Federal Lawsuit filed against Ohio town for Open Carry detention.

[Mayhem]

Not to be devil's advocate but this is a nation wide problem.

You have laws wrote so it takes a BAR certified Attorney with an expensive 6-8+ year higher education to understand the law.

LEOs are not attorneys they have no where near the legal expertise to know the law. What LEOs have is a working knowledge of the law and the bare basic principles of the legal system. Some states have higher requirements as you get into states that have lower requirements lower pay and less required training you run into more issues like these.

Having personally known LEO's who have lost their lives in the line of duty, gunned downed by some slime ball, I can tell you it makes every individual LEO very nervous when they see a guy walking down the street with a firearm.

To be honest no LEO is truly trained and prepared for such a confrontation, and it scares the hell out of them. Your adrenaline kicks in your heart starts pumping so hard you can hear the blood flow in your ears. Everything slows down. You start trying to run scenarios and "what ifs" threw your mind but due to the adrenaline its hard to think your instincts tell you to react not think. Your training guides you to take control and dominate the situation, violently if necessary.

Their is a saying in the military and I've even seen it used in LEO training.

Your best performance in a High stress situation is going to be about as good as your performance in your worse day of training.

This is why training is so important to LEO's yet the average LEO get about 40 hours at best additional training per year. That training has to cover allot. Changes to policy, procedures, and the law as well as Weapons self defense and driver training just to name a few.

We expect our LEO's to preform like they have a 4 year Administration of Justice degree with 4 years military weapons and combat training and an additional 160 hours of annual training all at a wage your typical pole climber at the phone/cable company makes.

Again I'm not defending these particular officers but I'm pointing out the reasons for some these incidents.

LEO's Need more and better training both pre-employment (the academy) and Post-employment (supplementary) . They need more Supervised time on the streets before they are allowed to work alone - I honestly believe no Leo should ever work alone. They need to be properly equipped and trained with said equipment. Every patrol vehicle should have at minimum forward Looking Video recorders with audio. Unfortunately with the recession one area that is seeing massive cuts is LE budgets. We are again seeing falling back on the technological edge.

several Mistakes I see made by LEO's leading to unemployment, criminal charges, injury, and death. because they don't fallow these basic rules

1) Always behave as if your on camera and being recorded because you never know when you are. (This is one reason I feel all Patrol vehicles should have cams because this way they KNOW they are being recorded all the time).

2) always assume that every one out there is potentially armed as the person that you think is unarmed thats most likely going to kill you.

3) Always be mindfully of your surroundings More officers are killed every year during routine traffic stops by another vehicle then they are by an armed criminal in the vehicle they are stopping.

4) Never take it personal and don't loose your temper it's just a job that you can loose with one simple "Defiance of COP syndrome" incident.

One thing I will point out is that in this recording both sides seemed confrontational and both sides should have been more polite to each other.

[trashman]

One thing I will point out is that in this recording both sides seemed confrontational and both sides should have been more polite to each other.

From a non-legal perspective, I agree completely -- from the standpoint of just exiting the stop with as little hassle as possible a "yes sir" and "yes ma'am" thrown in here and there wouldn't have killed him, nor would it have killed him to abstain from antagonizing the cops by implying they were Nazis after they detained him.

But fom a legal perspective this is gonna be really interesting. Thanks for the post Liberty1!

--Neill

[Mayhem]

I see no problem in exercising ones constitutional muscles. But you don't need to be rude dork about it.

This guy sounds like he went out of his way to get a little drama. The LEO's didn't do much better and sounded like they were on the verge of getting a bad case of "Defiant of Cop" syndrome. The Female sounded like a school yard duty worker dealing with a bunch of unruly school children.

NO ONE in this seemed to have any professional etiquette at all.

It's an embarrassment to LEO's and Its an embarrassment to 2a and UOC advocates.

[pullnshoot25]

I see no problem in exercising ones constitutional muscles. But you don't need to be rude dork about it.

This guy sounds like he went out of his way to get a little drama. The LEO's didn't do much better and sounded like they were on the verge of getting a bad case of "Defiant of Cop" syndrome. The Female sounded like a school yard duty worker dealing with a bunch of unruly school children.

NO ONE in this seemed to have any professional etiquette at all.

It's an embarrassment to LEO's and Its an embarrassment to 2a and UOC advocates.

Gotta show the injustice first in order to get it to stop.

These guys were OCing, not UOCing.

These cops knew the law but chose to abuse it, as usual.

[cineski]

I love that line: "The law's in my pocket."

[Mayhem]

Gotta show the injustice first in order to get it to stop.

Ya but it looks better when you are polite

These guys were OCing, not UOCing.

I did not know this. I don't think it was specified on the recording. personally its irrelevant if the state allows LOC. in either event this guy had a CCW he should be covered in so many ways. I feel the LEO was taken by surprise and was not up to date on state and local firearms restrictions causing him to overreact. However once the man was Identified and the LEO saw his CCW and ran his check it should have been over with. His Supe or some other higher up should have been on hand to confirm the open carry laws. The Leo should have given this guy his stuff back and sent him on his marry way. They second officer should have just kept her mouth shut. This entire confrontation just screams lack of training.

These cops knew the law but chose to abuse it, as usual.

again I feel this was more of a lack of training then an abuse.

Again No cop KNOWS the law (Cept maybe a FBI agent)... If he or she did they would be an attorney (or a FBI agent) not a cop.

LEOs only have a basic working knowledge of the law. They do not know it. One of my instructors in the academy told me "when in Doubt - arrest them all let the DA Judge and Jury sort them out."

This is one reason why LEOs have slightly different powers of arrest then civilians. 1) they are expected to enforce the law yet 2) they do not know the law but have what is considered a working knowledge of the law.

It's kinda jacked when you think about it.

only an attorney knows the law. most if not all State and Federal Laws are so damn convoluted and confusing you need a 6-8+ year expensive higher education to know the law. To a certian degree even attorneys have limits and have to specialize (criminal law, family law, civil law etc.) this is why we have a huge legal system. made up of criminal(superior), federal, civil, traffic, and family courts, overseen by judges with an appellate court system and SCOUTUS as back up.

Cops do not know the law but have a working knowledge of the law yet they are expected to enforce the law.

We the citizens are neither expected to know the law or have a working knowledge of the law but are expected to obey the law and Ignorance of the law is no excuse for violating the law.

Look up 3 felonies a day.

[Untamed1972]

Cops do not know the law but have a working knowledge of the law yet they are expected to know the law.

No....they're not expected to know the entire body of law as well as a judge or an attorney. But they should be expected to know what are arrestable/detainable offenses, especially for simply things like whether or not your state's law allows for open carry of a firearm or not. I don't think it's unreasonable for a citizen of Ohio to expect every LEO in the state to know that one w/o having to look it up in the PC or ask a supervisor.


As for "if in doubt arrest them and let the DA/judge sort it out." That's just effed up BS right there. If you're going to use your authority to deprive someone of their liberty and saddle them with an arrest record and legal bills and everything else that goes along with getting arrested you'd better make damn sure you have the legal grounds to do it on. Anything less is just being lazy and not living up to your oath of service, not to mention an abuse of your authority.

[greg36f]

No....they're not expected to know the entire body of law as well as a judge or an attorney. But they should be expected to know what are arrestable/detainable offenses, especially for simply things like whether or not your state's law allows for open carry of a firearm or not. I don't think it's unreasonable for a citizen of Ohio to expect every LEO in the state to know that one w/o having to look it up in the PC or ask a supervisor.


As for "if in doubt arrest them and let the DA/judge sort it out." That's just effed up BS right there. If you're going to use your authority to deprive someone of their liberty and saddle them with an arrest record and legal bills and everything else that goes along with getting arrested you'd better make damn sure you have the legal grounds to do it on. Anything less is just being lazy and not living up to your oath of service, not to mention an abuse of your authority.

I think that a clearer view of "If in doubt, arrest them and let the DA/judge sort it out" is this. There are tens of thousands of laws out there, Hundreds, if not thousands covering theft alone. I have had a couple of criminal law classes and have been on some ride alongs and this is what I have seen. Often time, an officer knows that a crime has been committed (theft, battery, ect.) but he is not sure what the exact crime title will be...... (this depends on the final value of the property, extent of injury, changing stories, ect.). In that case, you would book for simple theft or battery and let the DA, Judge, Jury determine what the final crime was based on witness cooperation, extent of injury or final value of the property.

Booking someone for a crime when you know or should have known that no crime occurred is another issue that is not excusable.

[Untamed1972]

I think that a clearer view of "If in doubt, arrest them and let the DA/judge sort it out" is this. There are tens of thousands of laws out there, Hundreds, if not thousands covering theft alone. I have had a couple of criminal law classes and have been on some ride alongs and this is what I have seen. Often time, an officer knows that a crime has been committed (theft, battery, ect.) but he is not sure what the exact crime title will be...... (this depends on the final value of the property, extent of injury, changing stories, ect.). In that case, you would book for simple theft or battery and let the DA, Judge, Jury determine what the final crime was based on witness cooperation, extent of injury or final value of the property.

Booking someone for a crime when you know or should have known that no crime occurred is another issue that is not excusable.

Well when that officer writes up his crime/arrest report how in does he know what to write in his report if he's not even sure what crime was committed or what PC section he's actually arresting the person for.

Granted a DA may add or subtract charges against a person later based on additional investigation, evidence or witness statements gathered after the initial arrest.....but the LEO on the street making the initial arrest better know what he's making that initial arrest for other then "I think a crime was committed but I'm not sure, so I'll make something up and let the DA sort it out."

[greg36f]

Well when that officer writes up his crime/arrest report how in does he know what to write in his report if he's not even sure what crime was committed or what PC section he's actually arresting the person for.

Granted a DA may add or subtract charges against a person later based on additional investigation, evidence or witness statements gathered after the initial arrest.....but the LEO on the street making the initial arrest better know what he's making that initial arrest for other then "I think a crime was committed but I'm not sure, so I'll make something up and let the DA sort it out."

From what I have seen, if the officer is not 100 percent sure that a crime occurred, you simply don't make the arrest. You write it up and submit it. Let the DA decide if HE wants to go forward.

It sounds like this is what happened to Thesus.

If you KNOW a crime occurred, but are not sure how it will eventually shake out (due to a variety of factors) you can arrest and file on a broad charge that you KNOW fits the crime (theft, battery ect.).