7 ms·

How is it legal for a police offer to arrest someone without any warning, without even telling them why they're being arrested, and without probable cause? What

How is it legal for a police offer to arrest someone without any warning, without even telling them why they're being arrested, and without probable cause? What are the repercussions for these officers for falsely arresting people? Do they suffer any consequences, or do they suffer no punishment for this injustice? This is extremely disturbing, and further evidence that the U.S. is a police state. I've never felt more ashamed of my country.

monocasa 6y ago
> How is it legal for a police offer to arrest someone without any warning, without even telling them why they're being arrested, and without probable cause? Cops can hold you for some amount of time, generally around 24 hours without cause. > What are the repercussions for these officers for falsely arresting people? None > Do they suffer any consequences, or do they suffer no punishment for this injustice? No punishment.
- JSavageOne 6y ago
  That's horrifying. Why don't we change the law?
  - camgunz 6y ago
    Courts are normally extremely deferential to law enforcement. Coupled with the fact that increasing oversight or increasing restrictions on law enforcement leads to a barrage of "soft on crime" political attack ads, and you get what we have today.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      The "soft on crime thing" was a lot more effective in the 90s when there was a lot more actual crime and so people were more afraid of it. At this point I'm basically waiting for a politician to adopt "soft on crime" as a campaign slogan and rebrand it as a rehabilitation program where you turn drug dealers into docile flower shop owners as opposed to opponents who "make crime tough" by sending people to "crime school" prisons and turning them into hardened career criminals with switchblades and facial tattoos. The real problem is the same as it is in general -- special interest groups (in this case police and prison guard unions and private prison companies) are the ones who spend the most effort lobbying on the issue. It also doesn't help at all when we disenfranchise "convicts" because we're then disenfranchising the victims of the system whenever it makes a mistake (which is often).
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Because we have decades of it being political suicide to not be "tough on crime". Obviously cops only act in good faith, so any restrictions on them are restrictions on getting criminals off the street. </s>
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcherm 6y ago
    Consider how one goes about changing a law. Generally it starts with citizens making a fuss to inform their elected representatives that they think the existing laws need to be changed. Recently, in Minnesota, hundreds of people gathered in a protest on precisely this topic. They gathered to say (for their elected representatives and everyone else to hear) that they wanted a change to the laws and the system that permits police officers to kill people by kneeling on their neck when attempting to arrest them. It was during this very protest that the CNN reporters were arrested. So, as you can see, people are trying to solve that problem. They have been protesting loudly about it for the past decade (much longer, in truth, but there has been a renewed focus by the media within the past decade). And so far... well, you tell me whether you think it's working.
    - JSavageOne 6y ago
      Seems like our political system is broken then. If the public so adamantly wants laws that elected representatives refuse to pass, then it seems that enabling direct democracy would be one solution to getting these laws passed.
  - ATsch 6y ago
    Nobody has rioted hard enough so far and most of the victims of this law are not white.
  - bityard 6y ago
    Laws that give the police _less_ power are generally written in blood. Meaning, there has to be a pattern of clear and obvious abuse for any change to happen. For instance, the now near-ubiqitous police body cams are a result of multiple well-publicized unprovoked beatings and murders. The reason for this is that no politician is going to willingly step up for more police oversight and restricted powers, for at least a couple of reasons: 1) They will be painted by their opponents as "weak on crime" or even "supporting criminals" at election time. 2) They risk losing votes from emergency services workers, which are quite a large demographic in local elections.
- voxic11 6y ago
  Note also that 24 hours usually doesn't include Sundays and holidays, often Saturdays are excluded as well. Meaning if you get arrested before a long weekend it could be 4 days before anyone legally has to consider releasing or charging you.
  - kindatrue 6y ago
    And then sometimes they forget that you're there "Daniel Chong Drank Urine To Survive 5 Days In Holding Cell Without Food, Water" https://www.huffpost.com/entry/daniel-chong-dea-urine-cell-5-days_n_1470430 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/daniel-chong-dea-urine-cell-5...
- pionar 6y ago
  > Cops can hold you for some amount of time, generally around 24 hours without cause. This is simply not true. Police may not keep you detained if they do not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. However, in real life, they do this sometimes, even though it's been ruled unconstitutional. They do occasionally face repercussions. Thousands of civil rights lawsuits are settled quietly around the country every year, and some go to court and establish precedents, such as Turner v. Driver. They don't suffer consequences enough, though, and depend on citizens not knowing that what the police are doing is wrong. It's also difficult due to the "thin blue line" BS where cops are elevated above the rest of society.
  - kindatrue 6y ago
    They also depend on citizens not having the financial or time resources to sue.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    > This is simply not true. Police may not keep you detained if they do not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. However, in real life, they do this sometimes, even though it's been ruled unconstitutional. They don't have to charge you, so they don't have to prove it. > They don't suffer consequences enough, though, and depend on citizens not knowing that what the police are doing is wrong. It's also difficult due to the "thin blue line" BS where cops are elevated above the rest of society. The police themselves hardly ever face consequences; the settlements come from the taxpayer.
    - pionar 6y ago
      They actually do have to articulate their PC. If they don't, again, you can sue for civil rights violations. Not saying it doesn't happen, it does, but it's not correct to say they're "allowed to".
      - monocasa 6y ago
        They have 24 hours to articulate that or let you go.
- antoncohen 6y ago
  > Cops can hold you for some amount of time, generally around 24 hours without cause. This isn't totally true, at least not for the casual use of "cause". Cops must have "reasonable suspicion"[1][2] to detain, during that detainment they can discover more information which creates "probable cause", and probable cause allows them to arrest. My guess is they were arrested for what is commonly called "resisting arrest"[3]. The way resisting arrest laws are unfortunately written, obstructing an officer in their duty is enough, they don't have to actually be resisting arrest. Basically of the cops told the CNN crew to get off the street, and the crew didn't, that would be "resisting arrest". Minnesota's law: > obstructs, resists, or interferes with a peace officer while the officer is engaged in the performance of official duties Note that they were arrested, you can hear an officer say they are under arrest, but they haven't been charged or convicted. I doubt they will be charged. It is up to the county district attorney to press charges (the same DA who isn't pressing charges against the officer who killed George Floyd). The press in the US are usually given a lot of freedom, and are allowed to be in places that the police don't allow regular citizens (riots areas, wildfire areas, etc.). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion [2] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-reasonable-suspicion.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-reasonable-susp... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resisting_arrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resisting_arrest
  - heraclius 6y ago
    In this case, in the video, Jimenez asks the police whether they'd like him to move somewhere else, they don't respond, and then they arrest him, so it is quite hard to justify the claim that they were resisting arrest even on that definition.
101404 6y ago
Not even when your country murdered half a million Iraqis? Or when your country continuously murders thousands of innocent people with "drone strikes" for more than a decade already? Or is that nothing to "feel ashamed" about, because those murdered victims were not "American citizens"?
- JSavageOne 6y ago
  I was in elementary school when that happened so I wasn't paying attention to politics at the time. Regardless my point isn't to compare tragedies, but to highlight the absurdity of this, and the sad state of the U.S. right now.
kfrzcode 6y ago
Edit: I'm wrong, the video I had seen was slightly abridged. The video camera turns on while they were (likely) already told they will be arrested. They were perhaps ordered to move and did not move. The National Guard and state troopers in that particular area (< 15 miles from me) started ordering people to disperse or face arrest. I don't believe that press are exempt from this order especially when a state of emergency is declared. Downvoters: please add comment why, or else this isn't discourse
- elil17 6y ago
  Actually they had been filming continuously, and they had been previously told by police to stand where they were standing, and they had received no new instructions from the police since then, and there was an all-white group of reporters standing in a similar position on the other side of the police who did not get arrested. I understand the desire to come up with an explanation for what happened, I really do, but the fact of the matter is that police arrested these reporters for no reason.
  - corrupt_measure 6y ago
    While it may be tempting to jump to a racial interpretation of the arrest, it appears that the CNN reporters were just standing in the wrong place and in the chaos of the moment were arrested.
    - wtallis 6y ago
      > and in the chaos of the moment were arrested What chaos? The scene shown in the video looks really calm, with one protester, several reporters, and a very large number of police standing around apparently doing nothing more than looking intimidating at that moment.
      - corrupt_measure 6y ago
        Perhaps chaos isn't the best word. Hightened tension is more appropriate.
brudgers 6y ago
How is it legal Police carry guns. Legal is not relevant.
- LyndsySimon 6y ago
  That's... silly. I carry a gun, too, but I don't go around arbitrarily forcing my will on others. The difference is "qualified immunity", not weaponry.
  - wnoise 6y ago
    Qualified immunity only matters for civil suits under 42 USC 1983. Cops ultimately aren't disciplined because there's no political will. And there's no consequences on the ground because they have more weapons, and importantly ready backup from other cops. If you were in a gang, and carried a gun, you could indeed arbitrarily force your will on others for some time.
coffeefirst 6y ago
It isn't legal. There will be a civil suit, and the city will likely settle for a dollar amount covered by their insurance.
- apta 6y ago
  Paid for by taxes.
bargl 6y ago
Police can break the law too. An officer's actions may or may not be legal and that's determined after the fact in a court of law. This doesn't happen all the time, but when police do break the law, or don't follow it correctly their actions come under scrutiny, data collected can be discarded from court, and even suffer personal blowback. What you're asking is how did it happen? That's because it's illegal for a citizen to resist arrest (even unlawful arrest), so in the USA if you are being arrested, SAY you do not willingly submit, but DO whatever the officer tells you. The thing many people forget is that the law doesn't happen just on the street in the US. It is a slow and flawed process, but police are just the front line of it, not the whole thing. As someone else said, this will probably cost the police and city in a settlement. Edit: Cops CANNOT just hold you for 24 hours. They have to have something to charge you with even if it's disorderly conduct. And you can then sue the local police if you have evidence that you were wrongly imprisoned. It is easy for cops to get cause so your chances of this are low, but it does happen. Once detained (with cause) I believe the 24 hour bit is true. IANAL, this is based on my unprofessional research. I'd suggest you (everyone) do the same.
- monocasa 6y ago
  > As someone else said, this will probably cost the police and city in a settlement. It probably won't cost the police anything, it'll come out of the taxpayer.
  - bargl 6y ago
    Cities can cut jobs, fire police, put police on notice etc. You might not feel like that is enough, but you better believe that any officer who costs the police money is going to be punished. Maybe not equally to someone else but that's not what I was saying.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      > Cities can cut jobs, fire police They can, but they don't because it would be political suicide.
corrupt_measure 6y ago
What is far more disturbing than a reporter ignoring police orders and facing the repercussions is that a city is burning from mindless violence, this violence encouraged by a media and other prominent figures that relish in stoking racial tensions by selective reporting and misrepresentation of facts.
parliament32 6y ago
>repercussions For police? In the US? Very funny.
steveharman 6y ago
If the apparent penalty for murdering a member of the public is only getting fired, I can't see anyone higher up in authority giving a rat's @rse if an officer just grabs someone and arrests them without warning.

monocasa 6y ago

> How is it legal for a police offer to arrest someone without any warning, without even telling them why they're being arrested, and without probable cause? Cops can hold you for some amount of time, generally around 24 hours without cause. > What are the repercussions for these officers for falsely arresting people? None > Do they suffer any consequences, or do they suffer no punishment for this injustice? No punishment.

JSavageOne 6y ago
That's horrifying. Why don't we change the law?
- camgunz 6y ago
  Courts are normally extremely deferential to law enforcement. Coupled with the fact that increasing oversight or increasing restrictions on law enforcement leads to a barrage of "soft on crime" political attack ads, and you get what we have today.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The "soft on crime thing" was a lot more effective in the 90s when there was a lot more actual crime and so people were more afraid of it. At this point I'm basically waiting for a politician to adopt "soft on crime" as a campaign slogan and rebrand it as a rehabilitation program where you turn drug dealers into docile flower shop owners as opposed to opponents who "make crime tough" by sending people to "crime school" prisons and turning them into hardened career criminals with switchblades and facial tattoos. The real problem is the same as it is in general -- special interest groups (in this case police and prison guard unions and private prison companies) are the ones who spend the most effort lobbying on the issue. It also doesn't help at all when we disenfranchise "convicts" because we're then disenfranchising the victims of the system whenever it makes a mistake (which is often).
- monocasa 6y ago
  Because we have decades of it being political suicide to not be "tough on crime". Obviously cops only act in good faith, so any restrictions on them are restrictions on getting criminals off the street. </s>
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mcherm 6y ago
  Consider how one goes about changing a law. Generally it starts with citizens making a fuss to inform their elected representatives that they think the existing laws need to be changed. Recently, in Minnesota, hundreds of people gathered in a protest on precisely this topic. They gathered to say (for their elected representatives and everyone else to hear) that they wanted a change to the laws and the system that permits police officers to kill people by kneeling on their neck when attempting to arrest them. It was during this very protest that the CNN reporters were arrested. So, as you can see, people are trying to solve that problem. They have been protesting loudly about it for the past decade (much longer, in truth, but there has been a renewed focus by the media within the past decade). And so far... well, you tell me whether you think it's working.
  - JSavageOne 6y ago
    Seems like our political system is broken then. If the public so adamantly wants laws that elected representatives refuse to pass, then it seems that enabling direct democracy would be one solution to getting these laws passed.
- ATsch 6y ago
  Nobody has rioted hard enough so far and most of the victims of this law are not white.
- bityard 6y ago
  Laws that give the police _less_ power are generally written in blood. Meaning, there has to be a pattern of clear and obvious abuse for any change to happen. For instance, the now near-ubiqitous police body cams are a result of multiple well-publicized unprovoked beatings and murders. The reason for this is that no politician is going to willingly step up for more police oversight and restricted powers, for at least a couple of reasons: 1) They will be painted by their opponents as "weak on crime" or even "supporting criminals" at election time. 2) They risk losing votes from emergency services workers, which are quite a large demographic in local elections.
voxic11 6y ago
Note also that 24 hours usually doesn't include Sundays and holidays, often Saturdays are excluded as well. Meaning if you get arrested before a long weekend it could be 4 days before anyone legally has to consider releasing or charging you.
- kindatrue 6y ago
  And then sometimes they forget that you're there "Daniel Chong Drank Urine To Survive 5 Days In Holding Cell Without Food, Water" https://www.huffpost.com/entry/daniel-chong-dea-urine-cell-5-days_n_1470430 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/daniel-chong-dea-urine-cell-5...
pionar 6y ago
> Cops can hold you for some amount of time, generally around 24 hours without cause. This is simply not true. Police may not keep you detained if they do not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. However, in real life, they do this sometimes, even though it's been ruled unconstitutional. They do occasionally face repercussions. Thousands of civil rights lawsuits are settled quietly around the country every year, and some go to court and establish precedents, such as Turner v. Driver. They don't suffer consequences enough, though, and depend on citizens not knowing that what the police are doing is wrong. It's also difficult due to the "thin blue line" BS where cops are elevated above the rest of society.
- kindatrue 6y ago
  They also depend on citizens not having the financial or time resources to sue.
- monocasa 6y ago
  > This is simply not true. Police may not keep you detained if they do not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. However, in real life, they do this sometimes, even though it's been ruled unconstitutional. They don't have to charge you, so they don't have to prove it. > They don't suffer consequences enough, though, and depend on citizens not knowing that what the police are doing is wrong. It's also difficult due to the "thin blue line" BS where cops are elevated above the rest of society. The police themselves hardly ever face consequences; the settlements come from the taxpayer.
  - pionar 6y ago
    They actually do have to articulate their PC. If they don't, again, you can sue for civil rights violations. Not saying it doesn't happen, it does, but it's not correct to say they're "allowed to".
    - monocasa 6y ago
      They have 24 hours to articulate that or let you go.
antoncohen 6y ago
> Cops can hold you for some amount of time, generally around 24 hours without cause. This isn't totally true, at least not for the casual use of "cause". Cops must have "reasonable suspicion"[1][2] to detain, during that detainment they can discover more information which creates "probable cause", and probable cause allows them to arrest. My guess is they were arrested for what is commonly called "resisting arrest"[3]. The way resisting arrest laws are unfortunately written, obstructing an officer in their duty is enough, they don't have to actually be resisting arrest. Basically of the cops told the CNN crew to get off the street, and the crew didn't, that would be "resisting arrest". Minnesota's law: > obstructs, resists, or interferes with a peace officer while the officer is engaged in the performance of official duties Note that they were arrested, you can hear an officer say they are under arrest, but they haven't been charged or convicted. I doubt they will be charged. It is up to the county district attorney to press charges (the same DA who isn't pressing charges against the officer who killed George Floyd). The press in the US are usually given a lot of freedom, and are allowed to be in places that the police don't allow regular citizens (riots areas, wildfire areas, etc.). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion [2] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-reasonable-suspicion.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-reasonable-susp... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resisting_arrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resisting_arrest
- heraclius 6y ago
  In this case, in the video, Jimenez asks the police whether they'd like him to move somewhere else, they don't respond, and then they arrest him, so it is quite hard to justify the claim that they were resisting arrest even on that definition.

101404 6y ago

Not even when your country murdered half a million Iraqis? Or when your country continuously murders thousands of innocent people with "drone strikes" for more than a decade already? Or is that nothing to "feel ashamed" about, because those murdered victims were not "American citizens"?

JSavageOne 6y ago
I was in elementary school when that happened so I wasn't paying attention to politics at the time. Regardless my point isn't to compare tragedies, but to highlight the absurdity of this, and the sad state of the U.S. right now.

kfrzcode 6y ago

Edit: I'm wrong, the video I had seen was slightly abridged. The video camera turns on while they were (likely) already told they will be arrested. They were perhaps ordered to move and did not move. The National Guard and state troopers in that particular area (< 15 miles from me) started ordering people to disperse or face arrest. I don't believe that press are exempt from this order especially when a state of emergency is declared. Downvoters: please add comment why, or else this isn't discourse

elil17 6y ago
Actually they had been filming continuously, and they had been previously told by police to stand where they were standing, and they had received no new instructions from the police since then, and there was an all-white group of reporters standing in a similar position on the other side of the police who did not get arrested. I understand the desire to come up with an explanation for what happened, I really do, but the fact of the matter is that police arrested these reporters for no reason.
- corrupt_measure 6y ago
  While it may be tempting to jump to a racial interpretation of the arrest, it appears that the CNN reporters were just standing in the wrong place and in the chaos of the moment were arrested.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    > and in the chaos of the moment were arrested What chaos? The scene shown in the video looks really calm, with one protester, several reporters, and a very large number of police standing around apparently doing nothing more than looking intimidating at that moment.
    - corrupt_measure 6y ago
      Perhaps chaos isn't the best word. Hightened tension is more appropriate.

brudgers 6y ago

How is it legal Police carry guns. Legal is not relevant.

LyndsySimon 6y ago
That's... silly. I carry a gun, too, but I don't go around arbitrarily forcing my will on others. The difference is "qualified immunity", not weaponry.
- wnoise 6y ago
  Qualified immunity only matters for civil suits under 42 USC 1983. Cops ultimately aren't disciplined because there's no political will. And there's no consequences on the ground because they have more weapons, and importantly ready backup from other cops. If you were in a gang, and carried a gun, you could indeed arbitrarily force your will on others for some time.

coffeefirst 6y ago

It isn't legal. There will be a civil suit, and the city will likely settle for a dollar amount covered by their insurance.

apta 6y ago
Paid for by taxes.

bargl 6y ago

Police can break the law too. An officer's actions may or may not be legal and that's determined after the fact in a court of law. This doesn't happen all the time, but when police do break the law, or don't follow it correctly their actions come under scrutiny, data collected can be discarded from court, and even suffer personal blowback. What you're asking is how did it happen? That's because it's illegal for a citizen to resist arrest (even unlawful arrest), so in the USA if you are being arrested, SAY you do not willingly submit, but DO whatever the officer tells you. The thing many people forget is that the law doesn't happen just on the street in the US. It is a slow and flawed process, but police are just the front line of it, not the whole thing. As someone else said, this will probably cost the police and city in a settlement. Edit: Cops CANNOT just hold you for 24 hours. They have to have something to charge you with even if it's disorderly conduct. And you can then sue the local police if you have evidence that you were wrongly imprisoned. It is easy for cops to get cause so your chances of this are low, but it does happen. Once detained (with cause) I believe the 24 hour bit is true. IANAL, this is based on my unprofessional research. I'd suggest you (everyone) do the same.

monocasa 6y ago
> As someone else said, this will probably cost the police and city in a settlement. It probably won't cost the police anything, it'll come out of the taxpayer.
- bargl 6y ago
  Cities can cut jobs, fire police, put police on notice etc. You might not feel like that is enough, but you better believe that any officer who costs the police money is going to be punished. Maybe not equally to someone else but that's not what I was saying.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    > Cities can cut jobs, fire police They can, but they don't because it would be political suicide.

corrupt_measure 6y ago

What is far more disturbing than a reporter ignoring police orders and facing the repercussions is that a city is burning from mindless violence, this violence encouraged by a media and other prominent figures that relish in stoking racial tensions by selective reporting and misrepresentation of facts.

parliament32 6y ago

>repercussions For police? In the US? Very funny.

steveharman 6y ago

If the apparent penalty for murdering a member of the public is only getting fired, I can't see anyone higher up in authority giving a rat's @rse if an officer just grabs someone and arrests them without warning.