View Full Version : Homeowner is Arrested for Open Carrying an Empty Shotgun on His Own Property After Re
Quiet-Matt
09-26-13, 17:19
http://gunsnfreedom.com/homeowner-is-arrested-for-open-carrying-an-empty-shotgun-on-his-own-property-after-reporting-a-tresspasser/
There is a video link where it appears that the officer orders her to stop recording.
How have we gotten to where police get away with stopping people taking photos or video when they are not interfering with the proceedings?
Apparently some police (not all) feel "man with gun" (that is, possession) is a worse offense no matter the circumstances than an actual law breaker.
Sad state of affairs. When police interfere with private citizens using cameras, and harass gun owners it has a ripple effect on how gun owners and law abiding citizens view police in general. If good police officers don;t want to be painted with this brush they need to do what other professions do and start leveling professional criticism and penalties at these abusers. An engineer that violates engineering practice blatantly or too often will lose his license.
Love how they will "take it for evidence"
Those guys are a disgrace to the uniform & the majority of good LEO's.
Hope the guy can find a lawyer willing to do a contingency lawsuit.
Disturbing behavior by these LEO's.
Hope they get what's coming to them.
They do not deserve a badge.
Really sad state of affairs our country is in. It just gets worse and worse every day...
Do a civil suit on the cops so the law suit will be on the own cops dime if he loses the case. The cop is messing with civil rights . there probably is a fed statute. This kind of stuff has to stop.. Swat the swat so to say.
jerrysimons
09-26-13, 19:07
It is understandable he would be detained pending their investigation to figure out who was who, but this...despicable.
Is it even illegal in Michigan or in states with castle doctrine to merely point a gun at a trespasser on your property? Do you have to actually feel threatened for your life to even point the gun? On the street sure, but on your own property, especially with castle doctrine? Sounds fishy. Seems like the officers were pissed about being recorded and decided to screw the guy with BS charges.
"I'll take that for evidence" lol
Belmont31R
09-26-13, 19:22
I just wanna know how someone can be obese and be a police officer. Are there not requirements? I don't wanna hear how the police are going to protect us when I see obese cops everywhere. We have one doing traffic control every morning in front of my kids school and at least half are plain fat.
Rule #1: Never invite the man into your life.
Rule #2: Never, ever, ever have a gun in your hand when the police show up.
I just wanna know how someone can be obese and be a police officer. Are there not requirements? I don't wanna hear how the police are going to protect us when I see obese cops everywhere. We have one doing traffic control every morning in front of my kids school and at least half are plain fat.
Many agencies simply do not mandate annual PT reqs post hire. Sad reality imo.
All insults aside. I get the fact that this guy was trespassing, but situations like this can easily turn into "he said, he said". It's going to come down to how well the property/homeowner can articulate the initial encounter.
The rest of the actions by the officers do not seem right and he needs to find a good lawyer to sue the police department. I am dumbfounded as to why they couldn't have simply held the weapon (as often times happens) while the speak with the property owner.
Makes you wonder if the hooligan trespasser was the mayor's nephew or something.
Alaskapopo
09-26-13, 21:11
http://gunsnfreedom.com/homeowner-is-arrested-for-open-carrying-an-empty-shotgun-on-his-own-property-after-reporting-a-tresspasser/
There is a video link where it appears that the officer orders her to stop recording.
Watched the video and a few things. It is normal to put people into handcuffs on this type of call until you determine who is who and what happened. No problem with that.
What I do have a problem with is the officer telling the woman to turn the camera off and then deleting the file (destroying evidence)
If my officers had done that we would start an investigation and they would probably ended being fired as this is an integrity violation. The only reason to delete the file is to hide what you did wrong.
The charge sounds like a CYA thing. The officers know that the people are upset so the take a charge on to use as leverage. I have no idea if this is true but I can see it being plausible.
What strikes me as strange in this call is a trespasser call in the middle of the day. Usually prowlers come at night. Not sure I would confront someone on my property during the middle of daylight hours with a long gun unless something seemed fishy. Could be a misunderstanding not sure what the case was here. The actions of these officers does not paint them in a good light.
Pat
Alaskapopo
09-26-13, 21:14
I just wanna know how someone can be obese and be a police officer. Are there not requirements? I don't wanna hear how the police are going to protect us when I see obese cops everywhere. We have one doing traffic control every morning in front of my kids school and at least half are plain fat.
Well being in shape is best but I know plenty of obese cops by the BMI standard that fight just fine. We are not like soldiers in the military we are not required to hump gear into a location 20 miles into the woods. I would rather have an obese cop who can fight backing me up than some pencil thin punk who could not fight his way out of a wet paper sack. Personally I am well aware of the fact I am fat. I have battled with my weight my entire life. I do work out and I am trying to correct the problem. It does bother me when people judge someone strictly on their weight having no idea how they do the job as a whole. We all have flaws its a fact of life just with some of us those flaws are more visible than in others. As for standards most PD's have PT tests when you get hired but nothing after that. I do agree it is something that we need to change. The problem is however its hard enough to get good officers now making the PT standards more difficult will diminish the pool of applicants even further. We have an opening right now where I am and I know we are going to have a difficult time attracting someone to work for what our starting pay is. Anyway the fitness issue deserves its own thread and is a distraction in this one.
Pat
Watched the video and a few things. It is normal to put people into handcuffs on this type of call until you determine who is who and what happened. No problem with that.
What I do have a problem with is the officer telling the woman to turn the camera off and then deleting the file (destroying evidence)
If my officers had done that we would start an investigation and they would probably ended being fired as this is an integrity violation. The only reason to delete the file is to hide what you did wrong.
The charge sounds like a CYA thing. The officers know that the people are upset so the take a charge on to use as leverage. I have no idea if this is true but I can see it being plausible.
What strikes me as strange in this call is a trespasser call in the middle of the day. Usually prowlers come at night. Not sure I would confront someone on my property during the middle of daylight hours with a long gun unless something seemed fishy. Could be a misunderstanding not sure what the case was here. The actions of these officers does not paint them in a good light.
Pat
Ok, who are you and what have you done with Pat?
:D
ETA: The "trespasser" was a dirt biker using their land as a bike trail and the only reason they were armed was they were hunting on their land. The "trespasser" probably wasn't up to anything worse than what he was doing and I don't think the homeowner was out there to specifically confront him.
Alaskapopo
09-26-13, 21:24
Ok, who are you and what have you done with Pat?
:D
ETA: The "trespasser" was a dirt biker using their land as a bike trail and the only reason they were armed was they were hunting on their land. The "trespasser" probably wasn't up to anything worse than what he was doing and I don't think the homeowner was out there to specifically confront him.
Integrity is important. I stick up for other cops when I feel they are in the right but trying to hide evidence is not right. If you did nothing wrong you should have no problem with people videotaping you. We are required to record all our contacts where I work. I have found that recordings have saved a lot more cops than they have hurt. The ones it has hurt should not have been cops in the first place.
Pat
Alaskapopo
09-26-13, 21:29
On the fitness issue sort of a funny story. I went to a match about 4 years back where the match director set up a bunch of stages with a lot of PT in them (running). I took first at the match. After the match the match director came up to me and he is in good shape being a former military guy and he said I can't believe you ran those courses faster than me. (Since I am fat) I told him I shoot faster so I don't have to run as fast. That gave us both a laugh. But I was a lot faster and more accurate than he was and it more than made up for the slower 60 yard dashes he had worked into the courses of fire.
Pat
Watched the video and a few things. It is normal to put people into handcuffs on this type of call until you determine who is who and what happened. No problem with that.
Yes but the homeowner is face down in the dirt while the tresspasser is sitting in a chair.
Integrity is important. I stick up for other cops when I feel they are in the right but trying to hide evidence is not right. If you did nothing wrong you should have no problem with people videotaping you. We are required to record all our contacts where I work. I have found that recordings have saved a lot more cops than they have hurt. The ones it has hurt should not have been cops in the first place.
Pat
I was just messing with you. In the past you have had a tendency to defend nearly all cops with a great deal of benefit of the doubt. For the record I've been agreeing with you quite a bit lately.
Alaskapopo
09-26-13, 21:33
Yes but the homeowner is face down in the dirt while the tresspasser is sitting in a chair.
Again not sticking up for these guys. But the visibly armed suspect would get more attention from me on a call like this as he is the one most able to kill me. Just the way you have to think to make it home at the end of your shift. Once things are figured out and tensions are calmed then the cuffs can come off.
Pat
Again not sticking up for these guys. But the visibly armed suspect would get more attention from me on a call like this as he is the one most able to kill me. Just the way you have to think to make it home at the end of your shift. Once things are figured out and tensions are calmed then the cuffs can come off.
Pat
Understand an agree, I am just saying that plus video confiscation is what is upsetting to many, IMO.
Alaskapopo
09-26-13, 21:39
Understand an agree, I am just saying that plus video confiscation is what is upsetting to many, IMO.
Agree with you that is upsetting. We do not have a right to stop people from recording what we are doing.
Pat
Integrity is important. I stick up for other cops when I feel they are in the right but trying to hide evidence is not right. If you did nothing wrong you should have no problem with people videotaping you. We are required to record all our contacts where I work. I have found that recordings have saved a lot more cops than they have hurt. The ones it has hurt should not have been cops in the first place.
Pat
That is exactly the perspective we expect if our paid public law enforcement everything should be above board. The interactions I have had with officers would be ones they would be proud to have on the news, very professional.
An officer destroying evidence deliberately ought to carry a heavy criminal penalty and loss of job RTFN.
decodeddiesel
09-27-13, 09:53
Watched the video and a few things. It is normal to put people into handcuffs on this type of call until you determine who is who and what happened. No problem with that.
What I do have a problem with is the officer telling the woman to turn the camera off and then deleting the file (destroying evidence)
If my officers had done that we would start an investigation and they would probably ended being fired as this is an integrity violation. The only reason to delete the file is to hide what you did wrong.
The charge sounds like a CYA thing. The officers know that the people are upset so the take a charge on to use as leverage. I have no idea if this is true but I can see it being plausible.
What strikes me as strange in this call is a trespasser call in the middle of the day. Usually prowlers come at night. Not sure I would confront someone on my property during the middle of daylight hours with a long gun unless something seemed fishy. Could be a misunderstanding not sure what the case was here. The actions of these officers does not paint them in a good light.
Pat
One of the few posts I have seen from you in GD which I agree with Pat.
It's instances like this, and cops like those which cause a larger portion of the population to distrust and dislike the police.
It may be the case of a few bad apples, but who knows...
Very sad. I hope both of those guys are collecting shopping carts outside of WalMart in a few months time.
Am I reading this right? The membership has indicted these guys based on a media report and a ~30 second video snippet?
Nightvisionary
09-27-13, 10:34
I just wanna know how someone can be obese and be a police officer. Are there not requirements? I don't wanna hear how the police are going to protect us when I see obese cops everywhere. We have one doing traffic control every morning in front of my kids school and at least half are plain fat.
There usually are standards in place at the time of hire. After that the police unions take over.
Property owner makes stupid error confronting trespassing biker with firearm. Placing some random spike strips along the trail with leaves or brush covering them work well. I'm not a fan of wire strung across private trails but have seen them in place and hit one while riding as a teenager.
Lots of interesting points in this discussion. I find the farther away from cops the better in my life. Just to add my father was a career cop and I have no record, traffic or otherwise.
Alaskapopo
09-27-13, 12:44
There usually are standards in place at the time of hire. After that the police unions take over.
It has nothing to do with unions. Having worked at both union and non union departments the fitness standards are not higher at one or the other. The only thing that does seem to matter is rather its local vs state. Generally Troopers have higher fitness standards than local PD's. Damn some people here want to blame everything on unions even global warming. Give it a rest.
Pat
Bolt_Overide
09-27-13, 14:06
Am I reading this right? The membership has indicted these guys based on a media report and a ~30 second video snippet?
Yes, I am. Telling the lady to turn her camera off is something that should have never crossed his mind. As far as the other stuff I agree that there is nothing in evidence to support it.
Alaskapopo
09-27-13, 14:15
Am I reading this right? The membership has indicted these guys based on a media report and a ~30 second video snippet?
The act of forcing her to turn off the camera and that he deleted the file is bad enough on its own to justify termination. The reason I say this is because our job requires integrity. I am sure you have heard of the Brady Office case. Basically its case law showing an officers personal file can be used against him when ever issues of honesty violations have occured. An officer then can't reliably testify in court making him or her useless. You can get away with some serious mistakes like wrecking a patrol car and still keep your job but if you lie or try to cover something up you're gone.
Pat
How have we gotten to where police get away with stopping people taking photos or video when they are not interfering with the proceedings?
I would recommend all citizens begin wearing these:
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/category/hidden+cameras/body+worn+cameras.do
http://www.galls.com/scorpion-micro-digital-video-camera
Moose-Knuckle
09-27-13, 19:33
I would recommend all citizens begin wearing these:
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/category/hidden+cameras/body+worn+cameras.do
http://www.galls.com/scorpion-micro-digital-video-camera
Yeah, I think when Google Glasses take off and everyone and their grandmother is recording everything in site we might see some changes . . .
If I was dispatched to handle this call, I would tell the person with the camera to make sure they got my good side.
If you are doing nothing wrong, being videotaped is not an issue.
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