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No. If a police officer asks your permission to search, you are under no obligation to consent. The main reason why officers ask is because they don't have enough evidence to search without your consent. Don't expect an officer to tell you of your right not to consent. Any time you consent to a search request you are naively waiving your constitutional rights.
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The sad fact is that most people believe that they are under some kind of obligation to acquiesce when an officer contacts them and asks permission to search them or their belongings. The truth is exactly the opposite...
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This is a tricky issue. The simple answer is that citizens who are minding their own business are not obligated to "show their papers" to police. In fact, there is no law requiring citizens to carry identification of any kind. Once you get passed the surface, however, things get much more complicated...
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Be aware that private security personnel outnumber police officers in the United States by three to one. As a result, you may be more likely to be confronted by a security guard than by a police officer. You must also be aware of the following places where security personnel (governmental or otherwise) are permitted to search you without a warrant...
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Unfortunately, many people get fooled by some version of this commonly used police officer's line: "Everything will be easier if you just cooperate". That's true to some extent -- it will make things much easier for the police officer who's trying to arrest you! -- but when it comes to you consenting to searches and answering incriminating questions, it couldn't be further from the truth...
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Yes. Minors generally have the same rights as adults. For example, minors can refuse searches and decline to answer questions without an attorney present. Nevertheless, minors face unique challenges when attempting to exercise these rights...
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Simply put, the number of arrests an officer makes is a major factor used to determine his job performance. Police officers know that the easiest way to make arrests is to find people in possession of illegal drugs, so they want to search everyone they can find...
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No. We teach people that they have rights, and that these rights are secured by the principal documents that guarantee our civil liberties -- the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. An informed individual who invokes his constitutional protections is doing exactly what our nation's founders intended. They created these documents to...
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Unfortunately, police may sometimes search you even if you refuse consent. If they find anything illegal, you'll have to get a lawyer and fight it out in court, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the search will hold up...
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Traffic stops typically occur as a result of suspected moving violations committed by the driver of the vehicle. Passengers cannot be held responsible for the driver's conduct and are generally free to leave, unless police become suspicious of them during the course of the stop...
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No. The Supreme Court has never ruled that police must present the warrant when performing a search. The purpose of the warrant is to...
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Your rights do not disappear if the officer threatens to call in the dogs, so don't let this all-too-common tactic intimidate you into consenting to a search. You have several options...
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Generally not. The Bill of Rights protections that matter most during police encounters are mandated by the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, and all states are required to follow them. States can offer more protection of these rights, but not less. There are some variations regarding...
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Everyone should be trained to assert their constitutional rights under the 4th Amendment in order to avoid the hassle and humiliation of police misconduct and illegal searches. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report on citizen-police contacts...
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Videotaping or photographing police in public places is usually legal, so long as you don't interfere with their activities. Nonetheless, doing so will often get you arrested...
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Written by Scott Morgan, FYR
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Monday, 08 June 2009 00:00 |
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Surveillance cameras are great for catching bad guys red-handed. Unfortunately, far too often, the outrageous crimes caught on camera are committed by police officers:
As is common in excessive force cases, the victim received several criminal charges, all of which will likely be dropped in light of the compelling video evidence. Whether the officer responsible for this savage assault will be disciplined remains to be seen, but this story certainly has "major lawsuit" written all over it.
Meanwhile in Florida, the same exact thing happened. The suspect was charged with felony assault on a police officer, until this video surfaced:
Anyone can plainly see that it was the police who were guilty of assault, not the other way around. And worse yet, the prosecutor who dropped the charges couldn't even bring himself to admit that the guy was innocent:
"We thought based on the facts and the evidence, including the videotape, that there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction at trial," said Lee Cohen, assistant state attorney in charge of misdemeanor cases.
Of course, it shouldn't be a question of whether or not you can convict him. The guy didn't do anything wrong. The police broke his nose, lied about it, and dragged him through a terrifying six-month legal battle that could have ruined his life. After all that, the only decent thing to do is admit he's innocent, give him the mother of all apologies, and hope he doesn't sue the department for all it's worth.
As video technology becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, examples of gratuitous police brutality, cover-ups and false arrests emerge on a routine basis. Simultaneously, the web provides an efficient mechanism for exposing such conduct to the public and drawing much-needed attention to patterns of police abuse and misconduct that would otherwise have been known only to the victims. It should go without saying that police are responsible for protecting public safety -- as opposed to beating up innocent people -- and it's just shameful that it's even necessary to constantly review the tape to make sure our police officers are telling us the truth.
Alas, the real turning point in the fight against police brutality may come not because police culture takes a meaningful stand against misconduct, but rather because it may soon become nearly impossible for police to horribly abuse their power without getting caught on hidden camera.
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Comments
These videos prove that surveillance equipment can go a long way in terms of proving your innocence. Video cameras may seem expensive, but what's even more costly would be the trumped up mountain of charges the police can bring against someone. Each charge would not only cost tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees, but would also carry fines and penalties which would only benefit a corrupt legal system. A decent surveillance system should only cost a thousand bucks at most and would definitely bring much peace of mind.
The cops in the videos might get a slap on the wrist by a judge who is on the same payroll that the police are on, but enough of these videos will force something to give. A wave of corrupt cops will soon be either walking through the unemployment lines or they'll be stuck on patrol in the middle of nowhere with 100 degree weather and a broken air conditioner. We can't count on the legal system to reform itself, so the best legal way to make it reform is to prove just how rotten and corrupt it is. Surveillance will be the best way to start and the best weapon against corrupt cops.
I don't know about any of you, but around my parts, when you see a cop, he sure doesn't look or act like you or me anymore. Why and what do I mean by that? It's simple really. Think about it. It boils down to militarization of our police forces in this country. Cops now days thrive on the reality of their control over people which they are given by the government. They are encouraged and trained to interact with the public in a militaristic manner. How many cops do you know who DON'T have a "high and tight" cut? How many do you know who obviously thinks it's part of the dress code to wear the ridiculous sunglasses during encounters with people? How many do you know who DON'T wear those ridiculous black leather gloves with the fingers cut out? Look, the point here is that these guys love idea of being powerful over others. They love the idea of the "look" which is simply intimidating rather than community friendly. They seem to get off on insisting with this stand offish act in which they strive to intimidate rather than SERVE the public.
The answer: Idiots who feel the need to be above others are pretty easy to spot. Differentiating from a person who wants to have a career in community service and one who wants a career putting on a shiny uniform, gun, marine hair cut, and mirrored sunglasses so he can be "cool" and have dominion over others to make up for his own inadequacies is pretty easy to spot as well.
The easiest way to weed out the type of people in the video above is to require at least a Bachelors degree preferrably a Masters degree in some type of human services field. More strict psychlogical testing. The testing needs to be less similiar to standardized personality tests found in the military. Raise the pay to match the education level and you automatically weed out the majority of adrenaline junkies and those who dreamed of being police so they could legally bully others around. Let's face it, most local and state police forces across this nation require a H.S. Diploma only and give precedent to those with military backgrounds and academy training. Check it out for yourself.
We don't let surgeons or lawyers operate with H.S diplomas and military service do we? Why in the world are we allowing people with the minimum basic education become essentially the most powerful people on the street? The reality is that four years of military training and 6 months of police training doesn't provide the best community service skills. A 24 year old kid straight out of the service isn't equipped with the correct skills to deal with a civilian society. The type of power our police forces hve today calls for much more professional and educated persons than what is now required.
People who do this job must be as intellectually proficient as they are proficient in wrist locks and knees in the back of the neck. Get it? In other words, the ignorant and wreckless are the wrong people for this job, which unfortunately is what we see so much of these days. I give you the video above as evidence to support such a statement.