Do you think defending yourself against a law enforcement officer should be a right?

I think you are blurring the lines here... if an officer has a reasonable suspicion to believe I fit a description of a crime that warrants force or extreme caution, then you have no legal right to resist that investigation or detaining of your person or property, that has already been settled in the courts many times over... now if I resist an officer, who is actually violating my rights, that too is a crime irregardless of if I am right or wrong, and even if I win a lawsuit against the officer and his employer for violating my civil rights, I could still be charged with resisting or shooting him, as every officer, even if they make a mistake, or commit a violation of your rights, still has the legal authority to use any force needed if you become a threat to their safety, which they could claim if you pull away or turn or make any sudden movements really... this also has been proven in courts many many times over...

I'm not even going to get into comparing mexico to america, which I'm basing all my information on, as mexico is a whole mess of issues...

a traffic stop? the officer wants your friends to get out, or give them ID's... by law they don't need to for your traffic stop, but let me tell you, the officer will go into super suspicious cop mode when someone says no to them... but if the cop has no reasonable suspicion more than a traffic violation occurred, they do not have to ID themselves... nor do you need to get out of the car if asked to... see cops will often give you commands, but they won't tell you which ones you legally must follow... its up to you to find out and challenge them verbally... "are you asking me to step out on my own, or are you giving me a lawful order to step out"... many will be caught off guard because they will have to carefully define which they are doing, which can have consequences to what happens next in a court, and on their personal record... especially if they have a recording device like a dashcam or audio, or if you do with say your cellphone... you do have to present your license, you do have to present your insurance (in some states) and you do have to show your registration (in some states)... now if you don't have one of those pieces of information, you can be ordered out of your car as you now can be placed under arrest, or receive additional tickets if they choose, or nothing extra at all... their call...
many times they will say they smelled alcohol or pot coming from the car, which means game is over and this is one cop who does not like being challenged and you will lose every time you resist him physically... at that point he can haul everyone out of the car and search the car and you can't resist it without a high probability of him pushing his envelope further since he's clearly been willing to lie to give him probable cause... thats why cops aren't judges and juries... you will have your day in court to prove your innocence, assuming the cop ultimately arrests you, some will just give you a verbal warning and there will magically be no ticket, or some will just give you the speeding ticket only... there are just so many scenarios where things break either way its hard to give one blanket statement of what you may resist... but physically, if you are given a lawful order, you can not physically resist, as the law always sides with the officer at that point... even if the arrest is thrown or or violated your civil rights, you simply can't physically resist...

Now... let's say... you are walking down the street, and an officer tells you to to stop, and wants to see your ID... you may say, officer what crime do you suspect me of committing to require my ID... he may say various things like if you've got nothing to hide its not a big deal just give me your ID... in this scenario the cop has no right to see your ID, but he can request it, and for all intense purposes, deceive and manipulate you into giving it to him... without any suspicion that you have done anything wrong... officers are trained to manipulate you through their training to just get your ID and intimidate and control the situation... its good training thats handy in many situations, but many times this will be abused... those are the officers who you can "resist" to a limited degree, but you must very carefully choose your words and thoughts...

but at any point, many laws can be used against you in situations even where you have a legal right to "resist", but when the officer ultimately decides to charge you with a crime, then your rights go out the window until you are in a court of law, and that officers will have every right to put cuffs on you and give you a day in court to battle him... now many will push it as far as they possibly can without getting more than a mere note in their file, meanwhile you spend a night or weekend in jail until you're able to get before a judge... ultimately 9 out of 10 times, you will lose as they have much more experience with how the legal system works than the average person, and how to bend and twist things, thats why we see so many videos where cops are caught on their own recorders whispering things to other officers so things match... because they know what they did was done wrong, but with two different reports written it will be almost impossible for you to prove your rights were violated...

I could go off on so many tangents since you really blurred the lines on what resisting is for your question, but in case of physical resistance, you will always lose... always... always... I can't make that more clear... always...

 

so if a cop is raping a female, she should not have the right to defend herself and should just comply, i voted "only under very extreme circumstances "

because of the risk of the law not believing you I would only defend yourself when you have no choice, a cop is beating you to dead, your being raped, ect....

because of the power a cop has, they should be required to wear a copcam that can not be disabled at all times while interacting with the public

if a cop is accused of abuse and they do not have their cam on, that should be a sign of guilt

...

 

A police officer does not really have any more "power" than anyone else. The only difference is that they can exert their power and not be punished for it. That's really what this is about here: punishment after the fact.

 

which is why they need to where copcams, they have the power and you can't do anything about it until after the fact

 

The reason she shouldn't fight back is back that increases the chances of her being killed. I see what you're saying though. Instead of rape let's say kill for no reason. If the person doesn't act then something serious will happen to them that will impact them the rest of their life. Do they have the right to defend themselves then? I would still say don't fight back. Let the cop try to spin the story but the evidence won't hold up. Even if it doesn't, taking a life or doing something to that degree is a life changing moment for the cop. It doesn't matter if the courts punish him, he will be punished in other ways for the rest of his life.

 

Well thats a new problem we're going to have with these body cameras... remember ooo what was it like 20 years ago when dashcams were the hot topic, and because it was new technology we went through all the typical learning curves... we found that when officers were left to turn it on, many "forgot" to turn it on because it was just not a habit for them yet, and/or an excuse for some... then people started to wire the cameras to automatically turn on when the overhead lights were turned on... and suddenly we had a rash of corrupt data from the storage media used, so someone got the bright idea to put that in a lockbox in the trunk of the car, and only the supervisor could remove it... and that lead to coverups at stations that included those supervisors... but once we finally found a way, to stop officers, and supervisors, from controlling the media by not recording or deleting it, suddenly we still had the problem that the dashcam still did not show everything we needed to know in a situation, but people wanted to judge things solely based on what was in camera range or on audio... and people wanted to exclude anything not on the camera... it lead to a real mess in some trials as legal wranglers tried to come up with new ways to get people off...

we're going to go through all of the same issues with body cameras, and we've already seen a progressive path following exactly what happened with dashcams about 20 years ago... officers who are in charge of turning a device on, now suddenly those cameras are damaged when they are turned in and the data unrecoverable, and supervisors who "lose" the storage cards, to society only wanting to judge what they see and hear in the narrow view of a camera (either bodycam or cellphone from someone else)... so we're back to exactly what we've already been through, and we still haven't managed to solve the issue, but we'll manage to make it a little better and useful in some instances... but society is going to have to relive its "it wasn't on camera so its not fact" mindset again, and we're going to have to relive the "its on camera so its the only fact" conclusions again...

one thing we have learned as a result of dashcams and are slowly learning from bodycams... police complaints go down in agencies that have managed to effectively control the data from manipulation... however just having them, does not create that statistic, only when they are used effectively does this occur... so spending the money won't solve the problem, solving the problem of removing the human interaction of control over the data does... so I think the only way this will help, is with a bunch of fisheye cameras for a wide viewing angle, with streaming data 24/7 from that officers camera which will remove the officer and supervisors control over the data... unfortunately I'm not sure I'm ready to spend more of my tax dollars to do that, its going to be costly as heck... and I'm not really sure I want to be on yet another camera simply because a cop walked past me and had a camera on... I dunno... I'm rambling now...

P.S. think of the younger generation growing up, if they don't see it on camera, it probably never happened in their mindset... they live through the screen on their phones, instead of looking up to see the world and whats happening around them... its a scary narrow view that we're training them to judge life with... gee can't wait until they are on a jury and responsible with making a choice with/without a cellphone video as the only evidence... how much are you willing to take a chance with the "looking down at life through a cellphone generation"...

 

I would let the cop hurt me too, because I would be afraid he would say resisting arrest, I would hope someone caught it on camera and would hope justice would be done to the cop later and he not walk

there are very few situations I could see myself fighting back, it would have to be one of those crazy extreme ones that hardly ever happen in real life

 

I have no upper arm strength whatsoever because I bike everywhere. I wouldn't be able to fight back even if I wanted to.

 

and sadly some think if you claim police abuse and it's not on camera... it never happened
heck, some can see on on video and claim it never happened

we need the video, it's just one more peice to the puzzle

sure some criminals will get off cause cops violates the rules... but guess what, they rules are there for a reason, if the rules need changed, they will need to be changed, just cause now we can prove cops broke the rules is not a bad thing

 

I really wish all cops were good, most are, cause that is one thing no one should ever have to worry about... when a bad cop is caught, they should always be made examples of

 

There in lies the problem. What exactly is there duty? Is it to upholding the law or is it promoting order? If the law is upheld there is a chance that more chaos could come from it. Think about removing all of the criminals on the street, even the ones that maintain order. That wouldn't make cities safer. But if order is upheld then there is no change to the system and corruption can flourish.

 

What is such a "right?"
You have a "right" to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness...
But what does that get you?

You may have rights as a pedestrian
But you are still dead if you insist on your rights by stepping in front of a speeding car

Generally, people over estimate the strength of their legal position
And many encounters with leo are ambiguous...
And the benefit of the doubt will always go to the leo
As it must or no one would do the job

I would think carefully about the trade offs before insisting on my right to self defense with a leo
"...... This is something black folks figured out a long time ago

 

I agree, there are always going to be messes in life, but I'd rather have more information than less when figuring out a mess... but part of the new mess we're having is with more information comes more opinions, and people want folks to pick a side... you go left, you go right, or you go with the law... but even that is a mess in a court of law when people are paid to push the boundary one way or the other... this is why I'm glad most laws have been slow to be created and adopted, with limited scope... unfortunately most of the easy stuff we've already figured out, and now the fuzzy gray middle is being argued, and everyone is rushing to pass quick measures to patch things without the ability to understand the true scope of what they are doing... but society seems to be accepting the "we'll just fix it later or something" attitude, but we have to pass it NOW NOW NOW... it scares me...

the law wasn't designed to convict 100% of criminals, it was designed to convict the vast majority while keeping the right to be innocent, until proven guilty, alive... now we're shifting to guilty, until you prove innocent... scary stuff...

 

agree, had cops of always been punished when they were caught behaving badly, I do not think people would be calling for copcams as greatly as they are now though, so this change is needed

 

I know it's a whole different discussion... but... (lol, don't you hate when someone says but)

I still find it amazing, society as a whole, is more worried about less than 1% of the crimes committed by police, than the 99% of crimes committed by ordinary citizens... that really does amaze me to what lengths they will go when they can blame anyone but themselves... I mean every day in chicago someone has been killed this month, but we're only worried about the ones done by a cop a couple times a year, even if it's justified... I know a lot of this has to do with, well we can address the ones by the cop, but we as a society have no clue how to address the other 99%... so let's all make the 1% the real issue and pretend that will solve the issue... now I'm just babbling...

P.S> I noticed your quote tagline... bodycams are americas sugar pill for solving gun deaths... heh...

 

not more worried about it, I expect better of cops, I give cops more power and trust then a common criminal, so I expect more of them, if they want to wield the power of the badge, they have to be held to a higher standard

no, copcams are the way justice can be served after the fact, they are not a cure, I would make them cellular and have them automatically upload to a 3rd party server

though I do think some citizens would treat cops better if they knew they themselves were being recorded and the video being uploaded to a server, same as I think some cops would behave better

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I doubt nature even recognizes the existence of law enforcement.




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While I agree with most of what you said, I often think, rationale logical people would not be the ones often in the situations where we need cameras to prove what happened... so I doubt knowing the cameras are there, would change the irrational and nutjobs who too often are the source of all the controversy... I mean there was a measurable drop in crimes back when security cameras started to become the norm at places of business, they would proudly post signs outside letting people know they will be caught on camera... but after they were everywhere, crime seemed to creep up again despite society now knowing they are on camera... so behavior was just stalled, not stopped... this is where I think society will go again, I mean look at all the videos on the internet, we see and catch people doing things, and the whole time these people are aware one or multiple people are recording their actions and will post that video... yet they still continue their behavior... so while I think cameras will assist those who are wronged and genuinely need additional evidence proving that, I doubt it will change society to be more law abiding in the end... a temporary delay until the shock of being told they are on camera wears off and they act the same way... (I seem to have stated the same thing 10 different ways in this message, I also have an obsession with dots...)...

 

Anyone who physically abuses me or my family will be met with retaliating force. If a cop thinks he can just beat me when I am not resisting initially, he will become fair game.

 

Yes, and that is why I encourage the recording of police ecounters.. Cops should be required to wear cameras at all times because most cops are liars....

I encourage citizens to know their civil rights as well..

 

No you're not.... Cops need probable cause. If they don't have probable cause they have ZERO right to bark orders and you can go tell them to (*)(*)(*)(*) off...

 

You don't understand the concept of probable cause do you? This isn't Russia you know.

I record EVERY encounter with police I have....

Go watch the numerous videos on You Tube of cops getting owned by people who know their rights....

If you know your rights cops back off really fast - especially if they're being recorded.

 

The key phrase is lawful. Some cops don't even know what the law is. Of course that usually ends up being a legal lottery for the abused, unless of course the cop just kills you instead.

 

That has nothing to do with it... Cops have to obey the law too you know..

Cops cant just walk up to random people and start searching them, cops cant go door to door searching homes etc.....

A cop better have a damn good and legitimate reason to approach me otherwise he's going to be told to (*)(*)(*)(*) off and there is nothing he can do about it.

 

Only under extreme conditions and those extreme conditions are defined merely under the act of survival.
I do believe that the systematic manner to go against oppression from the police is the best way. However I am not a revolutionary. I am a reformist.