores a disputed assertion. She said it was a prowler, the cop said it was a tresspasser. If the trespasser was there, why did the cop go after her? If the trespasser was not there, why did he go after her? Neither makes sense, if the cop’s story were assumed to be true. Either way, the cop was wrong.

So, I have demonstrated that you are lying when you said “I haven’t invented anything”. You have, repeatedly.

“All I have done is try to look at things from the perspective of the officer on scene”, true, but you overlook the fact that doing such carries an inherent bias. The “perspective of the officer on scene” carries the bias that the cop is doing the right thing, not throwing his weight around and trying to prove he’s got the biggest dick on the block. When the cop on the scene is /not/ doing the right thing, your premise breaks down, because your assumptions are /wrong/. You begin to assume motives and attitudes that don’t exist. In short, you assume that the cop is right and the victim of the cop is wrong. That is also “making things up”.

Face it, the cop didn’t have a legal leg to stand on in arresting her, he just jugged her for “contempt of cop”. I checked over at policeone.com, and your fellow “heroes” are busy consoling the poor, innocnet guy who lost his job over a bad arrest of an innocent victim. I’m sure they make you proud, the way they ignore facts and allow their biases to pass judgement: “Cop good, civilian bad”.

No, Johnny, when it comes to objectivity, I’m far, far more objective than you. It just seems to piss you off when an objective opinion damns the thugs that you are so desperate to “prove” “innocent”.

Nemo,

“She was more than capable of doing what he said. She just wanted to lay there and play drama queen.” You made up her intent. You have no idea what was going through the mind of the innocent woman at the time she was being tortured into compliance.

The whole point of that discussion was the fact that she was not incapable of following the demands of the officer due to the taser. She was screaming like she was trying for an academy award. You know the best way to stop the taser? Do what the officer directs you to do. Simple and much more effective than screaming your head off.

” Give me solid evidence that the cops on the scene were tasering someone threatening them, and I’ll back the cops. You can’t, because there’s no evidence that the cops were being threatened.”

I fee like we are going in circles here. You so desperately want to prove that you are so objective and fair minded yet you condemn the officers even though its not clear what the true nature of the call was and what transpired behind the unit. Yet when I point of this lack of knowledge, you declare it shows my bias? Give me a freaking break. You don’t know all the facts but you have made a rock solid decision on this case anyway. You can write a block of text all you want but you know there is no honest way you can call yourself objective and open minded on this.

You list of facts leave out all the details and that makes the difference. You can say she called police and then was tased but that leaves out a hell of alot of important information. Of course that suits you because you have already made a decision on this and who needs those pesky details anyway? Dodge Ball sure doesn’t and I doubt you do either.

My speculation isn’t making a judgement call one way or the other. It is trying to explain to you folks with the pitchforks that this incident isn’t quite so clear cut as you wish it was.

Most use of force incidents (or any police incident) aren’t near as simple as folks like Carlos of Dodge Ball would like you to think. I know it is hard to look at these things from different angles but you really should try if you are going to continue to claim you have some small bit of objectivity.

“The whole point of that discussion was the fact that she was not incapable of following the demands of the officer due to the taser. She was screaming like she was trying for an academy award. You know the best way to stop the taser? Do what the officer directs you to do. Simple and much more effective than screaming your head off.”

Don’t scream when tortured, do as the torturer demands, eh? And you’re /still/ making things up. Why wouldn’t she scream when tortured? Do they give an academy award for screaming?

“You so desperately want to prove that you are so objective and fair minded yet you condemn the officers even though its not clear what the true nature of the call was and what transpired behind the unit. Yet when I point of this lack of knowledge, you declare it shows my bias?”

I don’t have to “prove” my superior objectivity, iut shows in every post. You’re the one desperately grasping at straws clinging to your “cop good, victim bad” bias. What crime was she committing? Murder? Assault? Selling drugs? Theft? Or was she just getting uppity with a thug? Oh, that’s right…

“You can say she called police and then was tased but that leaves out a hell of alot of important information. ” Like she backed away from an overly-aggressive cop, perchance? He just couldn’t wait to cuff her, after all. She took a “fight or flight stance”, or so said the cop. His opinion justified the cuffing, right?

Oh, and lets not forget that Officer Clumsy tripped and hurt his knee. Definitely grounds for arrest there. (/sarcasm)

“You list of facts leave out all the details and that makes the difference.” /Your/ list leaves out a lot of details, too. So? That justifies you making things up?

“My speculation isn’t making a judgement call one way or the other”. Yes, it is. It’s defending the cops who arrested and tortured the victim who called for help. She did nothing wrong, save for running away from the mean who was threatening her.

“Most use of force incidents (or any police incident) aren’t near as simple as folks like Carlos of Dodge Ball would like you to think”. In other words, you assert that police get to abuse anyone, for any reason, and then lie and play games to justify it. Bullshit. The woman arrested here wasn’t a criminal, a fact you conveniently forget. She called for help from the police, and the police “helped” her into the back of the squad car. Why? Because she didn’t kiss ass enough? Bullshit. The cop on-site mismanged his call, and made her pay the price for his incompetence. Fact.

As for your attacking me on “objectivity”, I’ll take that as an acknowledgement that you are not objective at all. The only way you’ll accept police wrongdoing is with overwhelming evidence /proving/ the officer’s guilt. With a citizen, you’ll just need a whiff of something. As in this case. A mountain of evidence against the cops, and a molehill against the victim, and all you can do is desperately defend the cops, claiming “it’s complicated”. Too complicated for you, obviously.

“Objective” my ass. You dn’t want objective, you want a bunch of cheerleaders to look the other way when your “brothers” break the law. Feh.

Nemo, it’s not just breaking the law. It’s the shredding of simple decency. Sinister acts like these should demand more than just being run through the court system or being terminated from employment. A video taped beat down or a pistol-whipping is what the thugs need.

JL – I too prefer to know all the facts before I come to a conclusion. Therefore you are a jackboot tard and will be one for a long time until the proof comes in that you are not one.

Often, in internet discussions of police abuse, cops or people who mindlessly support cops in all actions will say to critics: “well, since you’re so critical of police, you should not expect them to help you out anymore!” They suggest that police will not help or assist crime victims who are otherwise critical of police abuse.

But here we see that sometimes it IS dangerous to rely on the police. Calling the police is always risky, because they can turn on you on a dime. There are plenty of instances where people call police to their house only to find themselves arrested. You could be the victim of a burglery, and the police come to investigate, and they could end up shooting your dog or end up discovering that your underage kid had a joint (of which you had no knowledge) and all of a sudden you’re under arrest, in jail for several months, and fired from your job. A stolen television or a broken window isn’t worth that.

The rule of thumb is: don’t talk to police, ever. Do not call them, ever. Learn to deal with problems yourself. Keep a gun for your own safety. Use an alarm system. Do not rely on the police. They are highly likely to hurt you or to kill your dog or arrest you for another offense in order to maintain their quota.

For all of you who have not seen this video, please watch it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik&feature=related

I haven’t trusted cops for years. Ever since one of them gave a friend of mine a ticket because he, and I quote, “Didn’t get his breakfast burrito this morning”

Now, the lady Wells should memorize this: Never mind prowler, beware of cop!

I’d say police work attracts a particular kind of sociopath. This kid hasn’t been on the job long enough for this to be callous indifference. They say the root of rape is control and these cops raped that woman with little metal pricks.

“It’s not that bad.. Officer Smith’s working at CCSO.”
“_____________________.”
(Fill in blank with whatever excuse “Johnny Law” always comes up with.)

Rail Car Fan

****************
Let me help him Rail.

“The dash cam did not record correctly.”

kakakaka

Well said Sydney and Pinandpuller, there are some serious problems with the way law enforcement is done in this country. A major problem is who the job attracts and the incentives that are in place.

This reminds me of the incident where a homeowner in Phoenix called 911 to report someone breaking into his house, and while he was still on the phone with 911, he was shot 6 times by the cops that entered his home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_4owtZ8YYE

It amazes me, that those people who very ignorantly think cops can do no wrong, still try to justify the brutality that cops dish out on a DAILY basis. I hope this poor woman costs the department millions, and brings criminal charges against the two officers. They deserve to spend some serious time in jail.

actually it’s Atlanta Journal Constitution; not Atlantic! you are an idiot

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. In between. we find a bunch of sadistic bastards.

pinac,

Random Pixels, is that you again, jumping all over me for a typo?

You sure do spend a lot of time at Panera.

Carlos,

You should contact the mayor of that town and try in interview him for your blog. Maybe some city council members.

Likewise, you could contact the local newspaper there and see if they’re interested in a story that could affect the safety of their readers.
Difster recently posted..Lessons From Mexico

In another fine example of police not being held accountable for… well, anything… guess who didn’t receive so much as probation for assault and perjury?

Pogan better thank his union lawyers, and effectively, judge.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

“He was an excellent officer other than that incident.”

Oh, sure. Pour me another steaming hot cup of bullshit, please.

But oh, WAIT. Maybe “excellent officer” here means one who does evil regularly, but is usually circumspect enough about it to not get caught on video.

Hmm.
Mike Gogulski recently posted..Meeting report – 12 July 2010

Police work-the perfect job for guys who suck at hockey.

These two pieces of shit disguising as public servants need to be charged and arrested.

Someone needs to fire Ogle too. In a case this blatant, and he admits he was in the process of firing the thug when he resigned, he should have politely ignored the resignation and fired him anyway so it went on his record.

But no, he’s a cop, so he’s protecting a cop who’s proven he’s a thug and a torturer.

In any normal business resignations aren’t accepted in cases of gross negligence, they _insist_ on firing you so that’s what the record shows. So everyone will know you got fired, that there was a REASON you left that job. But in law enforcement? Not a chance.

Frankly I think we need two things — 1. cops that are under investigation CANNOT resign their position. If they want to find another job while the investigation is in process they can be put on unpaid leave, and once the investigation is over, if they’re found not guilty, THEN they can resign (but no retroactive pay, they have to make the decision to go on unpaid leave with that understanding). Otherwise they are fired and it goes on their record. And 2. we need a national registry of cops fired for cause. And that registry has to be checked by every law enforcement agency, and security agency, in the country before someone can be hired for a job in law enforcement/security. If someone’s on the registry, THEY CANNOT BE HIRED AS A COP EVER AGAIN.

Bet you they’d be a lot less thuggish if they knew they were facing life banishment from their profession. And if not, well, the thugs will end up banned for life and things will improve gradually.

But this will never happen unfortunately.

We need a national IA unit that has no conection with any department or city or state.

@Roger – Oh super, more bureaucracies that won’t be held accountable for corruption within… Yeah that’s what we need. /sarcasm

Johnny Law:

“The old bag deserved it because she did not follow the lawful order of the police. Just get in the fucking car already! “

Point. Would need some form of accountability. Also need to break the police unions. Perhaps the way the old FCC ran radio techs and stations.

Sorry to keep you guys waiting. I don’t know if I have enough energy to deal with all the ignorant comments on here but since you asked:

Does it strike anyone as strange that this lady would call the police and then refuse to cooperate? Why the hell didn’t she just give the guy’s name? If you don’t want to cooperate, why call 911?

The officer arrived and saw a male and a female at the location and the male was leaving. The officer thought that this might be some kind of domestic disturbance. Carlos points out that he let the male go without identifying him. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. If the deputy is alone with back-up along way off and he thinks there may have been a disturbance, it’s not a smart thing to get into a confrontation with this guy so why not let him leave and talk to the female party? Once he determines what happened and gets the male’s identity from the female, he can always be arrested late once backup is available.

Why did the officer think there may have been a domestic disturbance? Well I know this may come as a surprise but some sources have different information then Carlos’ version.

According to CNN, the original call wasn’t about a prowler. It was about an “unwanted guest” at the house. When the officer got there, Wells said she wanted the man to leave so the officer asked him to leave. Once he did, then the officer started his investigation.

I have never handled a domestic that way but I work in a large city where backup is usually only minutes away. Officers working rural areas typically have to approach things a bit differently.

So the woman starts acting squirrelly and refused to cooperate. I don’t blame the officer for thinking that something was up. If I didn’t think a disturbance had occurred, her refusal would make me reconsider.

So then she starts to get back away. The officer starts to detain her so he can determine what the hell is going on but she runs. There is nothing unreasonable about pepper spraying a fleeing subject.

Once the officer caught Wells, she was still combative and the backup arrived and tased her. Some departments have policies about tasing a handcuffed prisoner and this is the only part of the incident where I can see the back-up officer may have done something wrong. I don’t think the taser should be used as a cattle prod but I don’t have a problem with it being used if the subject is kicking and thrashing (handcuffed or not). I couldn’t tell what was happening on the other side of that patrol car and neither could you.

The sheriff is a real piece of shit. He has a previous relationship with this woman and is obviously letting his personal feelings for her get in the way. The sheriff (Jones) did not see the incident and should be ashamed for trying to make it a racial issue. Maybe he is getting close to re-election. I am sure him making a big stink about this is why the officer’s departments caved to the publicity. Every one of the sheriff’s deputies should resign before this bastard puts a knife in their backs.

JL,

So let’s get this straight. In an attempt to protect the woman who was possibly a victim of domestic violence, it was necessary to pepper-spray and taser her repeatedly?

JL,

Why can’t she leave? The cop may be “investigating” a possible crime, but if she is on her own property and does not want to speak to the police, I don’t see how she is obligated to stay there. Either arrest her with the evidence you have or find another source for your investigation. She is under no obligation to incriminate herself.

I was also under the assumption that pepper spraying and tasering were only to be used when the officer feels threatened. The way you describe it, the officer should use it to change the behavior of an uncooperative suspect even if the suspect is not a danger to themselves or the officer. That seems like the definition of torture. Causing pain to a helpless victim to get answers.

I think the best course of action for this woman would have been to call the police anonymously, report the suspicious person, and then stayed inside her house. There is no need for her to interact with the police. The police are not there to help you. They are there to do their job which is to arrest those that they think have broken the law. If they think that you are getting in the way of that, they will show you no mercy.

This woman should definitely bring a civil suit against the department and this officer. Someone needs to teach them some humility.

tinyurl.com/2ufjy2t

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/14/georgia.woman.tasered/

From cnn.com: “Janice Wells, 57, called the police on April 26 because she thought there was a prowler on her property in west Georgia, her attorney, Gary Parker said.

Police officer Tim Murphy of the Richland Police Department arrived and found Wells at her home with a guest who had been visiting but was leaving, Parker said. The officer asked for the guest’s name, and when Wells declined to give it to the officer, he threatened to arrest her for obstruction of justice, Parker said.

The police report of the incident has a slightly different take on it. According to the report, officer Murphy was responding to a call regarding an “unwanted guest” at Wells’ home. When the officer arrived, Wells said that she wanted the guest, a man, to leave her property, according to the report. The cop asked the man to leave, and then asked Wells what his full name was. She declined and he said he would arrest her.”

According to the CNN website, there are contradictory stories from the about why she called the police.

Yeah, because the police report is always truthful and the cops never lie to make it look like they were in the right.

I’m amazed that anyone could defend these cops. Under NO circumstances was this right. NONE.

JL: “So then she starts to get back away. The officer starts to detain her so he can determine what the hell is going on but she runs. There is nothing unreasonable about pepper spraying a fleeing subject.”

If you’re a cop, it’s amazing you haven’t been sued yet.

A person can stop talking to the police at ANY TIME THEY WANT. Doesn’t matter if they’re a witness, the victim, or the accused. A police officer can try to run an investigation, but the person can shut the hell up. Furthermore, a police officer cannot “detain” someone for refusing to speak, because it is their 5th amendment right to remain silent and as the Supreme Court has repeatedly written, the exercise of fundamental rights is not grounds for suspicion for an arrest.

So no, the officer had no right to “detain” the “subject” because she decided to end the conversation. He certainly had no grounds to pepper spray her because she had not committed a crime but was instead exercising her fundamental rights. And then, of course, he had no additional grounds to torture her by tasering her repeatedly.

For his illegal detainment (which, under the law, is an arrest) and his illegal use of force in order to deny her the exercise of her fundamental 5th amendment rights, the officer is subject to a lawsuit under Section 1983 of the U.S. Code. Furthermore, because the rights he was violating were “clearly established,” he has no grounds for qualified immunity and can be sued personally and forced to pay out of his own pocket.

Johnny Law, you’re not a lawyer and don’t pretend that you are. If you have a routine practice of detaining and using pepper spray on people who don’t talk to you, you’re going to get sued eventually. And this isn’t even a hard case at all, it’s easy.

Bob,

As I said to Johnny Law, she can leave. She can stop talking to the police at any time she wants and can exercise her right to remain silent.

Go view the youtube video that I linked to above. The best advice you will ever hear from a Supreme Court Justice, as described in the video, is to NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVEN IF YOU’RE THE INNOCENT VICTIM OF A CRIME.

Carlos you asked:

“So let’s get this straight. In an attempt to protect the woman who was possibly a victim of domestic violence, it was necessary to pepper-spray and taser her repeatedly?”

Gimme a break. The reason for the pepper spray and taser was because she decided to flee while being detained and then because she wanted to resist arrest. It doesn’t matter what the original reason for the contact was.

Sydney,

I hope you aren’t a lawyer. Police have a right to detain folks if they think they are witnesses to a crime. That is a basic thing. Some states make it illegal for a person who is legally detained to refuse to identify themselves as well. Maybe you should go back to law school.

I just don’t understand why she called the police and then refused to cooperate. Maybe she thought that since she was so tight with this sheriff, she could use the police however she wanted.

@Johnny Law

Unfortunately, the officer had no legitimate reason to detain her. There has to be some reasonable indication that there actually has been a crime, and there is none here.

“Police have a right to detain folks if they think they are witnesses to a crime.”

Oops. Reading fail again, Johnny – as Carlos wrote above:

“When Officer Murphy arrived, he asked Robinson a few questions, but did not think to ask him his name, not that it would have mattered because there was no indication that he was the reason Wells had called police.”

There’s no reasonable indication of any domestic violence anywhere in this story. She called to report a prowler, not any sort of violence.

“I just don’t understand why she called the police and then refused to cooperate.”

Because she called them to report a prowler and the responding officer conjured some sort of domestic violence situation out of apparent thing air. Not hard to understand at all.

The only violence of any sort introduced to this situation was brought by the officers who responded.

If anything, any citizen witnessing this illegal detention and torture should be able to use force to put a stop to it without fear of reprisal. And that’s in addition to the victim’s legal right to resist an unlawful arrest.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

Mike,

Maybe you should read the article from CNN that BSmith was nice enough to link. It changes some of the information you are talking about. The actual call was about a person trespassing but refusing to leave and not some window peeping prowler. The officer would have been negligent if he didn’t ask some investigative questions.

The section from Carlos that you quoted is just his commentary. He has no idea if the officer “did not think to ask his name”. Carlos is just putting his anti-cop spin on it. The officer explained why he let the guy go and started questioning the female. It was a sound tactic and makes sense. I like how you ignore the explanation of the actual person involved and quote Carlos instead.

I did read it; it was the officer who magically transformed the friend she refused to identify into that person she called about. Still no indication of any domestic violence. Nothing changed here.

Refusing to answer “invesitgative questions” (which you seem to assume are somehow automatically valid) is no valid reason for an arrest.

Carlos has an good take on it, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t like it. What the officer did still makes no sense, and does not amount to a lawful detention.

And this STILL doesn’t justify a grown male police officer using a taser as a torture tool.

But then Johnny, if any of your justifications were valid, those two officers wouldn’t have had to leave their employment.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

EDIT

“And this STILL doesn’t justify a grown male police officer using a taser as a torture tool (on a woman begging for him to stop and offering no legitimate threat).”
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment