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Detained for CC

Thundar

Thundar

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2007
Messages
4,946
Location
Newport News, Virginia, USA
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Charles Paul Lincoln quote:
"On February 28, 1998, Sergeant Edward Jones and Detective John
Milosevich attended a gun show for the purpose of watching for persons who
were not lawfully allowed to possess firearms.The officers were working
in an undercover capacity and wore nothing to reveal their identity as
police officers.........
Click to expand...
As Aquino left the building, he walked at a normal pace.As the
officers neared, they noticed that Aquino had a hand in his left front
pocket.When they caught up to him, Sergeant Jones grabbed Aquino's right
elbow.Detective Milosevich grabbed his left elbow and physically removed
his hand from his pocket.At the same time, Jones informed Aquino that
they were police officers and grabbed Aquino's gun.
Click to expand...

What foolish police officers. They are undercover without any ID as police. They grab this person, who they know to be armed and try to take his gun away.

If they had been shot by a LAC defending himself, what would have happened to the LAC?
 
C

cynicist

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Aug 16, 2008
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506
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Yakima County, ,
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If the officer is new and alone, and you are in a high-crime area like Sunnyside, it might even be reasonable for him to frisk for officer safety, but I think the whole cuff/stuff after you stated you had a permit you could produce is out of line. But, you seem to be talking yourself out of filing a complaint, which is your decision to make. I think it is at least worth a talk with Chief Radder.
Click to expand...
Actually, he called me this morning. He apologized for the incident, but explained that it was pretty much a necessity, and I mentioned that if I was the cop I would have probably done basically the same thing.

I won't be filing a complaint, particularly since it appears to me that the officer was acting in a prudent manner, and the Chief took steps to talk to me about the incident.

You may consider a more secure holster/belt if you feel you have to put your hand on your gun when jogging. A holstered gun does not warrant alarm but a holstered gun with a hand on it is another matter.
Click to expand...
It's one of those Mike's Sidekick POS holsters, and it wasn't strapped in, and I wasn't about to fiddle with a gun in front of a cop.
Also, the holster was completely covered by my shirt, and my hand was on the shirt, not actually touching the holster, but anyone with half a brain, maybe less, would know what was going on.


The court in Aquino found that police may stop and ask you to produce a CPL if they know you are armed.
Click to expand...
I believe that was the ruling from Thorne, and the court in Aquino basically stated that if they know you are armed, they can disarm you while investigating.
"Officer safety is a paramount concern.The court will not adopt a
policy which places officers in a position where, if things go wrong, they
must be the quickest draw. "


All in all, I'm not mad, and with the exception of taking so long to verify that I had a CPL, I think they did everything by the book.
 
C

cynicist

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Yakima County, ,
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What foolish police officers. They are undercover without any ID as police. They grab this person, who they know to be armed and try to take his gun away. If they had been shot by a LAC defending himself, what would have happened to the LAC?
Click to expand...
When I was in Jr High the school resource officer mentioned that if they snuck up and grabbed somebody from behind, and the person threw an elbow, they couldn't be charged with assault on an officer (or aggravated) because they have no way of knowing that it wasn't a jump.
My guess is if they didn't identify and he had shot, their story would change to that they did identify - otherwise, that seems like reasonable self-defense.
 
Machoduck

Machoduck

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For many years the word "pistol" was synonymous with "hand gun" because the flintlock hand gun was invented in Pistola Italy. A few years ago there was a move to differentiate between semi-auto hand guns and revolvers by calling the semi-autos "pistols", as if four centuries of nomenclature never happened, and as if revolvers and semi-autos weren't already identified each by its own name.

This produced just about as much progress as changing the grammatical "he" to "he/she".

MD
 
P

p2a1x7

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Pullman, Washington, USA
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It seems like a lot of LEO's have poor weapons handling skills. If I saw an LEO handling a firearm that they may not be familiar with, I'd get nervous.
 
kwiebe

kwiebe

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Tacoma, Washington, United States
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cynicist wrote:
...The dispatch came back as showing no return on my CPL...
Click to expand...
Can this part be verified? If true, what caused that? Seems awfully convenient, under the circumstances.

Oh wait, I know! A computer glitch!!! I bet it started working again afterward, all by itself, didn't it?
 
M

Mike

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Joined
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Fairfax County, Virginia, USA
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You would be in a better postiion to file suit had you been open carying - the general unlawfulness of concealing and the requirement to produce a license makes such stops harder to litigate.
 
A

antispam540

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Apr 17, 2008
Messages
546
Location
Poulsbo, Washington, USA
imported post

My problem isn't so much the "stop to check license", although technically they shouldn't even be doing that (They can't just pull you over in a car to see if you have a license without something else being out of the ordinary).

My problem is with a) the confiscation, and b) the running of the serial number. Those two actions aren't technically allowed. Confiscation is allowed incident to an arrest (which includes traffic violations through a technicality), but not for an RAS-less stop. Running the serial number isn't allowed either, nor will it be admissible evidence in court or usable as RAS if it comes back stolen.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the cop seriously screwed up here and there's PLENTY of avenues for litigation.
 
J

joeroket

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Everett, Washington, USA
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antispam540 wrote:
My problem isn't so much the "stop to check license", although technically they shouldn't even be doing that (They can't just pull you over in a car to see if you have a license without something else being out of the ordinary).

My problem is with a) the confiscation, and b) the running of the serial number.  Those two actions aren't technically allowed.  Confiscation is allowed incident to an arrest (which includes traffic violations through a technicality), but not for an RAS-less stop.  Running the serial number isn't allowed either, nor will it be admissible evidence in court or usable as RAS if it comes back stolen.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the cop seriously screwed up here and there's PLENTY of avenues for litigation.
Click to expand...

I think the cop screwed up but I do not think there are plenty of avenues for litigation. There is case law behind stops of this nature and there is even more that allow officer to temporarily seize a firearm for officer safety. Once seized the serial number falls under the plain sight rule. There are flaws to the case law but you can only work to change them if you have standing.

The OP, thank god, was not arrested or cited which, unfortunatley gives him no standing to challenge the current case law. It does give him a potential civil suit, which considering the circumstances and his own admission that he placed his hand on his pistol and jogged across the street, makes me believe it would only cost him money. Placing your hand on your pistol unless you are defending a gun grab or drawing for lawful purposes is never a good idea.
 
C

cynicist

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Yakima County, ,
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Can this part be verified? If true, what caused that? Seems awfully convenient, under the circumstances. Oh wait, I know! A computer glitch!!! I bet it started working again afterward, all by itself, didn't it?
Click to expand...
I heard this come over the radio, it wasn't something the officer said.
It was a "glitch," human error. The police chief personally called me this morning, and he said they went through everything and got the paper sent off.
I had also called the DOL Firearms Division, and they thought that was peculiar, since their backlog of CPLs only goes back to January.
This is actually the second human error regarding my records. The first was regarding an order for the WSP to remove some information from my file. No one knows whose fault it is, but the order was never entered. They were good about it when I talked to them; just faxed it and it was off in hours.

My problem is with a) the confiscation, and b) the running of the serial number. Those two actions aren't technically allowed. Confiscation is allowed incident to an arrest (which includes traffic violations through a technicality), but not for an RAS-less stop. Running the serial number isn't allowed either, nor will it be admissible evidence in court or usable as RAS if it comes back stolen.
Click to expand...
I believe you may be correct on B, but not on A. I believe Aquino makes it clear that they can remove a weapon for investigative purposes, but that investigative purpose should be exclusively to determine if I had a valid CPL, which was the last thing he did. Even after I repeatedly insisted that I had a CPL that was quite accessible, he cuffed me, frisked me, put me in the car, then spent about a minute going through my wallet to find my ID, called that it, then ran the gun, and then the CPL.
That I believe was the main error in procedure. In lieu of cirmstances, the confiscation may have proper, as well as a pat-down, but since I was claiming to have a CPL, meaning I was offering prima facia proof that there was no criminal activity, and thus no RAS.

Do you have any case law regarding the running of the number or anything similar?

Does anyone have any case law, in WA or in any other state, that covers RAS in relation to CC?

Placing your hand on your pistol unless you are defending a gun grab or drawing for lawful purposes is never a good idea.
Click to expand...
It was not "on" the pistol, it was on my shirt, which completely covered the pistol. At no time did my hand physically touch the pistol or the holster, nor were the pistol or the holster in plain sight.
 
C

cynicist

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Yakima County, ,
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On the odd side of things, I just got stopped on my way to the store about an hour ago. I was walking out of my street as the cop car passed me, it went down the street and turned around, came up next to me, and the driver (there was two) asked me how I was doing, and then if I was going to the store (it's about 100 yards from my house) and then asked me where I lived. I gestured and said "right there" (it was two or three houses down) and they sped off for about fifty feet, and then slowly, slowly moseyed on down the street. Nothing more happened. Just thought it was weird.
 
V

vote_no

Regular Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2006
Messages
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Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
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Wheelgunner wrote:
Interesting details...Tell me this quote does not chill you:

"[W]e're not working with no marksmanship... We just putting it in your direction, you know... It don't matter... as long as it's gonna hit you…if it's up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever... Once I squeeze and you fall, then... if I want to execute you, then I could go from there."
Click to expand...
It doesn't; in fact, I'm always delighted to know that most gang members aren't even aiming.
 
C

cynicist

Regular Member
Joined
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Messages
506
Location
Yakima County, ,
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You should be scared that most gang members aren't even aiming, unless you're their target.
Click to expand...
About 90% of drive-bys are not aimed at people, but at houses, so the stray bullets go everywhere.
 
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