October 9, 2014
Young black man (click here) was shot to death by an off-duty white police officer in St. Louis on Wednesday night, and a tense crowd gathered at the scene nearly two months to the day after a white policeman shot an unarmed black man to death in the nearby suburb of Ferguson.
This time, police say, the man was armed and shot at the officer, who returned fire. But a woman who identified herself as the dead man's cousin said he was holding a sandwich, not a weapon....
October 9. 2014
October 9. 2014
...St. Louis Police Lt. Col. Alfred Adkins (click here) said the 32-year-old officer was working a secondary security job late Wednesday when the shooting happened. Lt. Col. Adkins said the officer, a six-year veteran of the St. Louis Police Department, approached four men on the street.
“As he exited the car, the gentlemen took off running. He was able to follow one of them before he lost him and then found him again as the guy jumped out of some bushes across the street,” Lt. Col. Adkins said. “The officer approached, they got into a struggle, they ended up into a gangway, at which time the young man pulled a weapon and shots were fired. The officer returned fire and unfortunately the young man was killed.”...
...Police said a gun was retrieved from the scene in the Shaw neighborhood, near Missouri Botanical Gardens....
...People who described themselves as relatives of the man who was shot later told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he wasn’t armed.
Lt. Col. Adkins didn’t describe any conversation between the officer and the four pedestrians, and didn’t explain why the officer gave chase.
...when the officer attempted a "pedestrian check," St. Louis police spokeswoman Schron Jackson said in an email. Police did not elaborate on what a pedestrian check is or why it is done.
Jackson said the officer was working a department-approved security job and wearing his uniform when he confronted the pedestrian....
A police officer does not need probable cause (click here) to stop a car or a pedestrian and investigate potential crime. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, a police officer may initiate a temporary stop, a level of intrusion short of an arrest, if the officer can articulate a reasonable suspicion that the suspect has committed a crime or is about to commit a crime.1 This is commonly known as a Terry stop. Further, if the officer can articulate a reasonable basis for suspecting that the subject might be armed, he can pat down the outer clothing of the suspect in a limited search for weapons. This is commonly referred to as a Terry frisk....
A police officer does not need probable cause (click here) to stop a car or a pedestrian and investigate potential crime. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, a police officer may initiate a temporary stop, a level of intrusion short of an arrest, if the officer can articulate a reasonable suspicion that the suspect has committed a crime or is about to commit a crime.1 This is commonly known as a Terry stop. Further, if the officer can articulate a reasonable basis for suspecting that the subject might be armed, he can pat down the outer clothing of the suspect in a limited search for weapons. This is commonly referred to as a Terry frisk....
...Officers conducting a lawful Terry stop may take steps reasonably necessary to protect their personal safety, check for identification, and maintain the status quo. Occasionally a suspect will refuse to identify himself. Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Ct. of Nev., a state law requiring a subject to disclose his name during a Terry stop is consistent with the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable search and seizure:
Obtaining a suspect’s name in the course of a Terry stop serves important government interests. Knowledge of identity may inform an officer that a suspect is wanted for another offense, or has a record of violence or mental disorder. On the other hand, knowing identity may help clear a suspect and allow the police to concentrate their efforts elsewhere.
Such a statute does not implicate the subject’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, as simple disclosure of one’s name presents no reasonable danger of incrimination. But the Court clearly limited the application of this new rule by also noting that an officer may not arrest a suspect for failing to identify himself if the identification request is not reasonably related to the circumstances justifying the stop. The question is, is the request for identity a commonsense inquiry or an effort to obtain an arrest for failure to identify after a Terry stop yielded insufficient evidence?...
This type of statue is basically a police state. When a citizen can't stand alone or with others without being harassed by police for absolutely no reason, that is a police state.
This is going from bad to worse.
...What Does It Mean to Criminalize the Conduct?
It is up to each state or municipality to criminalize a suspect’s failure to reveal his or her identity. Such laws may not make it a crime to fail to reveal one’s name during a consensual encounter; to avoid violating the Fourth Amendment there must, at a minimum, be reasonable suspicion of crime afoot by the subject.
Further, the stop-and-identify law must not be “vague,” according to the Supreme Court. In Kolender it found a California statute unconstitutionally vague because it required the subject to produce “credible and reliable” identification that carried a “reasonable assurance” of reliability, and left it up to the officer to determine what “credible and reliable” and “reasonable assurance” are. Acceptable statutes simply require disclosure and leave it to the subject to decide how to comply....
And if a person doesn't have their wallet with them to produce ID they are a criminal with or without a rape sheet. This is outrageous.
October 7, 2014
By William M. Welch and Yamiche Alcindor
A federal judge (click here) ruled Monday that a tactic police used to control protesters in Ferguson, Mo., is unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction halting the practice.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry in St. Louis ordered law enforcement agencies to stop enforcing a requirement that protesters keep moving rather than stand still....
Law enforcement officers, seeking to control angry crowds, had ordered people to walk and not stand still while demonstrating over the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer. The American Civil Liberties Union sued to halt the practice...
...Perry's order stops police "from enforcing or threatening to enforce any rule, policy or practice that grants law enforcement officers the authority or discretion to arrest, threaten to arrest or order to move individuals who are violating no statute or regulation and who are peaceably standing, marching or assembling on public sidewalks in Ferguson, Missouri.''
What is so different between St. Louis and Ferguson? Geography?
This type of statue is basically a police state. When a citizen can't stand alone or with others without being harassed by police for absolutely no reason, that is a police state.
This is going from bad to worse.
...What Does It Mean to Criminalize the Conduct?
It is up to each state or municipality to criminalize a suspect’s failure to reveal his or her identity. Such laws may not make it a crime to fail to reveal one’s name during a consensual encounter; to avoid violating the Fourth Amendment there must, at a minimum, be reasonable suspicion of crime afoot by the subject.
Further, the stop-and-identify law must not be “vague,” according to the Supreme Court. In Kolender it found a California statute unconstitutionally vague because it required the subject to produce “credible and reliable” identification that carried a “reasonable assurance” of reliability, and left it up to the officer to determine what “credible and reliable” and “reasonable assurance” are. Acceptable statutes simply require disclosure and leave it to the subject to decide how to comply....
And if a person doesn't have their wallet with them to produce ID they are a criminal with or without a rape sheet. This is outrageous.
October 7, 2014
By William M. Welch and Yamiche Alcindor
A federal judge (click here) ruled Monday that a tactic police used to control protesters in Ferguson, Mo., is unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction halting the practice.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry in St. Louis ordered law enforcement agencies to stop enforcing a requirement that protesters keep moving rather than stand still....
Law enforcement officers, seeking to control angry crowds, had ordered people to walk and not stand still while demonstrating over the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer. The American Civil Liberties Union sued to halt the practice...
...Perry's order stops police "from enforcing or threatening to enforce any rule, policy or practice that grants law enforcement officers the authority or discretion to arrest, threaten to arrest or order to move individuals who are violating no statute or regulation and who are peaceably standing, marching or assembling on public sidewalks in Ferguson, Missouri.''
What is so different between St. Louis and Ferguson? Geography?
