OCer's experiences with LEO's while carrying openly

I don't carry I.D. for a variety of reasons. One is we are not a stop and I.D. state and we are not required to have I.D. Two it makes it a lot more difficult for the Law to ummmmm "encourage" you to cooperate when you are not breaking laws, you can honestly say to an officer who insists on seeing your "papers"I don't have any on me. If they continue to harass you and cause more problems the burden is squarely on them. Assuming of course they don't have RAS.

Click to expand...

I also do this. I leave my ID and my CPL in my truck when I'm OC'ing.

Click to expand...

sudden valley gunner wrote:

I don't carry I.D. for a variety of reasons. One is we are not a stop and I.D. state and we are not required to have I.D. Two it makes it a lot more difficult for the Law to ummmmm "encourage" you to cooperate when you are not breaking laws, you can honestly say to an officer who insists on seeing your "papers"I don't have any on me. If they continue to harass you and cause more problems the burden is squarely on them. Assuming of course they don't have RAS.

Click to expand...

I also do this. I leave my ID and my CPL in my truck when I'm OC'ing.

Click to expand...

I have had a negative encounter with Kent PD and also a weird encounter. The first time I ever was stopped by KPD was when shopping at Winco with my wife and daughter. KPD approached me and threatened to take my pistol from me. He used color-of-law to coerce me into concealing. I was new to OC at the time and have since learned better.

The weird encounter was at Kent Station. I was in a Zumiez store to look for a hat. I had left my ID and CPL in my truck. Two KPD bicycle officers approached mein the store and asked if we could go outside and talk. So when I said "ok" officer #1 asked me to cover up my gun. I said, "I can't cover it up, I left my CPL in my truck." This is when he told me "It's OK this time, go ahead and cover it up so we can go outside".

That's when I said "So you're asking me to break the law?".

Thats when his face went completely blank because he just asked me to do something illegal.

So we all went outside onto the sidewalk anyway, me still OC'ing, and had a little chat. They asked me for my ID and I told them that was in my truck also. Both officer's faces were kind-op blank, jaws working but nothing coming out. He asked me to go to my truck and retrieve my CPL so I could come back to the store concealed. I told him "no. I'm not going all the way out to the parking lot to get my CPL just to conceal to look for a hat in one store.

After about five minutes of this back-and-forth I finally said to them "Have a nice day officers" and went into the store and continued to look for a hat. Basically I left them out on the sidewalk with their bikes and dumbfounded looks on their faces. Then I could see them through the window, riding away.

Click to expand...

SpyderTattoo wrote:

sudden valley gunner wrote:

I don't carry I.D. for a variety of reasons. One is we are not a stop and I.D. state and we are not required to have I.D. Two it makes it a lot more difficult for the Law to ummmmm "encourage" you to cooperate when you are not breaking laws, you can honestly say to an officer who insists on seeing your "papers"I don't have any on me. If they continue to harass you and cause more problems the burden is squarely on them. Assuming of course they don't have RAS.

Click to expand...

I also do this. I leave my ID and my CPL in my truck when I'm OC'ing.

Click to expand...

I have had a negative encounter with Kent PD and also a weird encounter. The first time I ever was stopped by KPD was when shopping at Winco with my wife and daughter. KPD approached me and threatened to take my pistol from me. He used color-of-law to coerce me into concealing. I was new to OC at the time and have since learned better.

The weird encounter was at Kent Station. I was in a Zumiez store to look for a hat. I had left my ID and CPL in my truck. Two KPD bicycle officers approached mein the store and asked if we could go outside and talk. So when I said "ok" officer #1 asked me to cover up my gun. I said, "I can't cover it up, I left my CPL in my truck." This is when he told me "It's OK this time, go ahead and cover it up so we can go outside".

That's when I said "So you're asking me to break the law?".

Thats when his face went completely blank because he just asked me to do something illegal.

So we all went outside onto the sidewalk anyway, me still OC'ing, and had a little chat. They asked me for my ID and I told them that was in my truck also. Both officer's faces were kind-op blank, jaws working but nothing coming out. He asked me to go to my truck and retrieve my CPL so I could come back to the store concealed. I told him "no. I'm not going all the way out to the parking lot to get my CPL just to conceal to look for a hat in one store.

After about five minutes of this back-and-forth I finally said to them "Have a nice day officers" and went into the store and continued to look for a hat. Basically I left them out on the sidewalk with their bikes and dumbfounded looks on their faces. Then I could see them through the window, riding away.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing that. It sounds like they were not up to speed on Washington State gun laws. Or maybe just trying to throw their weight around. I still don't understand why you wouldn't want your ID with you. I mean, what is wrong with letting them know who you are? Maybe I'm just too programmed! LOL I was under the impression that you have to have ID with you; I guess not. It's interesting that you didn't tell them that OC is legal in Washington, or maybe you did. These are the things I need to learn so if I am ever stopped and questioned by a LEO I will know how to handle it.

Click to expand...

Ruby,

In Washington state there is NO requirement to carry ID , and there is NO law allowing an officer to "stop and Id" a person without reasonable articuable suspicion that the person has committed a crime, is in the process of committing a crime, or is about to commit a crime. If you present your ID and the officer has it in his control, your ability to freelymove is severely restricted. The only information you need to provide is your name and possibly address. They can only detain you long enough to verify that information. A request for your social security number is not allowed either as that is a violation of the federal privacy act.

Acting "Under the Color of Law" is using their position to compel you to comply with an act or order which they have no legal authority to demand. (intimidation)

Click to expand...

After about five minutes of this back-and-forth I finally said to them "Have a nice day officers" and went into the store and continued to look for a hat. Basically I left them out on the sidewalk with their bikes and dumbfounded looks on their faces. Then I could see them through the window, riding away.

thank you spidertatoo,,, i got BIG respect for you for doing that!!!

to ruby; unless you are actually arrested, you are not required to tell cops ANYTHING!!!

Click to expand...

1245A Defender wrote:

After about five minutes of this back-and-forth I finally said to them "Have a nice day officers" and went into the store and continued to look for a hat. Basically I left them out on the sidewalk with their bikes and dumbfounded looks on their faces. Then I could see them through the window, riding away.

thank you spidertatoo,,, i got BIG respect for you for doing that!!!

to ruby; unless you are actually arrested, you are not required to tell cops ANYTHING!!!

Click to expand...

If I were ever arrested (very doubtful) the first and only words out of my mouth will be "I want a lawyer." Period. End of discussion. I already know that LEOs are not my friends and are just doing their job, at best. So far, all my encounters with LEOs have been positive, but then I have only OCed once at Starbucks with the group. I am not anticipating anything negative, just want to be prepared for that posssibility. Spidertatoo, I think you handled the situation beautifully. Maybe the LEOs learned something that day!

Click to expand...

Ruby wrote:

1245A Defender wrote:

After about five minutes of this back-and-forth I finally said to them "Have a nice day officers" and went into the store and continued to look for a hat. Basically I left them out on the sidewalk with their bikes and dumbfounded looks on their faces. Then I could see them through the window, riding away.

thank you spidertatoo,,, i got BIG respect for you for doing that!!!

to ruby; unless you are actually arrested, you are not required to tell cops ANYTHING!!!

Click to expand...

If I were ever arrested (very doubtful) the first and only words out of my mouth will be "I want a lawyer." Period. End of discussion. I already know that LEOs are not my friends and are just doing their job, at best. So far, all my encounters with LEOs have been positive, but then I have only OCed once at Starbucks with the group. I am not anticipating anything negative, just want to be prepared for that posssibility. Spidertatoo, I think you handled the situation beautifully. Maybe the LEOs learned something that day!

Click to expand...

I have been thinking about what you said. Since you had not committed a crime or done anything illegal, I would think that you wouldn't even have to step outside with them. It seems they always want to take you somewhere else to talk to you. I don't think you are obligated to go anywhere with them. Why don't they want other people to hear the conversation?!? I hope I would have the sense and intestinal fortitude to refuse to go anywhere with them and we can talk right here. If I am in a negative situation with LEOs and have done nothing wrong, I want witnesses around me that can vouch for what happened. I believe that they have to arrest you before they can force you to go with them. Please correct me if I am wrong. As I said, I am not anticipating any problem, I just want to know my rights should a problem arise.

Click to expand...

Ruby, here is the advice I offer to anyone who chooses to carry openly; know what your rights are. I know it sounds cliché (“I know my rights!”) but you need to know when and why the police can or cannot seize a citizen of Washington. Knowledge is power (yes, another cliché) and if you are approached by a police officer for any reason it is to your benefit to know what their limitations are. As Clint is famous for saying, “A man has to know his limitations”, well, we should also know their limitations too!

People are in jail right now because the police approached them and ended up discovering a crime. Whenever the state decides to press charges, there is an evidentiary hearing to determine what evidence the state may or may not use against you. It is at this hearing that the court will determine if the police overstepped their legal limits in obtaining that evidence.

I have read Appeals Court cases where the evidence would have been dismissed IF the officer had detained (seized) the defendant. The police officer walked up, started talking, asked to see ID, asked if he could pat the defendant down for his safety, and discovered weapons or drugs or contraband or whatever.

The person appealed their conviction based on the fact that the officer didn’t have cause to seize the person in the first place. This is where it gets tricky. The officer simply claims he had never seized the defendant, but was merely having a friendly conversation, a voluntary conversation.

The judge will then determine if a reasonable person would have felt like they were free to end the conversation, say no to the pat down, etc. If, in the opinion of the judge, a reasonable person would have felt free to leave, then the evidence is admissible and the defendant’s appeal is denied.

Yes, people are in jail right now because they voluntarily allowed the police to discover the very evidence that convicted them! They could have said “no” and walked away but now they are in jail. OK, most if not all are deserving of their sentence, but they put themselves in jail and you don’t want to do that.

The determination of what a reasonable person would feel is somewhat arbitrary, but things like the lights on the top of the police car flashing, being surrounded, and other seemingly insignificant actions will make that clear to the judge. The police know what those things are. They will use that knowledge to their advantage.

Did you know that most of the people you see walking around with a folding knife clipped to their front pocket are breaking the law? There is no state preemption on knife blade length, so any city can limit you to a knife with a 3” blade or a 2" blade (for example only!) and anything longer is considered a concealed weapon. That is not covered by your CPL either. Most of the time the police ignore those knives, but if they want to they can confiscate the knife and send it to the city prosecutor to decide if they should press charges. If the police stop you and ask to see your knife, and you willingly hand it over to them, you can be charged. This is why I do not carry a folding knife when I’m OCing; I don’t want to give them RAS to detain me should they be able to make out the outline of my knife and easily see it has a 4’ blade. (or later claim they thought they saw it was 4")

So what’s a person to do? Does everyone need to know the legal intricacies of what constitutes a seizure, or what a reasonable person feels? Remember, the police know those things; they are trained and retrained on those things. They get additional training when a court reinterprets those intricacies. So use their knowledge to supplement your own knowledge. Ask the simple question; “Are you detaining me?” If that’s the first words out of your mouth at the very beginning of an encounter with the police (that’s not a traffic stop) then there can be no ambiguity later if the officer decides to arrest you. Will it go that far? Not likely. The very question triggers things in the officer’s brain because he knows the legal definition of a seizure and what he may or may not do during a stop.

There are three types on non-traffic police encounters about which you need to be knowledgeable:

1. The friendly chat.
2. Seizure (or detainment)
3. Arrest

The police can do the first one any time they want, for any reason under the sun. They don’t need your permission to stop and chat with you any more than anyone else does. They do, however, need your voluntary cooperation. This means that you don’t have to talk to them if you don’t want to. You don’t want to. There is nothing to be gained and much to lose by submitting to a police encounter that they initiated. (if you initiate the encounter it would be somewhat silly not to cooperate).

To do the second, seizure, they need reasonable articulable suspicion that there is a crime afoot and that you are involved. Read up on Terry Stops (google it) for more information. Keep in mind that WA considers your rights under Article 1 Section 7 to be more restrictive on the police (the government) then the US Constitution’s 4[suP]th[/suP] Amendment.

For the third, arrest, they need probable cause, which I won’t discuss for brevity.

So the long and short of it is this, always ask if the officer is seizing you. “Am I being detained?” If he says no, walk away. If you want to gamble that he can find something to arrest your for, go ahead and chat with him or her a while. Really, what do you have to lose except your freedom or your firearms rights?

If the officer says yes, that he is detaining you, immediately ask, “For suspicion of what crime are you detaining me?” Not only will you impress him or her with your proper grammar, but you’ll find out why he or she approached you. After all, you have no idea what was told to the dispatcher if someone reported a person with a gun. Did they just tell them that you were shopping, or did they tell them that you were pointing your gun at people? At any rate, if you are being detained ask for a supervisor and say nothing else. I’m not going to get into specific legal advice because I’m not qualified to do so.

Sometimes they ignore your question because they want to keep the ambiguity for later (at the evidentiary hearing) in case they need it. Ask again. Ask, “Am I free to leave?” Don’t knuckle under. If a reasonable person believes that they would not be free to leave, then you are seized. Inform the officer that you don’t feel like you are free to leave and inform him or her that you will not be answering any questions with the presence of an attorney. Seriously though, it’s highly unlikely it will ever get that far if all you’re doing is openly carrying a handgun in a holster. The police don’t like easy-to-lose lawsuits.

Now, knowing all this, do you see the mistake SpyderTatoo made here:

The weird encounter was at Kent Station. I was in a Zumiez store to look for a hat. I had left my ID and CPL in my truck. Two KPD bicycle officers approached mein the store and asked if we could go outside and talk. So when I said "ok" officer #1 asked me to cover up my gun. I said, "I can't cover it up, I left my CPL in my truck." This is when he told me "It's OK this time, go ahead and cover it up so we can go outside".

Click to expand...

Right, he failed to ask the simple question and the police wasted a lot of his time. Had he simply asked, “Am I being detained?” the police would have said no and the encounter would be over. He chose to gamble with his freedom and his rights, and this time he won. Something as seemingly insignificant as a pocket knife or the tip of a plastic bag sticking out of his pocket could have been a losing play for him.

Click to expand...

For now, I will choose carefully where and when I OC. I have to protect my income as well.

Click to expand...

I am very surprised about the knife, because I carry a 4" folding knife as well. I guess I won't be doing that anymore. :uhoh:

Click to expand...

Ruby,

I highly recommend watching the following. Now after Mainsail's excellent explanaton, this video is a great tool to understanding interactions with LEO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA

and

http://flexyourrights.org/

Click to expand...

Actually, I didn't include all the words spoken in this encounter because I didn't have time to type it all out. At first, I wanted this chance to educate these KPD officers because of my previous encounter with another officer. I knew that the KPD was a little behind the 8-ball. After explaining to them that I know what the law is about carrying identification and the CPL, I did ask them if I was being detained. They told me "No". That's when I said to them "Have a nice day.".

So if I sound a little defensive... I don't think I did anything wrong. I do have some experience open carrying. I have had encounters with police. A couple not-so-great, and many good ones. Actually, I'd like tothink my encounters with KPD had something to do with how KPD reacts to OC'ers now.

Click to expand...

SpyderTattoo wrote:

Actually, I didn't include all the words spoken in this encounter because I didn't have time to type it all out. At first, I wanted this chance to educate these KPD officers because of my previous encounter with another officer. I knew that the KPD was a little behind the 8-ball. After explaining to them that I know what the law is about carrying identification and the CPL, I did ask them if I was being detained. They told me "No". That's when I said to them "Have a nice day.".

So if I sound a little defensive... I don't think I did anything wrong. I do have some experience open carrying. I have had encounters with police. A couple not-so-great, and many good ones. Actually, I'd like tothink my encounters with KPD had something to do with how KPD reacts to OC'ers now.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Spydertattoo. I am learning a lot from everyone and their experiences. I don't have experience OCing; I am very grateful to everyone who does have experience because you guys have "smoothed the way" for us newbies. If I have an encounter with a LEO, I need to know what my rights are and how to respond so I don't get myself in trouble. It doesn't sound to me like you did anything wrong and I'll bet those LEOs learned something about citizens' rights that day!

Click to expand...

Ruby wrote:

SpyderTattoo wrote:

Actually, I didn't include all the words spoken in this encounter because I didn't have time to type it all out. At first, I wanted this chance to educate these KPD officers because of my previous encounter with another officer. I knew that the KPD was a little behind the 8-ball. After explaining to them that I know what the law is about carrying identification and the CPL, I did ask them if I was being detained. They told me "No". That's when I said to them "Have a nice day.".

So if I sound a little defensive... I don't think I did anything wrong. I do have some experience open carrying. I have had encounters with police. A couple not-so-great, and many good ones. Actually, I'd like tothink my encounters with KPD had something to do with how KPD reacts to OC'ers now.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Spydertattoo. I am learning a lot from everyone and their experiences. I don't have experience OCing; I am very grateful to everyone who does have experience because you guys have "smoothed the way" for us newbies. If I have an encounter with a LEO, I need to know what my rights are and how to respond so I don't get myself in trouble. It doesn't sound to me like you did anything wrong and I'll bet those LEOs learned something about citizens' rights that day!

Click to expand...

I hope SpyderTatoo, and anyone else reading my painfully long diatribe, doesn't get the impression that I’m being critical of his actions. I’ve been there and done that on many occasions. In other words, I’ve boned up my share of police encounters.

My advice is not based on years of legal study but on a couple dozen police encounters. I’ve worn handcuffs on at least two occasions, and was even arrested (then promptly un-arrested) once for open carry. I’ve had police answer my question, “For suspicion of what crime are you detaining me?’ by answering “I’m detaining you because you have a gun”. Carrying a gun is not a crime, thus does not rise to anywhere near the level required for a Terry stop.

If I had known then what I know now, there may well be one Tacoma police officer working security at Best Buy instead of driving around in a police car.

I have also asked the question, “Are you detaining me?” and gotten the answer, “No, but…” and I walked away. It isn’t ballsy or bold, it is just the best practice.

So anyway, I’m not being critical of SpyderTatoo but sort of generalizing a number of encounters I’ve read about here in the forums, Washington and other states, and his was just convenient to this particular thread. My advise stands, talk to the police at your own risk. It’s easy enough to walk away.

Too often I think we want to engage the officer in a debate out of nothing more than pride. We think we can stump him with our knowledge of the RCWs. We think we can make him scratch his head and say, “Hey, you know, you’re right. I’m so sorry.” Trust me, it ain’t gonna happen. Not with your legal prowess and not with your pamphlets. It will not happen. So why try? Again, you have much to lose and nothing to gain.

Now look, I’ve gone and gotten all verbose and long-winded again.

Click to expand...