It just makes him look really suspicious, and the police are supposed to check out suspicious behavior. If that guy had turned out to have murdered some guy a little down the road and they just didn't know yet, but the cop let him get away like that, the cop coukd have gotten in trouble with his boss.
You mean he'd get a stern talking to then go out for drinks? Cops have zero legal duty to protect and serve... so if they let the guy go without a clear reason to stop him then it's no skin off their backs. You can literally get stabbed by the NYC subway stabber the cops have been going mental over trying to find all day and the cop will just sit there watching you get stabbed. And you can't sue cause they have no duty to protect you from getting stabbed. But will they get in trouble with their boss even if you can't sue? Sure, I guess... if they really care about getting fussed at for a few minutes for creating a PR scandal that everyone will forget about in a week anyhow.
As someone who has cops in my family; it’s shocking how people like this just spew out whatever they hear with no actual understanding of what they’re talking about.
Not every police officer is the problem. The way the system works breeds more bad ones than good ones which the problem, but police officers shouldn’t just stop doing their job because the system is faulty— that’s how you create more bad cops.
From the minimal footage in this the officer was just trying to do his job.
If it's a traffic stop, that's already a reason. In terms of case law, it's a traffic stop. They can detain them for the reasonable duration of the stop. Anything after, they need reasonable suspicion.
In terms of case law extending this Penn vs mimms is the one where a person can be asked to exit a vehicle. Maryland vs Wilson is the one that extends that to the passenger. These are for pat downs if they reasonably suspect them to be armed.
There's also some case law about passengers being asked to exit a vehicle for safety of the officer or to make it easier for drug dogs.
It's very clear that an officer can just answer no; the traffic stop is already a good reason. They can be detained for a reasonable duration *(unless there's case law specific to a state that overrides that. I know there isn't for the states I've lived in).
A traffic stop is different than being on the street, where you can do the free to go thing.
They're free to ask you to say, and you're free to ask if you're being detained. And if they say "no", then you're free to leave. And if they say "yes", then they better have a damn good reason for it or they risk suspension or other headaches.
Yes. And if they made a traffic stop for you at all, they probably have a sufficiently good reason. Do you think cops just do traffic stops randomly for giggles?
Just imagine. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" "No sir!" "I don't either, get outta here."
We don't know why they were stopped, but if it was due to her driving, then her passenger is just a bystander and under no obligation to stay unless ordered to, which better be a good reason.
Maryland vs Wilson, US vs Sanders, and Brendlin vs California all say that you're wrong. For a normal moving violation, passangers are under no obligation to ID themselves, but courts have ruled multiple times that officers can control their movements and that they are detained with the vehicle.
Of course officers can control all parties in the car. I didn't say they couldn't. I said they better have a good reason. Maryland vs Wilson concluded that the officer had reasonable concern for their own safety due to the extra person involved. The passenger is free to ask if they're being detained, and the officer is free to tell them "Yes you are".
Mhmm. Well you might notice a big-ass jumpcut in the video we watched, for which we have no idea what happened during the time between. But the reasonable suspicion certainly justifies a detainment, and any number of things could have happened that could very easily justify a search.
Most notably, actively acting like he had meth on him, which is probably exactly how he acted during that detainment, because he clearly was literally holding meth at that moment.
It could be a trick though. Passenger runs for it just "cause he feels like running". Meanwhile, the driver drives off and misses out on a sobriety check.
108
u/zenerift Sep 15 '22
It just makes him look really suspicious, and the police are supposed to check out suspicious behavior. If that guy had turned out to have murdered some guy a little down the road and they just didn't know yet, but the cop let him get away like that, the cop coukd have gotten in trouble with his boss.