Parking in some other church's lot without permission is trespass even before someone comes out to tell her to leave.
Uh, yeah. I'd ask for a cite, but it would be pointless because you can't cite the incorrect. The law you cited only applies in the nighttime, or if the person is explicitly asked to leave.
There's a church in Blacksburg that declares "Thou shall not park!"
Too bad that doesn't create a curtilage, or equate to actual "No trespassing" signage adequately posted around the perimeter. There's a difference between being able to tow someone's car and being able to charge them with trespassing. Now, does the church in question have such signage?
I think it's hilarious how user's deciding to take on the officer's defense caused this thread to turn on a dime into a bastion of police apologia, without there being a single change in the known facts or a shred of conceivable justifiability.
The mere fact that the guy found a lawyer, and that some of us happen to know the lawyer, and that said lawyer made the expected statements regarding his client's innocence (which is, after all, his job) doesn't in any way change the facts of the situation, and it isn't capable of magically justifying the unjustifiable. Nor, as it happens, are the misguided judgements of a judicial system more concerned with bolstering its own authority than with the rights of the citizens it supposedly exists to protect, or even basic justice.
Anti-police bias and blah blah blah I know, but I'm quite confident that when all the salient facts are finally revealed (assuming they will be, which is probably an unsafe assumption), the death of this woman will remain as indefensible as it appeared at the onset, user's bought-and-paid-for remarks (no judgement there) notwithstanding.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes applies to church ladies, too.
You are so willing to see everything the cop did as bad, evil, and if not fattening at least illegal and/or unconstitutional. Why are you unwilling to consider that Mrs. Cook may have in at least some ways contributed to the situation and how it ended up being resolved?
See, I get this. But to stretch it into even an insinuation that the
de facto reality equates to justifiability or objective defensibility is absurd.
I mean, I hate to conform to Godwin's law, but I think a bit of
reductio ad absurdum is in order. In Nazi Germany, the Gestapo "disappeared" all kinds of people for trivialities. It was quite inarguably "stupid" to, for instance, hide Jews from the authorities. Clearly, then, we should defend the Gestapo's actions, as all their victims likely knew better, or should have known better. Or are we to only defend our own particular brand of police state extrajudicial homicide without reasonable cause?
See, I get that the woman might have done something "stupid". In fact, I'm sure she did. If nothing else, it's always "stupid" to piss of an armed agent of the law free to act with virtual impunity. That doesn't mean the
unecessary homicide of such a "stupid" person is justifiable, or ought to be defended.
Now is a perfectly good time to point out
that this is exactly the sort of situation which we should cease tolerating as a society. It's beyond immoral that nonaggressive middle aged women should have to worry that minor "stupidities" will get them killed, especially when the danger is so easily mitigable. We all have better things to do than walk on our tiptoes every time a police officer is in sight. That isn't how a free society operates, and
now is a perfectly good time to argue that case. And platitudes about writing my representatives when significant social awareness of the issue would first be needed to effect any notable change are less than valueless. In fact, your (intentional or otherwise) defense of the
de facto "stupidity death penalty" as meted out by law enforcement officers (rather than, say, passing trains or grizzly bears) is itself an impediment to the achievement of that social awareness, whether or not you recognize it, or care to admit it.