I think "assaulting a police officer" if fully prosecuted can get you years hardtime. In Texas it can get you dead, tho they usually want to avoid all the paperwork.
The ten cars showing up is interesting. I have seen a change in my lifetime, backup and firepower and probably most importantly witnesses are called for much more than they used to be. This is probably on balance a good thing.
One of the police officers that were in the car with my friend Tom actually shook her head and said "this is crazy. next time you should just show your id." She was the only one who was sympathetic to him. I can only hope she'll show up to the court date....
There were ten cop cars to give three people tickets for 'obstructing pedestrian traffic." Amazing.
3:Like I said, witnesses.
Tell a lawyer there were twenty cops and if they stick with the charges, or invent new ones, he will certainly try to find a plea. Even the sympathetic one will perjure herself if it gets to court.
Whatever the legal technicalities, most cops will respond to being aggressively monitored as hostile behaviour and some are eager take any excuse to escalate the situation ridiculously. (It's gung ho-ism in most of those cases; they want it to be a situation out of an action movie where they're cast as Dirty Harry or Jack Bauer, and strive to treat it like one.)
The best policy is usually to do any monitoring from a safe distance, where you're less obtrusive and you can still see what's happening but where they don't have a plausible excuse (or the time) to charge over and harrass you.
No excuse for the behaviour of these cops, of course.
most cops will respond to being aggressively monitored as hostile behaviour and some are eager take any excuse to escalate the situation ridiculously.
Back to last week's thread about bad cop behavior? That this is a norm (and it's certainly what I understand to be the norm) is an outrage.
if they stick with the charges, or invent new ones
They can't just add more charges can they?
6:Looked like "hostile behavior" to me. I can imagine the radio call:"Hey Guillaume, I got a couple do-gooders here looking like they want to slap a police brutality complaint on me." "Okay, stay cool, we'll have twenty witnesses there in five mnutes." Just cause it was justified doesn't mean it wasn't hostile, or a kinda threat.
But I spent over a decade driving and walking while felonious, and developed an inner calm. Still have never been stopped or pulled over or picked up.
Got a friend who gets a ticket pulling outa her diveway. Cops are psychic, and you must develop a mind-block. Eight sir seven sir six sir five sir.
"Assaulting a police officer" == not doing exactly what they tell you. I once got charged with that for saying, "This is bullshit", and walking away. Plead out, suspended sentence.
They really get off on this kind of shit. It's as if they sit around all day drinking energy drinks and smashing the cans against their foreheads repeating the mantra: "who's right? I AM!"
7:They can do whatever their larger community, with slight reference to facts & evidence, will allow. Unsolved murders are cleared everyday in Texas. The sympathetic cop will work behind the scenes in a conversation with a DA if she wants to help. But don't approach her. Show proper penitence and fear and I'll bet the charges will be dropped.
Police brutality accusations, even unfounded, can kill a cops ambitions and accumulated, cost him his job. They are very serious.
Under the influence of Mahattans, I did run into a tree once. The cop made me take the breathalyzer three times, but couldn't get the reading he wanted.
Three weeks later in the courtroom hall:
Pros:We didn't get the breathalyzer evidence, but we are charging you with DUI...
Bob:Whaaa...
Pros:...and ignoring all the pot.
Bob:What pot? But I am guilty as sin of the DUI, Madame Prosecutor.
I have always gotten along with cops.
drinking energy drinks and smashing the cans against their foreheads repeating the mantra: "who's right? I AM!
I do this before I log into the blog every day.
I have an amazing talent for being always right that needs no daily affirmation.
In defense of Quebecois cops: One winter I was visiting Quebec (city) w/ my brother, and we were out drinking. I'd had far too much to drink, and ended up lost, alone, in the old town. Stumbling through the icy streets, I found some kind of religious complex. Naturally, I started banging on the door, yelling, "Sanctuaire!". No more than 15 minutes of this had passed before the cops showed up, and escorted me back to my hotel. They easily could have thrown me in the tank for that. Lesser towns have.
FM was talking the Frankophonic language, so they were more sympathetic to him.
In how much of the world is the Monreal police's behavior normal? I'd say 90%.
Naturally, I started banging on the door, yelling, "Sanctuaire!"
You should have been yelling "Tabarnak!" instead.
In how much of the world is the Monreal police's behavior normal? I'd say 90%.
Agreed. I was having this discussion with my mom just last night. She was trying to claim that American cops are notably bad. "Hahaha, mom," I said. I think she likes to troll me.
I think she likes to troll the cops.
In how much of the world is the Monreal police's behavior normal? I'd say 90%.
Where are they not like this? Because I'd LOVE to live there. The desert? The Amazonian rain forest? I'm running out of viable options here...
I was half-reading Cryptic Ned's comment while grading linear algebra tests and I had the weird intense conviction that I was grading Cryptic Ned's test for a second.
In my view, "pew pew pew pew pew" is specifically the sound of snotty, triumphant shooting in the air.
Aww, wrong thread.
*kicks dirt*
From a whole 'nother thread, I heard the shots ring out and scampered over to see what was the matter.
It canna fire much misser, captain!
Here in Lake Wobegon they are not like that. They are Marge Gunderson. You have to live here, of course.
It was in imitating machine gun fire with my friends that I realized certain other people could roll their R's and I could not.
31: were you playing "maginot line" or something?
Talk Like a Pirate day was so last week.
I'm not getting the Buckaroo Banzai reference. Loving it, but not getting it.
Shut up Julian! You are the weakest individual I ever known!
I'm glad somebody around here has the balls to face facts, Ned.
I had friends severely beaten by Montreal police. One lost an eye, another had a fractured spine. I've seen hordes of police following people down the street, yelling sexual comments out their car windows. They've beaten people to death in alleys, and they've blatantly murdered strikers.
One time when I was walking down St Laurent, three cop cars pulled up onto the sidewalk, and every pedestrian in sight started running. A second later, I was too.
They're worse than goons, they're like a uniformed biker gang, corrupt to the core. I'm just surprised that in this particular story there wasn't a long hospital stay involved.
When I was in Montreal for New Years and we are 18 or 19 years old a friend of a friend ended up in jail for the night. But he had had enough to drink that he has no idea how he got there, so we had taken the view that it was probably his fault and not that of the cops.
Lucy, I had a very similar experience in New Orleans. The night I got out of jail, I was part of a local TV station's lead story on police abuse - and I understand that CNN picked up the story, too. By the time I came to trial, the cop who arrested me had been kicked off the force for unrelated misconduct, and the internal affairs people had issued a finding in my favor.
They still intended to take me to trial. On my lawyer's advice, I signed a paper saying I wouldn't sue the city in exchange for them dropping charges.
The moral here is: Don't expect help from the legal system in this circumstance. Cops are a law unto themselves, and they can pull you off the street for pretty much whatever they want to.
One more reminder that the police is not there to help you. Getting back to the original incident, its no surprise that cops already harassing some unlukcy pedestrians would take offense at somebody who announces that she is going to watch them, legal or not.
Cops are there first to protect themselves, second to protect "public order" from you, third and only as a very low priority, to protect you from crime, or at least to tell you that they don't consider a simple burglary or theft worthy of any great effort.
No more than 15 minutes of this had passed before the cops showed up, and escorted me back to my hotel. They easily could have thrown me in the tank for that.
And some would call him "pig."
Two words, folx: Video cameras. They don't guarantee that you won't get fucked with, but the difference in the behavior of the police is like night and day.
A.C.A.B.
It would seem that by committing yourself to an observer role you are inserting yourself into the worst demographic possible for cop interactions:
1.Young(ish)
2.Legal/ Rights knowledge
3. Activist
1. Makes you hated, 2. makes you a threat, and 3 makes you a target.
The last time I had dealings with PQ law enforcement was FTAA in '01, and I doubt that they have gotten less powerful or odious since then.
I had a coworker who got a 10 grand settlement from the city of Chapel Hill when a cop arrested him for similarly observing another arrest. And he didn't get beaten up or anything, just marched down the main street in cuffs.
Several years back, the Quebec police had a tip that some bank robbery suspects were at a motel. In the middle of the night, they kicked down the door and killed the suspects with a phenomenal number of bullets. While they claimed to have been fired upon, the suspects turned out to be two innocent, unarmed, and sleeping carpet-layers on their way to an out-of-town job.
Surprisingly, there was an investigation. Unsurprisingly, not a single officer was charged with anything serious.
Guess who I was rooting for a short time later in the Oka crisis.
46: Yawn. That kind of thing happens pretty often. For whatever reason, it isn't an ongoing national scandal.
It's often at the "#106? I thought it was #108." level of stupidity.
Actually, I thought that was the Chapel Hill one. Different nation. I was talking about the US.
The role of police is not to protect life or property of ordinary people. It is to protect life or property of the monied classes. We ordinary citizens are the enemy, not someone to serve and protect.