tvc184

The scary thing about going in front of a jury.......

The officer should have held back to wait for a backup that might have calmed the incident down. Maybe he wanted to but no other officers were available. Maybe he should have simply walked away and leave the woman standing there babbling. Maybe..... I did not see any illegal actions however. Since this was in TX, our laws apply. There are two that come to mind. The law says that you cannot resist even an unlawful arrest. If an officer tells you that you are under arrest, then you are. It is not open for debate at that point. Later it is very much up for grabs on his actions but on scene, the officer's words that you are under arrest are enough by law. Then there is interfering with an officer trying to perform any authority. It does not require that the person breaking the law do so "intentionally". It doesn't even matter if the person was "reckless" in interfering with an officer. The culpable mental state for interfering with an officer in TX is if you do so with "criminal negligence". Negligence is as low of a standard as exist in law. If you do anything that interferes with an officer trying to do his job even if it was not intentionally, you have violated the law and can get up to 6 months in jail. On the other hand, for an officer to commit the crime of Official Oppression (kind of the TX version of a civil rights violation) it takes the officer to act "intentionally". The officer cannot merely make a mistake or hit someone four times when three might have been enough. It doesn't matter if the officer "could have" waited longer for a backed or used bad tactics. It is impossible to do any form of police work if every single action the officer takes is potentially a crime. Even under standards set by the US Supreme Court, it has to be viewed from the eyes of the officer having to make split second decisions and not cool calculations by someone in a room several weeks later that did not have to make that decisions. There are several such court rulings that back this up. People say it all the time and it goes over a lot of people's heads.... comply with the officer's commands. If you feel he is wrong, get you a good lawyer and sue him and the city he works for. Retire early.

Interesting logic. I guess WWII was Franklin Roosevelt's fault and 80 million people dead worldwide is on a Democratic president.

I think Donald Trump proved that one.

And what planet have you been on for the last 8 years? It certainly wasn't Earth. Where do we go, the first six months after his election when he jumped into the Cambridge Police arrest for what was the equivalent of a traffic citation disturbing the peace charge? When he was quoted saying the he had no facts but knew that the police acted stupidly. Of course it did give us the now famous "beer summit". Obama routinely jumped into not only racial issues but local issues that should have had nothing to do with the president. Perhaps one of the most telling was the memorial service for five police officers killed in Dallas while protecting protesters. Obama, the Divider in Chief, chose this somber occasion to speak about slavery and Jim Crow laws. How do you speak at basically a funeral service for fallen officers and start talking about slavery that ended more than 150 years ago? Oh yeah, that was the guy steered clear of racial issues. And if you believe that, I have the Brooklyn Bridge for sale.................

The people that voted for Trump did so in spite of him. They want a couple of conservative judges on the SCOTUS. They want to end the rush to gun control every time there is an act of violence that gun control will not slow one bit. They want the health care system improved. They want the tax system reformed. The people that tossed out Hillary's chances of running the country voted for Trump even though all kinds of groups of people got butt hurt at some point in the election. The people are fed up with the last 8 years. Going back over 100 years, Obama is the only two term president to lose votes (over 3 million) in his reelection. The only other president to lose any votes was the third term of FDR. The voting public could see what was happening and Hillary was seen as his legacy. To make it short, people did not vote for Trump. They voted against Obama's third term. I think there is a good chance that they will get what they wanted and that is lightening of business rules, the SCOTUS, etc. The rest is just fluff.

Got to be kidding, right?

I was referring to your logic. You can point out an incident or two or 100 and make a million police officers guilty by association. You would not likely do the same for any other profession or group.

The idea that a majority of officers will cover for other officers is nonsense. In response to millions of police contacts per month and 12-13 million arrests per year, people point out individual incidents. You cannot have millions of contacts per month and not have something that is wrong but what percentage out of those millions?

This is probably a reference to a case of insanity. Some people say that anyone committing a horrific crime has mental issues. That is likely true. This issue is not "issues" but "insanity". Under both state and federal statutes the term insanity when used as a defense to crime, the person committing the crime is not responsible because of "severe mental disease or defect" (TX and US both use the same term) kept the person from knowing that he was committing a crime. Ignorance of a crime is not a defense but if the person is insane and has not clue that he is committing a crime, he is not guilty. The careful planning and it being cold and calculated does not mean that he has no mental issues. It does mean that he can almost never have an insanity defense. There is a huge difference under criminal law between having a mental defect and due to such a defect has no clue that he is breaking a law. If a person tries to cover up a crime, plans an escape or any other such activities then he is not insane under criminal law in my opinion. Think of something that is not a crime and a normal routine. Maybe washing dishes or putting gasoline in the car for a long trip. You would not go out of your way to hide that you are washing dishes or that you are gassing up a car. The reason is that you will not go to jail for those actions. A person that is insane should have the same demeanor. He will go about a normal routine because as far as he knows, it is not a crime.

In truth I know almost nothing about the shooting. I was sleeping most of the day and had to get ready to go to work after that. I know that a man with a Hispanic name shot and killed some people and then surrendered to the police in Florida. Other than that I have no clue.

No way. I have it on good information that he is a member of the tea party and is angry because Ted Cruz did not get the nomination.

I guess all members of the clergy are child molesters. This is very easy to prove because several years ago the Catholic Church admitted that they had a problem with pedophile priests and even covered up the information. Buy your reasoning anyone in the clergy must be a pedophile or at least an overwhelming majority.

Either you have reading comprehension problems, you make up your own "facts" as you go along or maybe just poor memory. You cannot find a single post that I have made in any forum that says such practices do not exist. I have never said that in my career and never will but here you are claiming that I have said that. I am thinking there may be some validity to this being an alter ego identity. I have said that the blue wall of silence, as is claimed by many people, does not exist. The idea that all officers will cover all officers or even anywhere near a substantial percentage of officers is bogus. Just as in any profession or group of people, there will always be crooked police officers. Some of the stuff in the 60 Minutes piece is pure nonsense. Things like statistics on race or money paid out by cities is drawing a conclusion with nothing to back up the conclusions. I don't know if it can be found anymore but if you want to see nonsense on statistics you should read something called a fair roads standard back from the 1990s. LULAC, NAACP and ACLU wanted stops by police officers of minorities not to reflect only by population but by number of drivers licenses issues. That goes by the utter nonsense that everyone driving has a valid license. You could come ride Patrol with me and I can stop several people in a row that have no drivers license. According to the fair road standard this does not exist and I am imagining things. You are either intentionally or unintentionally making up things and why le you did not make up the article for 60 minutes, it proves absolutely nothing. It certainly does not "refute" anything.

That is an interesting story that you made for a "what if" scenario. Did you listen to the several minutes of the 911 recording? And again, do you have any evidence that you read to support any of your claims?

Again, do you any evidence whatsoever that Zimmerman ever confronted Martin? Any? Any?

You do realize that most of the "evidence" originally put out against Zimmerman was fabricated by several media outsets.... at their later admission. ABC covered up Zimmerman's injuries from video and photo, CNN made false claims of racial slurs and NBC altered the 911 recording to make it look like Zimmerman was calling about Martin's race.

Are you suggesting that people should not go look over their neighborhood? You have several times in different threads brought up community policing but do you know that a major part of community policing deals with citizen patrols? In fact for three years I commanded a community policing group and on many occasions have ridden in support of these patrols.

You have no idea what happened yet you want another officer to give him a kick in the butt? The us vs. them is usually brought on by them. I have not defended this officer in a single post on any forum. I have no idea what his provocation was and neither do you yet you are ready to render a verdict. With that mindset you chastise officers for rushing to judgment.

1. Instructions given by dispatchers have no legal bearing and may not even be correct. 2. Yes he was on 911 and it sounded like me that he followed his instructions.

Do you have any evidence whatsoever that Zimmerman chased Martin down and pulled a gun on him? The backwoods justice was attempted by Martin. A listen to the entire and not edited 911 recording is about 99.5% in favor of Zimmerman not chasing Martin at all, much less catching him. Your opinion on officer salaries, at least in this area, is skewed. I believe that I make more per hour than most O&G workers. They have a distinct advantage in overtime potential.

"What happened?"

I am not so sure about the idea of doesn't get to play cop. I am not familiar with FL laws but in TX a citizen has the same authority (not right) to arrest for certain crimes. In that section of the law it is even mentioned in the same sentence. It doesn't say a cop can do this but a citizen can do that.

What someone "should" have done on most occasions has no bearing on a criminal investigation. Martin had no right to stand his ground if he was breaking the law as he was doing as he attacked Zimmerman. Who kills at will? Out of the 13 million arrests by the police each year, many against very violent criminals who many times resist arrest, how many are killed at will? What do you call "aren't paid particularly well"?

If it was in this area I can almost assure you that you will not see the footage because if it can be used in a criminal investigation, it is not public information. A department "may" release it at their discretion. Different states have freedom of information laws and what another state does depends on their laws.