insidious calm said;
The officer had no justification to stop his vehicle in the first place.
Could you cite the state or USSC case that outlawed investigative stops? The facts as reported by Nashmack in post #1 are:
"We just had a call for a man fitting your description, driving a car with your plate numbers, exiting a building with a gun".
The officers had a description of Nashmack, his car, to include the license plate number and a statement from a witness that he exited a building with a gun in hand. I'm pretty sure that would be sufficient grounds to make an investigative stop anywhere in the country. Around here a call like that would be dispatched with the last line saying
Make your own case. Which means that the witness didn't observe a crime in progress and it is up to the officer to decide if there really was a crime committed. A complaint like the hopolophobic woman made is investigated because there is no way to know the full story. For all the dispatcher knew Nashmack could have just murdered several people and was making his getaway.
He certainly had no justification to hold him at gunpoint.
You don't know that. Nowhere in this story does it say what the complainant said or what the dispatcher put out over the radio. If the call was dispatched as simply a man walked out of a building and put a rifle in the car, then no, there was probably no justification for doing a felony stop. But until you know how the call was dispatched you can't judge the officer's actions.
That's just it see. They do have to work with what they are given, and the law is crystal clear in this regard. If the officer doesn't personally see it happen, and the anonymous caller can't articulate an actual crime or specific intent to commit a crime, then the officer has no authority to stop the vehicle, period. Honestly I don't see what is so difficult to understand about it.
Yes you're right the law is crystal clear. Investigative stops are legal. Honestly I don't know what's so difficult to understand about it. Are you suggesting that every time an officer answers a suspicious person call he's breaking the law?
The correct course of action is to sue, seek indictment, or whatever other legal remedy is available to the victim in this case.
On what grounds would you sue? Civil rights? Nashmack wasn't singled out because he was a different color or wasn't in the correct neighborhood for his race. He was stopped because he fit the description of the man seen loading the gun into his car and he was driving a car that matched the description down to the license plate. Excessive force? The officers received a report of an armed man. No jury in the country is going to say they acted improperly. Seek indictment? No laws were broken. The police not only have a legal right to make an investigative stop, they have an obligation to investigate all the complaints.
The whole fiasco probably would have been avoided if the complainant had given the address where Nashmack put his rifle in the car or the dispatcher had known there was a firing range at that address.
mustanger98 said;
I'm reminded of one of Col. Cooper's collumns... he was talking about how so many cops now think they have to cuff everybody. He said some of the best and most effective law enforcement outfits in history almost never did that. He gave for instances of how no Roman citizen was ever shackled, plus that the Mexican Rurales under their El Presidente Diaz thought it rude to remove a suspect's sidearm.
Well so many cops think they have to handcuff everyone because department policy requires it. In many deparments an officer can get time off if he so much as cuffs a subject in front instead of behind his back. I just participated in a survey conducted by a large police trining agency on handcuffing policies. I'll post the results when they become available, but I'd bet that most agencies have policies requiring everyone to be cuffed.
So you take this insulting manner of treating the private citizen (as opposed to "civilian")
Like it or not, anyone
not in police, fire or military service is a civilian. Get any dictionary out and look up the word civilian. This is from the American Heritage Dictionary Second College Edition:
ci-vil-ian(si-vil'yan) n. 1.A person following the pursuits of civil life as distinguished from one serving in a police, firefighting or military force. 2.A student of or specialist in Roman or civil law. -adj Of or pertaining to civilians or civil life; nonmilitary
LTC Cooper would not approve of people attempting to change the meaning of a word in common usage to further a political goal. That is a tactic our enemy uses and we continually decry it here when they do it.
Civilian is not an insult. It means exactly what the dictionary says it means. No more and no less.
The Real Hawkeye said;
If I were to put someone on the ground at gun point, and then explained to the judge that I personally saw him exiting a building with a firearm (let alone that someone told me they saw it), I guarantee that I would be spending some time in the slammer.
That's right because a private citizen is not permitted to detain someone if they didn't personally witness a crime being committed. However in all the states I am aware of a peace officer, police officer or however the law describes the officer is specifically permitted to do just that by law. Many states have citizens arrest laws similar to what we have here in Illinois and that is one of the few differences in arrest powers a peace officer has over a private citizen. Here are the applicable Illinois statutes:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilc...2&ActName=Code+of+Criminal+Procedure+of+1963.
(725 ILCS 5/107‑3) (from Ch. 38, par. 107‑3)
Sec. 107‑3. Arrest by private person.
Any person may arrest another when he has reasonable grounds to believe that an offense other than an ordinance violation is being committed.
(Source: Laws 1963, p. 2836.)
Note it doesn't even have to be a felony. The key word hear is
is. A private citizen can't detain anyone to investigate if a crime was committed he can only detain or arrest if he has reasonable grounds to believe a crime is in progress. If he sees someone walk out of a building with a gun and he prones that person out at gun point with no other evidence that a crime is being committed he commits aggravated assault, unlawful use of weapons and unlawful restraint.
A peace officer can arrest under these circumstances:
(725 ILCS 5/107‑2) (from Ch. 38, par. 107‑2)
Sec. 107‑2. (1) Arrest by Peace Officer. A peace officer may arrest a person when:
(a) He has a warrant commanding that such person be arrested; or
(b) He has reasonable grounds to believe that a warrant for the person's arrest has been issued in this State or in another jurisdiction; or
(c) He has reasonable grounds to believe that the person is committing or has committed an offense.
Note the phrase is committing or has committed an offense. The only real difference in a arrest powers is only a peace officer can arrest for an ordinance violation or if he believes an offense
has been committed.
Whn it comes to use of force in making an arrest the law is identical:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilc...SeqEnd=9300000&ActName=Criminal+Code+of+1961.
(720 ILCS 5/7‑5) (from Ch. 38, par. 7‑5)
Sec. 7‑5. Peace officer's use of force in making arrest. (a) A peace officer, or any person whom he has summoned or directed to assist him, need not retreat or desist from efforts to make a lawful arrest because of resistance or threatened resistance to the arrest. He is justified in the use of any force which he reasonably believes to be necessary to effect the arrest and of any force which he reasonably believes to be necessary to defend himself or another from bodily harm while making the arrest. However, he is justified in using force likely to cause death or great bodily harm only when he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or such other person, or when he reasonably believes both that:
(1) Such force is necessary to prevent the arrest from being defeated by resistance or escape; and
(2) The person to be arrested has committed or attempted a forcible felony which involves the infliction or threatened infliction of great bodily harm or is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon, or otherwise indicates that he will endanger human life or inflict great bodily harm unless arrested without delay.
(b) A peace officer making an arrest pursuant to an invalid warrant is justified in the use of any force which he would be justified in using if the warrant were valid, unless he knows that the warrant is invalid.
(Source: P.A. 84‑1426.)
(720 ILCS 5/7‑6) (from Ch. 38, par. 7‑6)
Sec. 7‑6. Private person's use of force in making arrest.
(a) A private person who makes, or assists another private person in making a lawful arrest is justified in the use of any force which he would be justified in using if he were summoned or directed by a peace officer to make such arrest, except that he is justified in the use of force likely to cause death or great bodily harm only when he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another.
(b) A private person who is summoned or directed by a peace officer to assist in making an arrest which is unlawful, is justified in the use of any force which he would be justified in using if the arrest were lawful, unless he knows that the arrest is unlawful.
(Source: Laws 1961, p. 1983.)
So like it or not, you empowered the police to detain suspects to investigate crimes. And private citizens do not have that power. So yes, if you as a private citizen were to prone out a guy you saw walk out of a building with a gun, you would be facing some time in the slammer unless you reasonably believed a crime was in progress.
Thes laws are not new, it's not some conspiracy to form a police state. It's the way things are and the way they have been for decades.
You guys are whining about a response to the fact that in many parts of the country the gun culture is dying out. I'd wager that 20 years ago in most parts of the country that complaint would never have been made. And if it was it would have been dismissed out of hand. It's just a sign we're losing the cultural war in some parts of the country.
If you look at the totality of the circumstances you might understand the response a little better. from Nashmack's post #58:
In fact, when I got pulled over I was heading in that direction, I had just turned onto the Perimeter road wich goes around the edged of the airport (for those of you in this area, I was right by UPS when I got pulled over) so that may have been a contributing factor in the officer's response. These days you certainly can't be too cautious when approaching an armed person near the airport.
I noticed one person post something about the clothes I was wearing, and the cleaning bill for em. As to my attire, I was wearing BDU trousers and a black work shirt, so no, I'm not too terribly concerned about getting those dirty as those are my work clothes, and IMHO work clothes are meant to get dirty
So we have a report by by a hopolophobe of a man in military garb putting a long gun into his car and heading for the airport. Seems to me that reasonable grounds for an investigative stop do in fact exist. Most of you guys who are complaining would be posting your outrage if this thread was a story about how Nashmack drove over to the airport and shot something up and the police had ignored the woman's complaint because she didn't say he was committing a crime when she saw him.
The posts in that thread would be all abolut how useless and incompetant the police are and how if only the woman who had reported him possessed a ccw permit and stopped him the crime never would have happened.
You can't have it both ways.
Jeff
Why am I not surprised? Once again: Please specify the criminal statute which is broken when someone exits a building with a firearm. What, exactly, is the crime we are talking about that they were investigating? You can no more justifiably put someone on the ground at gun point for exiting a building with a firearm than you can put someone on the ground at gun point for exiting a building with a chain saw. If you do, you have committed a crime against the person so treated, and need to spend time in jail to think about your conduct. Oh, but I forgot, cops are above the law these days. If I were to put someone on the ground at gun point, and then explained to the judge that I personally saw him exiting a building with a firearm (let alone that someone told me they saw it), I guarantee that I would be spending some time in the slammer.
