[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Brett620 wrote:
Oh, and the NYC residents in those area (highly urban and minority areas) SUPPORT Stop and Frisk.[/quote]
Trivia (maybe not so much): most American colonists supported the British during the Revolutionary War.[/quote]
And the colonies of New York and New Jersey sent more volunteers to fight for King George than for General George.
And Push: you and I both know: trivia ain’t always trivial.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Correct, and that’s why when I read statements like Brett’s which in essence say as long as the majority goes along with something the rest of us just gotta suck it up and go along too, I kinda like to think…and say…meh.
More peeplz need to figger out what one of them there constitutional republics iz.[/quote]
But democracy…DEMOCRACY!
[quote]NickViar wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Correct, and that’s why when I read statements like Brett’s which in essence say as long as the majority goes along with something the rest of us just gotta suck it up and go along too, I kinda like to think…and say…meh.
More peeplz need to figger out what one of them there constitutional republics iz.[/quote]
But democracy…DEMOCRACY![/quote]
“Democracy is fifty-one people voting themselves the right to piss in the cornflakes of the other forty-nine.”–Jonah Goldberg
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”–Ben Franklin
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
“Democracy is fifty-one people voting themselves the right to piss in the cornflakes of the other forty-nine.”–Jonah Goldberg
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”–Ben Franklin
[/quote]
But that’s not what I learned in school when I was eight years old!
[quote]NickViar wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
“Democracy is fifty-one people voting themselves the right to piss in the cornflakes of the other forty-nine.”–Jonah Goldberg
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”–Ben Franklin
[/quote]
But that’s not what I learned in school when I was eight years old![/quote]
It is not in the interest of gubmint schools to edumacate its indoctrinees to be skeptical of the gubmint.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
And Push: you and I both know: trivia ain’t always trivial. [/quote]
Correct, and that’s why when I read statements like Brett’s which in essence say as long as the majority goes along with something the rest of us just gotta suck it up and go along too, I kinda like to think…and say…meh.
More peeplz need to figger out what one of them there constitutional republics iz.[/quote]
What I’m trying to say is that the majority of us actually do things the right way. The small minority of “bad apples” disproportionately spoil it for all of us. This is due to media attention/public perception/unique position we have/and high standards the public has for us.
I will say this. As an outsider, I can understand the misgivings a lot of people have about the “abuse of power” with the police (essentially, that’s what we are talking about, right?)
But like I stated before, I won’t be able to convince anyone what the real, and actual, inside environment (at least in my experience and department) is like. There is no substitute for first-hand knowledge. And any defense of this just comes across as “protecting our own”.
But I am disappointed not more people addressed our Fire-Hall style vs. pro-active policing approach. Would the posters here welcome a reactive-type of approach? The call 911 and bring the yellow tape and the medics approach? I’m curious because you can’t have it both ways.
Pro-active policing works. It’s an undisputed fact.
What is in question is this? Is it worth the cost?
So I say let the citizens vote in their own communities. The bad thing is I bet my ass that the people of South Chicago would welcome Stop and Frisk. Hell, they will welcome anything- including the damn National Guard.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
It is not in the interest of gubmint schools to edumacate its indoctrinees to be skeptical of the gubmint. [/quote]
You’re telling me that we didn’t fight the British so we could be a democracy?
Brett,
I’ll bite with the firehouse style policing. I am sure that “it works”. But “stop and frisks” are clear violation of our civil rights. Now I’m not saying that the police should just sit around waiting for a call. I’m sure there are pro active things to be done such as patroling, developing good relationships with neighbors, rescuing cats from trees, etc… But I think there has to be a middle ground somewhere between stop and frisks and firehouse style.
I’d love for cops to catch bad guys. But I’m not so cool with the whole, “that black teenager is wearing a hoody and his pants are sagging, he’s coming from a bad neighborhood, so he MUST be trouble - I’m gonna frisk him and violate his civil rights even though he hasn’t obviously broken the law and he doesn’t fit a description of anyone I’m looking for at the moment”.
I think ACTING on an assumption (even though in a minority of situations the assumption may be correct) is wrong. If you OBSERVE someone handing off or something, then bust their ass. But a person walking down the street minding their own business? That person has a right to go about their business unmolested.
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
Brett,
I’ll bite with the firehouse style policing. I am sure that “it works”. But “stop and frisks” are clear violation of our civil rights. Now I’m not saying that the police should just sit around waiting for a call. I’m sure there are pro active things to be done such as patroling, developing good relationships with neighbors, rescuing cats from trees, etc… But I think there has to be a middle ground somewhere between stop and frisks and firehouse style.
I’d love for cops to catch bad guys. But I’m not so cool with the whole, “that black teenager is wearing a hoody and his pants are sagging, he’s coming from a bad neighborhood, so he MUST be trouble - I’m gonna frisk him and violate his civil rights even though he hasn’t obviously broken the law and he doesn’t fit a description of anyone I’m looking for at the moment”.
I think ACTING on an assumption (even though in a minority of situations the assumption may be correct) is wrong. If you OBSERVE someone handing off or something, then bust their ass. But a person walking down the street minding their own business? That person has a right to go about their business unmolested.[/quote]
AC,
The United States Supreme Court disagrees with you (Terry v. Ohio). “Stop and Frisk” is not a clear violation of our civil rights. You and others on this forum may not agree with it but the Supreme Court of the land has ruled on this. An officer can stop a suspect on the street and frisk him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person may be armed and presently dangerous.
Now that said, I do agree that “Stop and Frisk” tactics can be abused or misused by LE. I think where we, as LEOs, get ourselves into conflict with what the Supreme Court has outlined as permissible, is when we fail to clearly articulate what our “reasonable suspicion” is when we conduct these warrantless searches. Merely stating “officer safety” is not sufficient and I cringe as a supervisor when I hear or read this in an officer’s report as to why they conducted a warrantless search.
If these searches continue to be abused or misused the Courts can just as easily take this “tool” away from us, especially if there are enough incidents where the abuse or misuse “shocks the public conscious”. Departments need to train and revisit this topic often in order to keep their personnel within the scope of what the Supreme Court intended these tactics to be used under.
[quote]clinton131 wrote:
The United States Supreme Court disagrees with you (Terry v. Ohio). “Stop and Frisk” is not a clear violation of our civil rights. You and others on this forum may not agree with it but the Supreme Court of the land has ruled on this. An officer can stop a suspect on the street and frisk him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person may be armed and presently dangerous.
Now that said, I do agree that “Stop and Frisk” tactics can be abused or misused by LE. I think where we, as LEOs, get ourselves into conflict with what the Supreme Court has outlined as permissible, is when we fail to clearly articulate what our “reasonable suspicion” is when we conduct these warrantless searches. Merely stating “officer safety” is not sufficient and I cringe as a supervisor when I hear or read this in an officer’s report as to why they conducted a warrantless search.
If these searches continue to be abused or misused the Courts can just as easily take this “tool” away from us, especially if there are enough incidents where the abuse or misuse “shocks the public conscious”. Departments need to train and revisit this topic often in order to keep their personnel within the scope of what the Supreme Court intended these tactics to be used under.[/quote]
1st let me state that legal doesn’t equal righteous.
Many of us are in decision making positions at work; we exercise discretion. I can’t speak for everyone, but if I was correct less than 20% of the time I would not be considered effective. I would be considered incompetent and would be fired. I realize you guys are in a difficult spot, I’m all for extending the ‘benefit of doubt’ in the officers direction, but it’s impossible to morally justify those numbers.
[quote]clinton131 wrote:
AC,
The United States Supreme Court disagrees with you (Terry v. Ohio). “Stop and Frisk” is not a clear violation of our civil rights. You and others on this forum may not agree with it but the Supreme Court of the land has ruled on this. An officer can stop a suspect on the street and frisk him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person may be armed and presently dangerous.
Now that said, I do agree that “Stop and Frisk” tactics can be abused or misused by LE. I think where we, as LEOs, get ourselves into conflict with what the Supreme Court has outlined as permissible, is when we fail to clearly articulate what our “reasonable suspicion” is when we conduct these warrantless searches. Merely stating “officer safety” is not sufficient and I cringe as a supervisor when I hear or read this in an officer’s report as to why they conducted a warrantless search.
If these searches continue to be abused or misused the Courts can just as easily take this “tool” away from us, especially if there are enough incidents where the abuse or misuse “shocks the public conscious”. Departments need to train and revisit this topic often in order to keep their personnel within the scope of what the Supreme Court intended these tactics to be used under.[/quote]
Come on, Clinton. How seriously and often would police officers have to screw up for the government to ban these things? I mean, really, courts aren’t going to take much from police officers because without the funds and statistics police officers bring in, courts will have to lay off people. A court is going to give the officer the benefit of the doubt 99.9% of the time, no matter how ridiculous his reasons.
“An officer can stop a suspect on the street and frisk him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person may be armed and presently dangerous.”
-This requires both a reasonable suspicion that a person has or is about to commit a crime AND a reasonable belief that the person is armed AND PRESENTLY dangerous.
In the academy, a potential officer probably hears exactly that and is asked to sign off on it. Immediately after and for the remainder of his career, he probably hears about ways to get around that. By the time the officer graduates and hits the streets, he has forgotten what he is actually allowed to do(a pat-down) and believes he can SEARCH(go into pockets, etc.) people for these reasons. He sees his coworkers searching everyone they run into in the ghetto and searching them because they are out late. He starts to believe that being out late is a legal justification for these frisks. He continues to do that and is never called on it because his victims are represented by an attorney being paid for by THE STATE.
I know this is from Wikipedia, but it’s the first thing that popped up when I Googled Terry v Ohio to get a summary of the actual case to post here. Read it and tell me if the majority of “Terry stops” now involve anywhere approaching the level of suspicion that officer had.
Add to all that the fact that children are now brought up to not question the police(DARE programs and what not), and will tend to consent to anything a police officer says, and we are at that point where we can pretty much only act with the permission of the government.
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
1st let me state that legal doesn’t equal righteous.
Many of us are in decision making positions at work; we exercise discretion. I can’t speak for everyone, but if I was correct less than 20% of the time I would not be considered effective. I would be considered incompetent and would be fired. I realize you guys are in a difficult spot, I’m all for extending the ‘benefit of doubt’ in the officers direction, but it’s impossible to morally justify those numbers.
[/quote]
Good point. Now consider the fact that an undetectable(to everyone other than the handler) alert by a DOG gives police the right to search anything they want without a warrant and you really begin to get an understanding of how ridiculous this stuff is. Those dogs are correct far less than 20% of the time(in my estimation).
[quote]clinton131 wrote:
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
Brett,
I’ll bite with the firehouse style policing. I am sure that “it works”. But “stop and frisks” are clear violation of our civil rights. Now I’m not saying that the police should just sit around waiting for a call. I’m sure there are pro active things to be done such as patroling, developing good relationships with neighbors, rescuing cats from trees, etc… But I think there has to be a middle ground somewhere between stop and frisks and firehouse style.
I’d love for cops to catch bad guys. But I’m not so cool with the whole, “that black teenager is wearing a hoody and his pants are sagging, he’s coming from a bad neighborhood, so he MUST be trouble - I’m gonna frisk him and violate his civil rights even though he hasn’t obviously broken the law and he doesn’t fit a description of anyone I’m looking for at the moment”.
I think ACTING on an assumption (even though in a minority of situations the assumption may be correct) is wrong. If you OBSERVE someone handing off or something, then bust their ass. But a person walking down the street minding their own business? That person has a right to go about their business unmolested.[/quote]
AC,
The United States Supreme Court disagrees with you (Terry v. Ohio). “Stop and Frisk” is not a clear violation of our civil rights. You and others on this forum may not agree with it but the Supreme Court of the land has ruled on this. An officer can stop a suspect on the street and frisk him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person may be armed and presently dangerous.
Now that said, I do agree that “Stop and Frisk” tactics can be abused or misused by LE. I think where we, as LEOs, get ourselves into conflict with what the Supreme Court has outlined as permissible, is when we fail to clearly articulate what our “reasonable suspicion” is when we conduct these warrantless searches. Merely stating “officer safety” is not sufficient and I cringe as a supervisor when I hear or read this in an officer’s report as to why they conducted a warrantless search.
If these searches continue to be abused or misused the Courts can just as easily take this “tool” away from us, especially if there are enough incidents where the abuse or misuse “shocks the public conscious”. Departments need to train and revisit this topic often in order to keep their personnel within the scope of what the Supreme Court intended these tactics to be used under.[/quote]
Nice post. Beat me to it.
I recently returned from a training class where I got to talk to a couple of officers from NYC. Let me tell you what the repurcussions of the “stop and frisk” policy have been:
The New York City Council (or whatever they call it), along with certain other advocacy groups, have proposed a ban on ANY sort of racial profiling…perceived or otherwise. In and of itself, not a bad thing…HOWEVER…this extends to even using a suspect’s race as a method of DESCRIBING him.
So, essentially, an officer dealing with a crime that has just occured would be FORBIDDEN from using the suspect’s race on the radio.
For example:
“Attention all units, robbery suspect last seen running north on Main St. Suspect is a black male, wearing red shirt and black shorts.”
will effectively become,
“Attention all units. Robbery suspect last seen running north on Main St. Suspect is a male, wearing red shirt, black shorts.”
If the measure passes, that is EXACTLY what is going to have to occur. I thought, surely, these guys are screwing with me, but they were dead serious.
As we have all seen in the past, the pendulum swings both ways. Unfortunately, sometimes it swings WAY too far in either direction. In my opinion, the NYC “stop and frisk” policy, which was too loosely managed to begin with, has now resulted in officers possibly having to work completely blindfolded.
There are repurcussions for taking peoples’ liberty away. And this may well be one of them.
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
[quote]clinton131 wrote:
The United States Supreme Court disagrees with you (Terry v. Ohio). “Stop and Frisk” is not a clear violation of our civil rights. You and others on this forum may not agree with it but the Supreme Court of the land has ruled on this. An officer can stop a suspect on the street and frisk him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person may be armed and presently dangerous.
Now that said, I do agree that “Stop and Frisk” tactics can be abused or misused by LE. I think where we, as LEOs, get ourselves into conflict with what the Supreme Court has outlined as permissible, is when we fail to clearly articulate what our “reasonable suspicion” is when we conduct these warrantless searches. Merely stating “officer safety” is not sufficient and I cringe as a supervisor when I hear or read this in an officer’s report as to why they conducted a warrantless search.
If these searches continue to be abused or misused the Courts can just as easily take this “tool” away from us, especially if there are enough incidents where the abuse or misuse “shocks the public conscious”. Departments need to train and revisit this topic often in order to keep their personnel within the scope of what the Supreme Court intended these tactics to be used under.[/quote]
1st let me state that legal doesn’t equal righteous.
Many of us are in decision making positions at work; we exercise discretion. I can’t speak for everyone, but if I was correct less than 20% of the time I would not be considered effective. I would be considered incompetent and would be fired. I realize you guys are in a difficult spot, I’m all for extending the ‘benefit of doubt’ in the officers direction, but it’s impossible to morally justify those numbers.
[/quote]
And remember, these methods are used in high crimes area mostly. Which goes back to the discussion of how do you address an area with a high concentration of shootings, robberies, burglaries, drug activity, gang violence Etc.
How so? Please don’t say citizen tips though…
This is the trade off. And that’s my point.
[quote]NickViar wrote:
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
1st let me state that legal doesn’t equal righteous.
Many of us are in decision making positions at work; we exercise discretion. I can’t speak for everyone, but if I was correct less than 20% of the time I would not be considered effective. I would be considered incompetent and would be fired. I realize you guys are in a difficult spot, I’m all for extending the ‘benefit of doubt’ in the officers direction, but it’s impossible to morally justify those numbers.
[/quote]
Good point. Now consider the fact that an undetectable(to everyone other than the handler) alert by a DOG gives police the right to search anything they want without a warrant and you really begin to get an understanding of how ridiculous this stuff is. Those dogs are correct far less than 20% of the time(in my estimation).[/quote]
‘In your estimation’. Exactly. Be careful when citing statistics this way w/o source.
What is your law enforcement experience?
[quote]Brett620 wrote:
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
[quote]clinton131 wrote:
The United States Supreme Court disagrees with you (Terry v. Ohio). “Stop and Frisk” is not a clear violation of our civil rights. You and others on this forum may not agree with it but the Supreme Court of the land has ruled on this. An officer can stop a suspect on the street and frisk him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person may be armed and presently dangerous.
Now that said, I do agree that “Stop and Frisk” tactics can be abused or misused by LE. I think where we, as LEOs, get ourselves into conflict with what the Supreme Court has outlined as permissible, is when we fail to clearly articulate what our “reasonable suspicion” is when we conduct these warrantless searches. Merely stating “officer safety” is not sufficient and I cringe as a supervisor when I hear or read this in an officer’s report as to why they conducted a warrantless search.
If these searches continue to be abused or misused the Courts can just as easily take this “tool” away from us, especially if there are enough incidents where the abuse or misuse “shocks the public conscious”. Departments need to train and revisit this topic often in order to keep their personnel within the scope of what the Supreme Court intended these tactics to be used under.[/quote]
1st let me state that legal doesn’t equal righteous.
Many of us are in decision making positions at work; we exercise discretion. I can’t speak for everyone, but if I was correct less than 20% of the time I would not be considered effective. I would be considered incompetent and would be fired. I realize you guys are in a difficult spot, I’m all for extending the ‘benefit of doubt’ in the officers direction, but it’s impossible to morally justify those numbers.
[/quote]
And remember, these methods are used in high crimes area mostly. Which goes back to the discussion of how do you address an area with a high concentration of shootings, robberies, burglaries, drug activity, gang violence Etc.
How so? Please don’t say citizen tips though…
This is the trade off. And that’s my point.
[/quote]
If arrest/citations from the stops were limited to illegal weapons possession only, then I would consider changing my position. I feel the same way about DUI checkpoints; impaired divers only, no registration, insurance, inspection, etc. tickets or questioning the passengers; then I might feel differently.