SouthernBoy
Regular Member
LEO brings a lot of this upon themselves. Here's a little story about that:
About 12 years ago I was a witness regarding a minor crime in my neighborhood. A neighbor called the police, they came, didn't approach anyone watching the situation for a statement so we went on with our lives. Next morning I was putting stuff in the car to leave the house and saw an LEO canvassing. He approached me in my driveway, asked me if I saw the incident, and I gave him a statement. He asked for my name and confirmation of my address. Sure. Then he asked for my SSN. I told him it wasn't relevant. He insisted it was the law. I told him I didn't think it was and I wasn't comfortable providing it. He threatened to arrest me!! I was like, "Really? In my own driveway after I helped you?"
He reached for his cuffs. I said I was going to lock up the house first. He said I was going to jail first. I asked for a supervisor. He told me there was one at the station after my arrest. I was late for work by then. I wasn't absolutely sure of the statute and was rather tight financially at the time so I relented. I later found out he was absolutely wrong or he lied. Either way, the arrest threat was out of line. In MO a witness is required to provide name and address and nothing else.
Fast forward a decade. I was a witness to a traffic accident. Cop from the same PD asked for a witness statement. I provided my atty's name and told him the statement would be through his office. Cop thought I was nuts. Told him I had a bad experience being an uninvolved witness for his PD before and offered to add my atty's phone number.
None of it involved firearms nor my doing anything remotely wrong but to the contrary, my being a good citizen. There was a very real and imminent threat to my liberty in response from the gov't agent on my curtilage. I don't hate LEOs by any means as friends and family members in the profession will profess, however, I also will never, ever, ever again under any circumstances trust any LEO from any agency about any matter simply because s/he is LEO. The days of Officer Friendly are long over and that was a decision of LEOs as a profession and union.
Should have threatened to have him arrested for trespassing.... see how that one plays out.
Seriously, expecting you to supply your SSN is worse than ludicrous, there could be criminal charges for this.