How far can LEO go?

[loghouse511]

Bird, If I may,what is your description of "youngsters"

Raymond

 

[EE_Bota]

Bird, If I may,what is your description of "youngsters"

Raymond

Ahh...man, you had to ask didn't you. I liked being a youngster!

 

[Mounted Madness]

You youngsters are worrying about losing "liberties" or "rights" when you don't realize how much the country has gone in the other direction.:laughing: When I started in law enforcement in the mid-60s any officer (in Texas, at least) could stop any vehicle to check for a drivers license anywhere anytime. An officer could just set up his own roadblock anywhere anytime unless his supervisors prohibited such.

And in Texas, stopping a vehicle for a traffic violation was considered an arrest, which meant the officer could conduct a seach pursuant to a lawful arrest, and search the entire vehicle.

Yes, there were abuses, not a lot, but some, and such abuses are what resulted in more restrictive statutory laws and/or case law (court decisions) for law enforcement officers. And of course those restrictions then apply to all officers making the job more difficult instead of only applying to the abusers.

And some of you worry about losing gun rights. Prior to the 1990s, there was no such thing as a license or permit to carry a handgun in Texas. You had to be active duty law enforcement or military to carry a handgun on your person.

Bird, you're right on the money. The changes in law enforcement in the last 40-50 years have been tantamount to a revolution. Abuses happened, but that was in the day when you could actually fire someone. I know of instances where members got in trouble Friday night and were gone on Monday morning back in the 70's.

That would never happen today. Supervisors get in more trouble for verbally disciplining (ie: subordinate missing diary dates etc) a subordinate. Then the subordinate goes on 'stress' leave for 6 months. Thankfully, the majority of the new age police are hard working and committed to the job and their communities.

Consider as well, the training of today compared to 'back in the day'. We didn't have armour, semi-auto pistols, computers, and a SWAT. We were SWAT, and that's how so many police officers were being killed each year right through and into the 80's. A major re-think.

With the changes internally, police have had to, and continue to adapt to the changes in case law. These changes are almost daily it seems. Every lawyer in every community wants to make a name for him/herself. The major shift in Canada was in 1982 with the signing of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The title alone suggests the direction this major piece of legislation turned the courts when it became law. It was a make work project for lawyers, and believe me, I know one lawyer who made a lot of money riding on the back of the Charter. In a 3 year period, in one province, we had 5 DUI demand cards issued to compensate for this lawyers court challenges. (He finally lost all his cases at the Supreme Court level - but still gained the notariety just the same.)

People wonder why police do things a certain way. The answer has three parts;

1. the officer doesn't want to get in trouble with her/his boss
2. the officer wants to do his job to the best of his/her ability
3. the lawyers that continually stretch the overstretched definitions and case law of every piece of legislation coming down the pike.

I'm happy I'm retired. Having worked both sides of the 'Charter', the new age is extremely frustrating - safer - but frustrating. Of course, that might be age creeping in as well. :laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

You youngsters are worrying about losing "liberties" or "rights" when you don't realize how much the country has gone in the other direction.:laughing: When I started in law enforcement in the mid-60s any officer (in Texas, at least) could stop any vehicle to check for a drivers license anywhere anytime. An officer could just set up his own roadblock anywhere anytime unless his supervisors prohibited such.

And in Texas, stopping a vehicle for a traffic violation was considered an arrest, which meant the officer could conduct a seach pursuant to a lawful arrest, and search the entire vehicle.

Yes, there were abuses, not a lot, but some, and such abuses are what resulted in more restrictive statutory laws and/or case law (court decisions) for law enforcement officers. And of course those restrictions then apply to all officers making the job more difficult instead of only applying to the abusers.

And some of you worry about losing gun rights. Prior to the 1990s, there was no such thing as a license or permit to carry a handgun in Texas. You had to be active duty law enforcement or military to carry a handgun on your person.

I think police in general used to be a lot more lenient. That has probably stopped due to lawsuits and investigative reporting. If he lets one person off and not another and it is brought to the public's attention, depending on who got what break, well, the officer and municipality can get in a lot of hot water. Sometimes that can be a good thing and sometimes that can be a bad thing. Kinda like mandatory sentencing with no leeway. Or little kids getting expelled for bringing a butter knife to school to cut a birthday cake for their classmates.

 

[two_bit_score]

You youngsters are worrying about losing "liberties" or "rights" ...........?

And some of you worry about losing gun rights. Prior to the 1990s, there was no such thing as a license or permit to carry a handgun in Texas. You had to be active duty law enforcement or military to carry a handgun on your person.

Well, Bird, of course there were a lot of exceptions to the rule.

You might recall even when the legislature passed a specific law to clarify the traveling exemption many DA's in Texas still insisted that their local officers would be permitted to arrest anyone with a handgun in their vehicle and would let the 'courts so it out'. In other words you would be considered guilty until you proved yourself innocent. That wasn't all that long ago. Maybe two sessions ago.

 

[Bird]

Well, Bird, of course there were a lot of exceptions to the rule.

You might recall even when the legislature passed a specific law to clarify the traveling exemption many DA's in Texas still insisted that their local officers would be permitted to arrest anyone with a handgun in their vehicle and would let the 'courts so it out'. In other words you would be considered guilty until you proved yourself innocent. That wasn't all that long ago. Maybe two sessions ago.

Yep, always exceptions to every rule. And yes, when I went through the police academy, our instructor said to put'em in jail, and let them prove they meet the exception. And then there are departmental policies and customs, both written and unwritten. For example, in Dallas, there was no written rule or policy, but we would not charge a business person carrying bank deposits from a business.

For non-Texans information, the old penal code was written in the 1800s (1856 maybe) and said whoever carried "on or about his person, saddlebags, or portfolio" a "pistol, dirk, dagger . . . " and went on to name a bunch of weapons was guilty of an offense or crime. But it also said "unless he was traveling". The statutory law said nothing about how far you had to go to be "traveling" so that was left to the courts. Reading court decisions in a law library can be quite interesting. In early times, courts considered people to be traveling if they left their home county, but as transportation improved, that changed and the courts decided a person was "traveling" only if he/she were going to be gone from home overnight. I recall one case in which a man from Dallas went to Austin, checked into a motel, but then was arrested for carrying a pistol that night. He claimed the traveling exception, but the courts said he was traveling and legal on the trip, but once he checked into the motel, he quit traveling and should have left his pistol in his room.

Anyway, all that changed when the Texas legislature gave us a complete new Penal Code effective the first of 1974. It spelled everything out in more detail.

 

[Mace Canute]

So...what would be the cops reasons for their behavior in this incident.
Courthouse News Service

 

[Egon]

Ouch; but not as bad as the show our finest put on in Vancouver a few years ago.

 

[Bird]

So...what would be the cops reasons for their behavior in this incident.
Courthouse News Service

At this point we don't really know what their behavior was because you can bet there's more to the story than what's in that article. The officers may or may not have done what they're accused of. If not, it's a shame a lot of people will believe what they read because it was in the news (or they read it on the Internet). And of course if it's only half true, the officers may be fired (and should be) and have criminal charges filed against them. It would, of course, be interesting to know what the facts actually are.

 

[Soundguy]

Interesting.

I have had at least 1 farm equipment dealer make me wait while they fileld out a bill of lading for my implement I was buying. same with a couple freight terminals I have picked up freight at.

that's fine when you are buying something as you have paper in hand.. but if you started to need to carry 'travel papers' on all your belongings it would get tedius..

soundguy

I own and keep a Police scanner turned on in my office, I hear most everything goes on within 5 counties surrounding, over the past 6 months I've been hearing more things about none traffic related issue's,

for instance: a LEO will pull over someone for speeding or what ever reason, if this person happens to be towing a trailer with a pc. of equipment on it , could be a tractor, trencher,loader, Motorcycles, etc,,etc, LEO will take down the serial No# and call in to dispatch to have the No# run, None of any that I have heard has come back as stolen or with any problems,

I find it curious as to how a traffic LEO would have the authority of an Investigator to perform a roadside check on privately own items,.....
Has it got to the point now that we must start carrying around proof of ownership of our personal belongings, such as cell phones, laptops, GPS's and even tractors? This has me wondering what might happen if I am transporting my gray tractor and if I'm stopped and cannot proof it is mine
I do have a BOS from when I purchased it, although there is no owner registration for it, I realize that in these days and time the LEO's are working harder than ever to catch the Bad guys' but isn't this up to the higher authorities than a traffic cop? like an investigator, or have these LEO's been instructed to stop all who are transporting equipment? this might go under the heading of routine traffic stop, I don't know! But I do know I been hearing more of it lately, what is next? asking you to step out the car and perform a strip search as routine ...... this isn't a rant, but more of an observation IMO of things to come.