Police tackle and arrest a Northwestern PhD student suspected of stealing a car

originally posted by: Merlynn
a reply to: toysforadults

For a PhD student he is a flippin idiot. You NEVER get out of your car, unless the tell you.

I used to get pulled over regularly, they claimed back tail light was out, but it was working and I would have loved to show them, but you never get out of the car.

This is the most intelligent, on-topic comment of the entirety of this thread. My knee-jerk reaction was to respond immediately to the OP with something similar, but wanted to read the thread first before responding.

I'm watching the video shared by Blaine91555, and it's much more telling concerning the whole incident, and it includes the dashcam video and audio from Mr. Crosby's vehicle. In it leading up to the stop, you can hear him muttering to himself that it is racial intentions of the 911 caller, and that he has pre-determined that he's going to jail that night.

As he's pulling over, he says something inaudible followed by "here we go," and once the care is stopped, he then exits the vehicle with his cell phone in his right hand and appears to toss it back into his car behind his back while keeping his left hand raised. Then once the officers tell him to get down on the ground or other orders, he just stands there, smiles, and does nothing, then once they approach him, he turns and begins to flee/move away from the officers.

What most people do not understand is that fleeing on foot from police officers gives them adequate cause to pursue and detain you, even if you did nothing wrong prior to running, but especially if you do so after "shows of force" from police officer who are in the performance of their duties.

So, Mr. Crosby did the right thing by pulling over, but did the absolute wrong things by exiting his vehicle without being told to do so (especially with his cell phone in his hand) and then made it worse on himself by turning a running from officers as they approached him.

I don't blame him for resisting arrest (if he really did), as most people would instinctively resist when there are multiple officers restraining you and yelling at you, but it feels like he set up the situation before he even got out of the car by the way he was talking in his car and then by his actions after pulling over.

But, Mr. Crosby was only pretending to understand the law when he cited the 5th Amendment (meaning the 4th), complaining about 'illegal search and seizure,' and complaining about his Miranda Rights before even being questioned about anything or told that he was under arrest. Coupled with the fact that he's narrating the incident to his dashcam, along with even owning a dashcam and wanting to move the handcuffing incident in view of the dashcam, it would seem like he has been waiting for an encounter like this for some time, hoping to catch LEOs doing something wrong.

Here's the thing to all the people complaining about the officers's actions (and not even mentioning Mr. Crosby's)--it was determined that this wasn't outside proper procedure at all after reviewing the video, but even so, the department felt it appropriate to alter it's policy of putting people in the prone position during stops like this. So, the officers didn't do anything wrong in the confines of procedure or law, yet they still amended policy/procedure based on the incident. I call that a win/win, plus no one really got hurt in the incident, so it all worked out.

If Mr. Crosby attempts to sue, I foresee a pretty bad loss on his behalf.

What's sad is that the woman who called 911 had honest reason to think that Mr. Crosby was doing something suspicious in relation to stealing the car, but she is so conditioned that she made the comment on the phone AND in person that she is afraid the she was racially profiling, just because Mr. Crosby is black. I hope that she wasn't, and I hope that she would have called anyhow, even if it was a white guy doing the same thing.

I predict that this will be an unpopular opinion, but it's an educated one, soooo...

Here is some closing info:

Encounters with law enforcement can be intimidating and you may run away on instinct, because you are scared, don’t trust the police, or any other plausible reason. This usually doesn’t work in your favor as it gives police probable cause to give chase and in some instances the act of fleeing is a crime in itself.

One scenario in which fleeing police becomes a separate legal question is when the flight itself is unprovoked. The seminal case the U.S. Supreme Court decided many years ago involved a group of kids running from police doing a routine patrol of the neighborhood. The police gave chase on the grounds that the fleeing itself was suspicious. One defendant being chased threw away a crack rock prior to being apprehended. The Supreme Court had to decide if the seizure of the defendant was lawful since there was no probable cause to support specific criminal wrongdoing beforehand. Ultimately, the drugs the defendant threw away were admissible because he did not comply with the officer’s show of authority. The act of fleeing thus gives police a lawful reason to detain a suspect. See California v. Hodari.

Fleeing Police on Foot (Chicago defense attorney website)

Best regards to all.