My first post

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Greetings to all the members of the forum!


I am here to obtain information on open carry so I may create a lesson plan for training law enforcement on the topic. I see the need for training before that first contact is made.

I have been lurking here for a while now and have obtained afair amount of information already. I willlikely be postinga few new threads and pollsto get more data.

In my lurking here I have witnessed a great deal of discussion on law enforcement in matters unrelated to open carry.It appearsthat law enforcementis not very popular here for a variety of reasons.

I willnot apologise for what others have done as all people make mistakes no matter how perfect you wish they were. People are people and you don't always get what you want.

I am sure each and every one ofus can identify oneemployee in our work place that is a complete moron.We wonder how theyare still employed as they should have been fired a long time ago. While this person does not represent the entire staff neither does a bad cop.

Feel free to post that you hate me, hate my job, and hate what I represent. I have been told thistime and time again for almost 20 years.It reallydoesn'tbother me anymore.

I would be happy to entertain questions you may have and may post in a few threads if time permits.

Thanks in advance for your assistance,

Steve

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Welcome,

OCDO does not support LE Bashing of any kind. However, folks do become outraged by their mistakes.

Especially with the recent shootings lately. This past year there were more than a dozen BAD shooting incidents, that have left LE in a bad light. As you've said, there's always a moron in the bunch, but the public shows no mercy when it comes to LEO's making mistakes.

I do believe that State's and Government DO NOT provide LE, with enough training to do their jobs, and that most if not all experience is on the job training. I believe this to be a failure accross the nation/ If anything, the LE, the one's who are armed with guns on every street in the country, 24 hours a day, should have the MOST training, more so if not the same as the Military. We see it daily on reality TV Show's, Cops, Speeders. Watching an hour of any of those you can easily see the training that they have had. Some do their jobs precise and very well, others, get shot, get jumped, get run over standing in the street. They break SOP's b/c they don't know them.

So I'm glad your hear, I'm glad your taking a pro-active step to help merge the public with the peace officer, but I do believe the road will be long and hard.

Have a Good weekend and welcome

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some people are naive.

this must be citizen

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Don't feed the troll. :banghead:

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As a former cop... (Baltimore City PD) begin with the statutes of the VA State Constitution recognizing RKBA OPENLY. It is not a matter of opinion... it is a matter of an actual RIGHT which may be freely exercised by those persons permitted to do so.

Emphasize that Rights are not granted by government such as permits orlicense, in that Rights require NO permission from anywhere... or anyone. With such Rights, comes responsibility. Common sense should apply.

I would caution against 'Terry stops' simply because an individual is carrying a holstered firearm. Serial numbers on weapons are NOT the same as tag numbers on cars. The State 'owns' tags... Guns are private property to be respected under 4A.

Not all police are familar with the operation of all small arms or retention holsters. Such 'disarming' may result in accidentaly discharges and present more of a hazard than any possible benefit.

Caution against 'Us vs Them' mentalities. Police are public 'servants'... not an entity unto themselves.

Armed citizens carry firearms for the same reason police do... Self Defense. Police have no duty to protect the individual... as stated by SCOTUS.

"The Second Amendment extends, prima facie to all instruments that constitute bearable arms. The Constitution recognizes the pre-existance of the right and declares only that it shall not be infringed." : SCJ A. Scalia (Heller vs DC) 2008

Note... 'All instruments'. "Arms"... not limited to firearms. 'Doesn't even mention firearms.

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Welcome to OCDO Police. I hope your endeavor to create a LE training lesson plan regarding Law Abiding Citizen OC encounters goes well. As a LAC I welcome any effort on the part of LE toelevate their awareness and knowledge of legal OC with a view to the wellbeing of LEOs and legal OCers during such encounters.

As you have probably already noticed, most gun carrying people here have a natural proclivity to seek education and training to raise their level of personal safety and to further the acceptance of OC in general. So your idea fits in nicely here. I applaud and support your effort. Your input is most welcome.

It is good to have a thick skin, hopefully you won't need it often. Good luck.

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Police wrote:

In my lurking here I have witnessed a great deal of discussion on law enforcement in matters unrelated to open carry.It appearsthat law enforcementis not very popular here for a variety of reasons.

I willnot apologise for what others have done as all people make mistakes no matter how perfect you wish they were. People are people and you don't always get what you want.

I am sure each and every one ofus can identify oneemployee in our work place that is a complete moron.We wonder how theyare still employed as they should have been fired a long time ago. While this person does not represent the entire staff neither does a bad cop.

Feel free to post that you hate me, hate my job, and hate what I represent. I have been told thistime and time again for almost 20 years.It reallydoesn'tbother me anymore.

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Hello Steve, I am fairly new here too, and I commend you for taking the personal responsibility of educating yourself on laws, and attitudes pertaining to open carry.

I am NOT a COP hater, I have the utmost respect for those who would put themselves in harms way to uphold the LAW. I do however feel that there is a difference between the average moron employee, and a police officer, or doctor whom is equally inept. The average employee does not carry the burden of public trust. Rarely does the average employee, in the course of their work duties, have the ability to impact my life the way an inept LEO, or DOCTOR could.

If I should not hold LEO, to a higher standard, why then should I respect their authority ? The way I see it, you can not have one without the other.

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PaulBlart wrote:

some people are naive.

this must be citizen

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Chuckle.

No. It would be incredibly crass to steal such a device. If you ever give it up, let me know.

In the meantime, unleash your creative side. I've already come up with a number of ways to satirize some police and their tactics just from imagining the possibilities. Man oh man oh man, would it be fun. Just give it some playful thought. You could be DEVASTATING if you played it right and with just a bit of sophistication.

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Police wrote:

SNIP I would be happy to entertain questions you may have and may post in a few threads if time permits.

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Well, looks like we might have a new "LEO229."

Lets see if the new one, who won't apologize for the mistakes of some of his profession, turns out any better.

Lets give hima fair shake, fellas. If he turns out to be a statist with a mission to get us to build a bridge to him, we can always turn on the flamethrowers.

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Police wrote:

SNIP Thanks in advance for your assistance,

Steve

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What information do you need?

You see, I am at a loss for why there needs to be training for OC.

The policies are already in place and discoverable.

There is an absence of a statewide statute against OC.

There are statutes that regulate where a handgun may not be carried. And,roughly speaking,there is a statute reserving to the General Assembly the power to regulate firearms, except that localities are allowed to regulate the discharge of firearms. 15.2-915.

There is case law regarding the 4th Amendment.

There is advice from Police Chief's magazine here: http://policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=757&issue_id=122005

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Police wrote:

I am sure each and every one of us can identify one employee in our work place that is a complete moron. We wonder how they are still employed as they should have been fired a long time ago. While this person does not represent the entire staff neither does a bad cop.

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Very well said sir. I'm behind the police %100. Thank you for your service.

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Here are some examples to help you out.

You receive a report on COM channel 1 that a person is in the possession of a firearm, but the firearm is not visible the following procedures are in place that might save your life and the lives of everyone at the mall.

• Engage in voluntary contact with the individual (surround the individual with your and your partner's segways) and simply ask the individual if he or she has a weapon.
• If he or she confirms they have a firearm immediately switch to COM channel 312 (Person/Terrorist with deadly weapon) and wait for the Chief to arrive on the golf cart. Analyze situation, and trespass if necessary.
• If the person refuses to answer, you must let them on their way but switch to COM Channel 112 (Person/Terrorist refusing to answer questions) and follow the individual around the mall until they leave giving headquarters 30 seconds updates.
• If the person refuses to answer, but has a GI-JOES shopping bag, immediately switch to COM channel 311 (Person/Terrorist suspected with deadly weapon) and wait for Chief to arrive on golf cart. Analyze situation, and trespass if necessary.
• If you have a warrant issued by the owner of the mall, immediately switch to COM channel 765 (Person/Terrorist banned from mall) and call Chief with six wheeled paddy wagon golf cart, escort individual out of mall and off property.
• If the person appears to be a minor with a skateboard, and therefore too young to have a firearm, and obviously a trouble maker immediately switch to COM channel 2 (Young person with skateboard on property) and immediately call Steve's (the temp to hire Officer) cell phone for backup. Wait for Chief to arrive on golf cart to confiscate skateboard.

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PaulBlart wrote:

Here are some examples to help you out.

You receive a report on COM channel 1 that a person is in the possession of a firearm, but the firearm is not visible the following procedures are in place that might save your life and the lives of everyone at the mall.

• Engage in voluntary contact with the individual (surround the individual with your and your partner's segways) and simply ask the individual if he or she has a weapon.
• If he or she confirms they have a firearm immediately switch to COM channel 312 (Person/Terrorist with deadly weapon) and wait for the Chief to arrive on the golf cart. Analyze situation, and trespass if necessary.
• If the person refuses to answer, you must let them on their way but switch to COM Channel 112 (Person/Terrorist refusing to answer questions) and follow the individual around the mall until they leave giving headquarters 30 seconds updates.
• If the person refuses to answer, but has a GI-JOES shopping bag, immediately switch to COM channel 311 (Person/Terrorist suspected with deadly weapon) and wait for Chief to arrive on golf cart. Analyze situation, and trespass if necessary.
• If you have a warrant issued by the owner of the mall, immediately switch to COM channel 765 (Person/Terrorist banned from mall) and call Chief with six wheeled paddy wagon golf cart, escort individual out of mall and off property.
• If the person appears to be a minor with a skateboard, and therefore too young to have a firearm, and obviously a trouble maker immediately switch to COM channel 2 (Young person with skateboard on property) and immediately call Steve's (the temp to hire Officer) cell phone for backup. Wait for Chief to arrive on golf cart to confiscate skateboard.

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Your a jackass.

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Citizen wrote:

Police wrote:

SNIP Thanks in advance for your assistance,

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SNIP You see, I am at a loss for why there needs to be training for OC.

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Actually, that was a rhetorical comment. I'm not really at a loss for why.

I guess I'll tell it now. I've been sitting on it for several months. This is for more than just the OPer. Its for the forum.

The clues were always there. But, I didn't see them til LEO229 unwittingly revealed it by doing something. Then it all fell into place.

I had been buggingLEO229 for a couple months across several threads for a cite to a court opinion that let a police officer automatically seize any firearm during a traffic stop, particularly whenthe gun carrierhadgiven no indication of dangerousness.LEO229was supporting the position thata police officer was free to seize, but wasunable to post the cite. Hmmmm. Think aboutthat for a moment. Convinced he was free to seize, but unable to cite.

Then,it came up again and out of the sky blue he posted a cite to a case in the 4th Circuit (federal court that covers VA and a few other states). The opinion supported LEO229's contention. The case was something like ten years old.

Ah, hah! There was the answer. He had been contending this for months, but didn't know a court opinion to cite.

I am convinced the trouble we see regarding the 4A isbecause many police don't know the court opinions.[suP]1[/suP]

They rely on the summaries of attorneys who help write or edit their training materials. They rely onwhat somebody else tells them.Perhaps there are some who read the cases so they can really see thefull context; but I'm betting its darn few. And I'm not talking about discussing a few paragraphs from certain cases duringtheir academy training or college criminal justice classes. I'm talking about the entire opinion, in full context, including the earlier cases it may cite.

So, if they are relying on what somebody else tells them, they cannot possibly take personal responsibility for the case law. They are necessarilytransferringresponsibility to the person who did the summarizing and analyzing. From another angle, you can't possibly take personal responsibility for something you don't know. If you haven't read the actual court opinion, you can't possibly take personal responsibility for what it says.

And, you can only take responsibility for applying the summary that necessarily leaves out part of the context.[suP]2[/suP]

Think about that for a few moments. If you don't know the case law, and can't take personal responsibility for what it says, what is going to fill that hole? What is going to fill in that hole as time goes on, across the early years of your career? Ahhhhh. See?

Of course there are other factors that play into this, like whether the LEO strongly believes in respecting 4A rightsbefore he even arrives to the academy. But realize that even if he does believe strongly, he is barriered fromtranslating that into execution by being provided only summaries. Never mind theinfluences of "the competitive nature of ferreting out crime" (Terry vs Ohio), and the influences offellow officerswho can argue well the summaries when helacks the full context of the opinions to argue back.

I'm not trying todiscuss all thethings that might or likely affect how an LEOtreats the 4A and other rights. But, I think what I've explained isa verybig one.

As I've said before, the problem isn'tparticularly OC-related. It justshows up on our radar. The problem is much broader.You well knowthat the officerwho misbehaves during your OC encounter didn't pick you as his first time to step across theline.

Police/Steve, perhaps you can start in your department with this problem that is earlier in the sequence.



1. RecallLEO229 arguing in circles that Mendenhall didn't apply to seizure of the person? And his getting thefacts behindMendenhall or another case exactly backwards? And an earlier time where supported his argumentby quoting from theFAQ answers on the website of a San Diego(?) criminal defense attorney.

2. Want to see how a summarycan diverge from the opinion itself? Read thesummaries (called a syllabus)for some4A opinions prepared by the official reporter, and then readcarefully the case itself. I've spotted some doozie opportunities to misapply the opinionif you took the summary the wrong way.In fact, we've had a few funny arguments right here on this forum where somebody quoted the summary and got shot down by the next poster quoting therelevant textfrom the actual opinion.

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PaulBlart wrote:

SNIP Here are some examples to help you out.

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Not bad. Not bad at all.I like it. Well done.

But maybe this isn't the best thread for it. The LEO/OP seems sincere about tuning up his guys for the moment. What if you wereto delete this one, having gotten the exercise value from it. Or maybe save it to your hard drive.

Oh! The Danbus mall-bust thread would be a great place for it. It should be coming around again soon, Dan's court date coming up and all.

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Welcome, Steve. As you'll see, there are LEOs, former LEOs, just plain folks, instigators, and trolls on this forum.

As in the world.

The number one lesson any police officer should remember in dealing with a firearms incident - whether he witnesses a citizen openly carrying, whether he takes a call, whatever the circumstance - is that you don't do anything but alienate people if you're one of those who got (or inflated) an attitude issued with his badge.

MOST PEOPLE are honest, law-abiding, and helpful. Remember that.

If you stop me for speeding, and if I make no comment about my firearm and do not reach for it, remember you stopped me for speeding, not on suspicion of anything else. I don't need a lecture on not telling a policeman I'm armed - there is no requirement for me to do so, and it's irrelevant to the stop. Likewise, if I'm walking down the street, minding my own business, with my Bersa on my hip, I'm just being me. I'm not trying to intimidate anyone else any more than the guy with the skateboard is trying to intimidate someone. I'm just walking. Unless I do something suspicious (and carrying a gun openly is NOT suspicious), let me be. If you can't let me be, treat me with respect, treat me as an adult, and don't go "officer safety" on me.

We citizens also know that officers at least as often deal with those who aren't. We need to remember that, just as officers need to remember that most of us aren't the scumbags they need to lock up.

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Police wrote:

I am here to obtain information on open carry so I may create a lesson plan for training law enforcement on the topic. I see the need for training before that first contact is made.

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I honestly think a good option would be to contact the Phoenix police department. I am not associated with them, but I do know they recruit people from all over the country, and of the hundreds of police I encountered in Phoenix, absolutely none gave me any trouble. Many went out of their way to say hello, but none ever questioned what I was doing. Even if some panicking person from socal called 911, the police would go tell the person I was legal, and leave me alone. Whatever methods they use to train recruits, it must work pretty well, because a ton of their recruits probably hadn't even heard of open carry until they got to Arizona.

In general, I think the police in AZ tend to respect that a good person who is armed is their ally in trying to preserve a peaceful city, county or state. When that notion is instilled into a police force, as it is in Arizona, police and open carriers get along well extremely well.

Here's the 2 primary points I think are the most important- OCing, and other forms of weapons possession are lawful, and if a cop hassles someone for it, it's asking for a law suit. Additionally, people who carry weapons openly need to be respected, because they make the job of the police officer easier, since it deters crime. If a cop understands that, along with the specifics of that state's applicable laws, the problem is solved.

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Michigander wrote:

SNIP OCing, and other forms of weapons possession are lawful, and if a cop hassles someone for it, it's asking for a law suit.

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Yes, there is that.

While training is geared towards the willing, there will always be that small percentage that wants to do things their own way.

For them Steve might include a little training item. For example, a while back we heard through the local grapevine that some police were being told during roll call:

"Leave the OCers alone. They know more about the law than you do."

To which could be added,

"And many of them carry voice-recorders."

"Andsome of them are real handy with FOIA requests. A few have the request already written, ready to be dated and sent for the 911 call and radio traffic recordings."

"Andsome of them can quote and cite 4A case law faster than some criminal attorneys."

"And those whocan't are able totalk tothose who canvia that website, OCDO."

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Citizen, I'd like to think that's not needed for most police, but of course there are the few that got into it so they can feel better about themselves by pushing others around with the aid of a visible firearm, so they feel threatened by non cops with weapons. Bringing up examples of armed citizens using legal tactics to retaliate against police harassment would probably drive the point home nicely to individuals like that.

By the way, Police, I do appreciate very much the fact you actually asked us for info. With efforts like that, we are headed in the right direction towards OCers and cops being friends nation wide, rather than 2 groups that piss on each other in many localities. I think if we do manage to help you out in this matter, it might be helpful to others who do LE work if you would post your training program here, perhaps even with a video, so that departments from all over the country can benefit from your work.

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Citizen wrote:

,,,SNIP

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Actually, that was a rhetorical comment. I'm not really at a loss for why.

I guess I'll tell it now. I've been sitting on it for several months. This is for more than just the OPer. Its for the forum.

SNIP...

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I too would like to welcome the OP to the forum. Lets see if he come back.

As to Citizes post-

I agree with what you have said as a theory. But the fact is that it cannot be implemented in the real world at any reasonable cost, or time scale.

Lawyers go to school for years to get their degrees and even they do not know all of the court decisions in detail. What you are proposing would require that every LEO first hold s juris doctorate. Even then they would still not know all the details of applicable cases. The fact is that it is not possible for a single human to keep pace with all the decisions that are rendered each year.

You are also expecting a LEO to know and act upon a series of precedent's in a matter of moments that we argue over for months onthis forum, and probably were argued for weeks in the courts. They do not always have the time to look things up before they they should act. The fact is that the law must be taught to LEOs as a series of summary's, because anything else is simply not possible. Certainly there are portions of the law that could be taught in detail, but not very much of it.

In short your idea is right on target if the target is to create a Judge. What is lost here is that LEOs are officers of the court. It is their job to enforce the laws defined by the legislature and applied by the courts, but bring persons suspected of violating the law before the court for judgment of their actions. In that process the courts also judge the correctness of the actions of the police. THAT si where the problem exists. The police SHOULD be accountable to an independent oversight separate from the courts at who's biding they work.

Perhaps a few thousand years more evolution will yield the brain power to grow your ideal LEO. Until then we will have to just get by the best we can.