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Culpeper shooting
- Thread starter TFred
- Start date
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+19.2-74 [emphasis added] (and see bolded portion for additional relevance to this subject)
In order for the officer to issue the summons he must have reasonable information about the identity of the person so arrested. If the officer has reason to believe a false name or address has been given he may detain the individual for the purpose of ascertaining true identity. This may involve either cross-checking an "identity document" issued to the arrestee or being held while fingerprints (usually) are checked. Why, you ask, might an officer want to be sure that the name and address given are correct?
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+19.2-82.1
So there is no statutory requirement to hand over "your papers" - but they may be requested to verify that you are who you say you are if the arresting officer has reason to question the identification you have provided. That brings us into the realm of procedure as opposed to statute. What, short of being brought downtown and held until a report on your fingerprints comes back from VSP and/or FBI would satisfy the officer that you are who you said you were?
stay safe.
In order for the officer to issue the summons he must have reasonable information about the identity of the person so arrested. If the officer has reason to believe a false name or address has been given he may detain the individual for the purpose of ascertaining true identity. This may involve either cross-checking an "identity document" issued to the arrestee or being held while fingerprints (usually) are checked. Why, you ask, might an officer want to be sure that the name and address given are correct?
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+19.2-82.1
To be sure that another crime is not being committed in the presence of the officer, of course!
So there is no statutory requirement to hand over "your papers" - but they may be requested to verify that you are who you say you are if the arresting officer has reason to question the identification you have provided. That brings us into the realm of procedure as opposed to statute. What, short of being brought downtown and held until a report on your fingerprints comes back from VSP and/or FBI would satisfy the officer that you are who you said you were?
stay safe.
user
Accomplished Advocate
Virginia doesn't go by the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Ordinarily in Virginia, criminal cases are very much governed by the rules of "trial by ambush". In this case, however, the facts are pretty well laid out, and there are really only minor differences of perception about exactly what happened. E.g., was the cop's left hand on the door handle or the right? How many feet into the street did he actually go after the Jeep passed him? Most of the physical facts are well-documented, and there's not really much room for controversy. The question really has to do with the law to be applied to those facts, which governs how the whole system of facts will be characterized.
In many ways, this is exactly the kind of case I've been telling people about for years: if you're involved in a defensive shooting, and you were right to do what you did, then there's no point in dancing around the fact of the homicide. That's the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room; everybody already knows about that and it's just plain silly to try to dodge that issue. The real question is why, from the point of view of the person on trial, did it happen? That's what we're going to be arguing about in this case.
I think both sides laid out their whole case, pretty much, in the bond hearing. I don't know who all the Commonwealth's witnesses are, but I think I know what they're going to say, and I know where the bullets ended up in the decedant, and how they got there. I think that's why the newsfaces have put this case on the back burner. I noticed that on the day of the hearing, there was a good bit of reportage at five pm, much less at six pm, and nothing at 11. I think that's because we've taken the air out of their drama-balloon. There's no more mystery, no more drama, no more entertainment value, and no more car and detergent advertising dollars in this case.
user
Accomplished Advocate
Skid's absolutely right. § 19.2-74 requires a person to identify himself in order to be let go with a summons. It doesn't strictly require production of an operator's license, however the suspect in this case was operating a motor vehicle and was required to turn over the license upon demand pursuant to § 46.2-104.
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user
Accomplished Advocate
There had apparently been a number of such incidents involving the same suspect in recent times prior to this one. So the issue is not about baiting the cop into grabbing the door handle, it's about baiting the cop into sticking his arm into the car long enough to roll the window up on his hand and start driving away with him attached to the car, and then ignoring his attempt to open the door and his loudly repeated orders to stop the car, so that he'd have to shoot. My suspicion has been that this was just the first of several cops who was trusting enough to take the bait.
By the way, the one witness who said on the news that the officer's left hand was on the door handle is their "throwaway" witness. The Commonwealth doesn't want their really good witnesses exposed to news attention, and this guy was their least credible, having a history that makes anything he says under oath subject to collateral attack. His angle of vision actually precluded him from being able to see all of what happened, anyway. Besides, the officer's hand was injured in a way that is consistent with his version of what happened, and fragments of his hairs and blood were found in the window channel.
I'm not saying I'm invested in that theory, absent more facts, but that's the explanation for my suspicion.
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user
Accomplished Advocate
I think a middle aged woman with no ties to that church or school, poking around the building and peering at the children through the windows is pretty creepy. And those sunshades are pretty cheap, you can get one at the dollar store - just don't go driving down East Street (one block over from Main) down toward Davis Street with the thing still blocking your view, since the intersection of Davis and Main is the big one in beautiful downtown Culpeper where there's likely to be the greatest number of pedestrians.
Fortunately, in this context, I am allowed to state my personal views and opinions (and that is, of course, all they are); I can't do that at trial. And, in this context, that's pretty much all I'm doing is spouting off about my own personal views and opinions. That and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee most anywhere, I reckon.
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user
Accomplished Advocate
By the way, I wonder if anyone's read the civil complaint filed in Culpeper Circuit Ct. for Mr. Cook's wrongful death suit? I'm thinking there's a lot of stuff in there that, well, my client says is just plain false, but it's stuff that is obviously just made-up. Even if true, there's just no way anyone could possibly have known what the facts were in some of those allegations. I wonder if anyone else has been puzzled by that?
That and free refills........for which you've already paid.
Thanks for the clarification on Rules of Criminal Procedure vs "trial by ambush" in Virginia courts. :uhoh:
Originally Posted by Citizen
Cite, please.
Skid has provided that and more; however, if something is commonly known though, a cite is not necessary. Showing DL when requested and when operating a vehicle is common knowledge. That's my story.
Anything in this section to the contrary notwithstanding, if any person is believed by the arresting officer to be likely to disregard a summons issued under the provisions of this subsection, or if any person is reasonably believed by the arresting officer to be likely to cause harm to himself or to any other person, a magistrate or other issuing authority having jurisdiction shall proceed according to the provisions of § 19.2-82.
Noticed some "assumptions." Isn't literary license part n' parcel of civil suits?
Is the civil complaint available online somewhere?
user
Accomplished Advocate
marshaul
Campaign Veteran
OK, now what about the shots he fired after she was rolling out of the parking lot, and he was no longer in contact with her vehicle?
marshaul
Campaign Veteran
I read it Dan and I can't imagine why it was filed when it was. Really getting the cart before the horse.
Neither he or his attorney were privy to the facts than I am.
It appears it was based on rumor and gossip more than anything else.
user
Accomplished Advocate
You mean at the time that she was a fleeing felon accelerating down a public street with a sunscreen completely covering her windshield towards the most densely trafficked part of Culpeper? That is, while there was one pedestrian who's been identified to the Commonwealth as an eyewitness approaching the scene and two cars coming up the road according to another? Let's see, now: assaulting a police officer; abduction; escape from lawful detention by force; malicious wounding; attempted capital murder; obstruction of justice; and disregarding an order by a police officer to stop the vehicle; seven felonies in all, some of them pretty serious, and obviously intentionally or recklessly endangering the lives of the public. You must mean those shots. The ones that stopped her from killing someone.
I think there's must be a reason why we pay money to issue guns to cops in order to do their law-enforcement duties. It's not just about self-defense. Because if it were about the lives of the cops themselves, we taxpayers wouldn't pay money for that. We pay money to have them protect us from people like this felon. That's what this cop did, proving the old adage, "no good deed goes unpunished."
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user
Accomplished Advocate
I reckon we'll have to start doing some discovery.
Even though there is a lower burden of proof in the civil case, I think the facts that may come out in the criminal case would nullify the majority of their claims.
I can think of one right now that will be hard for them to explain...again, if the gossip is close to correct.
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What makes this case difficult, from my (mostly uneducated) perspective is that it's not about Mrs Cook, it's about the officer. Can he prove his allegations of her commission of several felonies? Can he show that he was dragged, trapped, injured, had her vehicle used on him as a weapon? Can he show he had RAS to shoot just due to his impression that she had a limited view due to the sunscreen and would have recklessly disregarded pedestrians and hit oncoming traffic HAD HE NOT SHOT her twice already?
Now, I don't know if that's a mitigating circumstance. Had he not shot her, she could have taken down the sun screen, presumably. She was not in high speed flight, she had no discernible reason to run over pedestrians, yada, yada.
If we just assume, for the sake of argument, that he was not trapped, his hand was not caught, then how does the case pan out? To me it pretty much falls apart, i.e. he had no legitimate cause to shoot her (except for the fact that being shot by him twice, she was now an impaired driver). So, again, for the sake of argument, if a cop illicitly shoots you and your car goes out of control, does he have the right to rapid fire to kill the driver and thus stop the car, when it's his actions which caused the car to become a deadly missile?
This seems tortuous, and I think a jury will have trouble figuring this out. I guess it depends on the instructions the judge gives them.
Now, I don't know if that's a mitigating circumstance. Had he not shot her, she could have taken down the sun screen, presumably. She was not in high speed flight, she had no discernible reason to run over pedestrians, yada, yada.
If we just assume, for the sake of argument, that he was not trapped, his hand was not caught, then how does the case pan out? To me it pretty much falls apart, i.e. he had no legitimate cause to shoot her (except for the fact that being shot by him twice, she was now an impaired driver). So, again, for the sake of argument, if a cop illicitly shoots you and your car goes out of control, does he have the right to rapid fire to kill the driver and thus stop the car, when it's his actions which caused the car to become a deadly missile?
This seems tortuous, and I think a jury will have trouble figuring this out. I guess it depends on the instructions the judge gives them.
ocholsteroc
Regular Member
update
http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2012/jun/10/culpeper-officer-free-bond-ar-1979353/
Culpeper officer free on bond
Published: June 10, 2012 Updated: June 10, 2012 - 9:36 PM
Harmon-Wright, a five-year veteran with the Culpeper Police Department, is scheduled to return to court for a pretrial motion hearing on July 24.
http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2012/jun/10/culpeper-officer-free-bond-ar-1979353/
Culpeper officer free on bond
Published: June 10, 2012 Updated: June 10, 2012 - 9:36 PM
Harmon-Wright, a five-year veteran with the Culpeper Police Department, is scheduled to return to court for a pretrial motion hearing on July 24.
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