Mother Jones has a story on Jared Miller, the man who murdered two Las Vegas police officers as some sort delusional anti-government revolution. In that story, Miller’s comments on SB 1-2012 are referenced. SB 1-2012 was the legislature’s response to Barnes v. State wherein the Indiana Supreme Court declined to recognize a common law right to resist unlawful entry by law enforcement officers. On SB 1-2012, Miller said:
“I live in Indiana and recently a law was passed named the right to resist law. As i can make out from it, if a police officer kicks in my door and is not there legally, then I may shoot him.”
My criticism of the law then and now is that the person resisting law enforcement might have a very tenuous grip on what was legal and what wasn’t. Miller seems like a poster child for a certain willful ignorance of the law.
Bad time to be a cop in Indiana. How do you know what’s in a person’s mind, and at what point do you prepare to protect yourself from what might be destructive to you? I think every cop should have a right wing legislator with him/her. That would correct itself pretty fast.
So it’s the law that is to be criticized, but not the SWAT teams, ballistic shields, flash bang grenades, tear gas, and full dynamic entry, military-style home invasions in American homes on American soil?
We all know the proper way to apprehend someone is to wait discreetly for the person to leave the house to perform some ordinary errand, but we’re deliberately eschewing that peaceful course. Why?
From the New York Times:
War Gear Flows to Police Departments
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html?_r=0
And based on this week’s incidents, for good reason…
Or by not allowing citizenry to own weapons that require police to have military armor to arrest people.
I know you’re a big fan of telling police to handle their own pensions, but you do realize they won’t even bother with joining the force when you send them into a firefight with a pop gun.
How many articles about traffic stops ending in shootings are there?
Or people fleeing from police and injuring, or worse, killing innocent citizens.
Little surprise that this site will undertake no sociological inquiry into reducing state violence.
If some people have reached their breaking point over the abuse of state power and rampant excessive force, disarming the people likely won’t be seen as a satisfactory solution and will only be seen as confirmation of their suspicions.
If we disarm the cops, many in the current group may find a different profession, and good for that. People who like Oakleys, buzz-cuts and tactical gear want to play bully, wear military uniforms and act Army somewhere, and they can’t pull off that vibe without guns. Fortunately, we’ll find a different batch of candidates to do what the police should properly be doing, which is what, exactly?
“I know you’re a big fan of telling police to handle their own pensions, but you do realize they won’t even bother with joining the force when you send them into a firefight with a pop gun.”
The Bobbies are short of recruits, are they?
Then lay it out, but do a better job than above. Make sure not to just address the effect of state violence, but the causes of violence.
And it’s probably incomplete if you don’t address the economic aspect too.
I’ve defended police against several excessive force claims over the years, and almost always the complainant was a self-centered asshat whose real complaint was that the police were enforcing a law the complainant would rather have ignored.
Off the top of my head, there was one excessive force case I defended against where the complainant was a sympathetic character. She was a nice woman who had been kidnapped by the man who had murdered her son and, as the police officers shot at the kidnapper/murderer, she was shot as well and wasn’t so much upset at the use of force as she just had no way to pay her medical bills.
“I’ve defended police against several excessive force claims over the years, and almost always the complainant was a self-centered asshat whose real complaint was that the police were enforcing a law the complainant would rather have ignored. ”
Were you undertaking this defense as government counsel? I certainly hope not, as one would be chilled to hear the government refer to citizens as “self-centered asshats.” Is it improper to be self-centered?
As for the law being ignored, what would be the harm in ignoring the law or only enforcing the law if the violation resulted in a breach of the peace?
“Defamation is a common law tort, governed by state law, in which an individual makes a “publication” of a defamatory statement of and concerning the plaintiff that damages the reputation of the plaintiff.”
Easy to do when you’re anonymous.
Joe:
You’ve needed this for a while.
http://eepineapple.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/whatyouthinkitmeans.jpg
i suspect that there are more self-centered, entitled people who consult attorneys than attorneys care to think about. In this case, there are so many people who could be described in that manner that they are, in fact, anonymous. Their name is legion.
Wow, you figured out Google image search! I guess yer Google ain’t broke no more.
The government is people who are welcome to their private opinions. For someone who bemoans big government, now people lose their First Amendment rights when they’ve been employed by them in the past?
“Were you undertaking this defense as government counsel? I certainly hope not, as one would be chilled to hear the government refer to citizens as “self-centered asshats.”
I’ve worked on cases where the government attorney went so far as to say that the citizen deserved to die. And that citizen was, in fact, killed by the state.
Under Indiana’s law, it seems, if a gangbanging murderer has a “reasonable” belief that police are conducting an illegal search, he can blast away. I’m sure that’s exactly who the law was intended to protect. (Like how Florida’s Stand Your Ground has let drug dealers and gang members go free, as the legislature intended.)
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/florida-stand-your-ground-law-yields-some-shocking-outcomes-depending-on/1233133