Originally posted by rainbowbear
reply to post by Xcathdra
however, you are under NO authority to talk with Officer, or divulge any info to Officer(not even your name). If you can provide any evidence that we
are under any authority to say anything other than "am I being detained?" and "am I free to go?"
then I may agree with you.
Without a law in place as to why he needed to even give her the time of day, the Ranger is up a creek.
And again if an officer makes contact with you for investigative reasons, which this was one, you have no right to walk away. You are temporarily
detained under the 4th amendment and your freedom of movement is restricted until the officer is done with their investigation.
The officer stopped and made contact because he was in violation of the law (dogs on a leash). He then compounded the problem by knowingly providing
false information and then made it worse when he decided to walk away and failed to stop when he was told to do so numerous times.
When the contact is
voluntary then you are correct, a person is free to not cooperate and just walk away. That was not the case with this
incident and the person had no legal right to walk away / fail to cooperate since the officer was investigating a law violation.
Its irrelevant if a person thinks violation of a leash law is ridiculous, as the proper forum to challenge the law is in the courts and not with the
police, since we have absolutely nothing to do with resolution / constitutional challenge of a law. I really wish people would get that through their
heads.
Its like the idiot ass arguments I see people making about a person being able to use deadly force on an officer for an unlawful arrest. Not only are
they intentionally ignoring the other established case law by the Supreme Court for reasonable use of force given the situation at hand, the
determination if an action is lawful or unlawful does NOT reside with the officer or the individual.
It resides with the court...
As far as the laws -
Title 18 United States Code - Criminal
Procedures
18 USC 1038 - False information and hoaxes
18 USC 2231 - Assault or resistance
18 USC 111 - Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers
or employees
edit on 8-2-2012 by Xcathdra because: (no reason given)