il_knicks7 wrote:Thorn wrote:As a law enforcement officer, you show up to the scene of a complaint. People report her having full blown coitus in her car on display for all to see her description and that of the car match reports.
She decides "screw you I am leaving and walks away"
How do you respond?
If there are no witnesses and no evidence on the scene, then you should walk away. There is no end game since you really have no chance to make a case/arrest. You can seek a conflict with s few random people, but I can't see how that serves any purpose.
In any case, If you do ask some random person for an ID and and they refuse/walk away, you try to resolve it verbally. Using force/cuffing people should be the last resort.
So you ask nice like, but she/he walks away. You ask again they tell you they wont comply, and continue to walk away.
This in no way makes you wonder why he/she will not show proof of citizenship/ID? You just keep asking? Do you follow them like a puppy begging? Do you just give up? Or do you do your duty and detain the person to determine the facts of the matter before allowing someone to walk away?
Maybe we should give the cops squirt guns, silly straws, and hair ties so as to make nice with everyone who refuses to comply with lawful requests and directions.
Going by your story above let's say the person leaving was a prostitute, a drug dealer, or a run away teen forced into life of prostitution. Do you feel as an officer of the law your asking nice over and over again before giving up and making all law enforcement look like ineffectual, and impotent jokes was a good move?
When it comes down to it you are hinging everything on "he had no reason to think she committed a crime because he didn't see it".
There are some real problems with that line of thought.
1- In many crimes there are no eye witness accounts, we have jury's who decide guilt and innocence based on evidence presented beyond a reasonable doubt. You as an officer of the law do not need to see the crime in progress.
2 - The members of law enforcement have a hard enough job without making their lives harder by allowing anyone who wants to flee the scene do so as they sit and twiddle their thumbs. The "I asked super duper nicely" policy you are suggesting is laughable and would never work with criminals. Clearly it did not work here with this girl who was in fact having sex in plain view of other citizens who reported it and who was at the scene NEAR, or on the car that was called in as part of the complaint.
3 - The price you pay for living in a world where there are people to protect you from violent crime is the minor hassle of you know, producing ID, and answering some questions. If that is the worst thing that happened to that girl on that day... she was doing pretty damn good.
4 - To detain a person you have to use restraints in order to protect yourself, the public and the detainee, if not you run the risk of a larger problem. He does not know this girl from any other. If she is armed, if she is violent, if she has aids, if she has contaminated needles, if she is mentally ill, if she is the queen of England. No clue, so he has to control the situation and ensure the safety of all involved.
At the end of the day you have your opinion and you are welcome to it, but law enforcement can not and should not function the way you are suggesting, and it is as simple as that.
More over the only victim here is the law enforcement official was defamed publicly by this liar over the course of several days and you just do not seem to care about that which is tragic in a way... because he was a good cop who even according to you breached no protocol and was verbally assaulted by this brat and then she went on a smear campaign to destroy his name and reputation because he did not give into her childish demands, threats, guilt trips, and parental pressure from her daddy.
You are standing on the wrong side of the issue, and that is cool like I said you have your opinion I have mine and clearly it is not worth talking about further with you.
