imported post
He was wronged by an officer who did not understand the law and, in the end, was probably issued an 849(b)(1) PC certificate to "downgrade" his arrest to a detention, given his guns back, and sent on his way with an uncommonly explicit apology from the offending officer.
If you don't know the law, then you don't know how to do your job. Period. That can be an expensive lesson for municipalities. If I suffer harm because you don't know how to do your job, then I will teach it to you in court. You'll probably be able to figure it out then.
That's great. We need more people like Demnogis carrying openly, handling the inevitable law enforcement encounters maturely, and educating cops about this small facet of law.
So you are saying filing a lawsuit is immature?
You are the people who alienate otherwise friendly law enforcement officers.
Friendly LEO's don't point guns at innocent people or harass or disarm them for no reason.
You talk about how these rampant violations of your civil liberties will not stop until you hit agencies and officers in their pocket books. WRONG.
Umm, no that's pretty much the way it goes.
Face the facts that open carry in California is NOT THE NORM.
That's not really my problem. OC is not illegal. What are you the norm police? Stick to policing crime and you'll be just fine.
Do you have any idea how many statutes the average beat cop needs to be familiar with
Do you have any idea how little I care? That is your job and your problem to figure out. Here's a good rule of thumb, if you aren't sure it is illegal, maybe you should let it go until you ascertain that.
Do you know the laws regarding the administration of a Brethalyzer test incident to a DUI arrest?
I don't care. Do your job.
Do you know how to field test suspected narcotics?
I don't care. Do your job.
I really doubt that you're familiar with all of that -- but the average cop is.
So you are saying they can be familiar with all that, but can't figure out if carrying a gun openly is legal or not? You just gave a great reason for why cops SHOULD be familiar with OC laws.
You have the luxury of knowing a very small body of law very well
You have the luxury of having 10,000 ways to take away my freedom.
Police officers must know a very large body of law reasonably well just to wake up and go to work and feed their families
Look, if it is too hard, find another line of work.
I do not have the luxury of NOT spending my off duty time reading case law and re-reading statutes I haven't used in a while just to make sure I don't "maliciously, intentionally" wrong someone when I stop them for a traffic violation that I remembered incorrectly and subsequently arrest them for a host of narcotics and weapons violations.
Surely you aren't suggesting that you arrest people without doing a cursory investigation in the field to determine PC, right? I mean looking up statutes or decisions or calling someone is usually part of that investigation.
There is a very clear, very obvious difference between an officer who intentionally, maliciously violates your civil rights and the cop who misunderstands the law.
Yeah, its called punitive damages.
Usually citizens want cops to "have a heart" or "understand".
I just want cops to not be stupid or do stupid things. Unfortunately, you can't fix stupid.
If you don't want interactions between cops and open carriers to be confrontational, then help defuse them.
If you don't want a confrontation, don't create one. Don't start no stuff, there won't be no stuff.
Don't further the reputation of some open carriers (in some jurisdictions) as cop-baiters and money-grubbing lawsuit chasers wiling to sue over the smallest infraction (real or perceived) of your civil rights.
What's so bad about that reputation again?
Otherwise, you will only alienate those cops who WANT to be on your side, who WANT to see you exercise your (and our!) rights, but don't want their name, family, and good reputation dragged through the mud in a federal civil rights lawsuit for a mistake.
Don't give me this "want to" stuff. You are on my side or you aren't. You believe in freedom and the 2nd/4th/4th/14th amendments or you don't. If you don't want to get sued, don't make mistakes.
However, I respect your apaprent decision not to.
I don't. I think he is part of the problem and only encourages bad policing by not suing.