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Cops Are Suing a Teen for Invasion of Privacy After False Arrest Vid Goes Viral

385 points by isaacfrond 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
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ericfrazier 3y ago
The 19yo narrated the encounter by captioning the videos he posted. That put him in legal jeopardy as he expressed opinions as fact, according to the lawsuit.
- black6 3y ago
  Then every talking head on cable news should be in legal jeopardy.
- simcop2387 3y ago
  That's what their claiming at least, but it's a lot different in how that actually gets interpreted once in court so it'll be interesting to see the filings and their reasoning in how they should be interpreted as fact instead of opinion, and how they claim that the statements are false too.
hooverd 3y ago
Up there with hits like "being charged with destruction of property because your blood splatter from being beaten got on a cop's uniform" [0] [0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-caught-in-a-bloody-lie https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-cau...
salamanderss 3y ago
Many police investigations depend on absolute control of evidence. Border and Customs especially depends on this and somehow have succeeded to this day in maintained regulations and laws that block you from accessing recording devices or recording when in the indoors secondary inspection. And of course that is the place where they fabricate all their lies and warrants.
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  The things border agents get away with make an absolute mockery of the constitution. They have the ability to seize and search devices (phones, computers) without a warrant within 100 mi of the us border or international airports. I also distinctly remember a story during the Portland protests of unidentified government agents (later revealed to be border patrol) throwing people into unmarked vehicles. I fail to see how that's any different than kidnapping. It's certainly how security services the world over 'disappear' their citizens. I am usually 100% for peaceful protest over violent resistance, but in such a circumstance I don't think any jury in the land would convict someone of killing such an agent that refused to identify themselves.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pc86 3y ago
    > I don't think any jury in the land would convict someone of killing such an agent that refused to identify themselves I think you give juries too much credit, and maybe voir dire in general. The prosecution would simply hammer on the fact that they "murdered a cop" and how they don't dispute the fact they killed them, they have the murder weapon, etc. They'd bring up crying relatives of the deceased. They'd bring up the defendant's prior criminal history if one exists, or find old social media posts critical of LE or the government. And they'd go right up to the line of perjury without crossing it, asking half a dozen people from the same department about "department policy" around identifying yourself. Not to mention they'd almost certainly ask for a change of venue to a more LE-friendly area of the country. So you end up with some young kid from an urban area on the coast on trial for killing a cop in rural Colorado or Nevada or something. It's unlikely that goes well for them, especially if they don't have the funds for a bulldog defense attorney.
    - LorenPechtel 3y ago
      Yeah, juries tend towards the stupid side because competent people likely have lives that would be seriously impacted by a major trial. As far as I'm concerned plainclothes officers should not be allowed to make arrests outside exigent circumstances. The target is likely to feel they are under criminal attack and very well might respond with lethal force.
Buttons840 3y ago
I predict they will lose and a video criticizing their arguments in the court case will appear on YouTube and receive millions of views. Even if he loses, a video that simply quotes court documents and offers opinion could attract a lot of views and cause a lot of outrage towards the officers and the system.
- samtho 3y ago
  Not sure why you are preoccupied with this being a video - that’s just the medium. There is already, rightly, a lot of scrutiny with how much law enforcement is allowed to get away with and the public is very receptive to this message at the current moment. This information combing to light is enough to effectively make a case to the public.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
rahimnathwani 3y ago
The headline is misleading. The suit is not about the footage of the arrest, but separate accompanying statements.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  It's not misleading. It's the "footage of the arrest, with narration" (not "separate statements") that went viral.
  - rahimnathwani 3y ago
    The headline suggests that the footage of the arrest is what the cops are claiming is an invasion of privacy. But the claim is about the accompanying comments/captions, some of which talk about things that don't happen in the video and didn't happen during the interaction.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      In this case, the two are intrinsically connected. I get what you're saying. I also think "Cops are suing a teen for invasion of privacy based on his narration of a viral video of their body cam footage of his arrest" is a little unwieldy.
zugi 3y ago
The teen should make a music video of the footage to help raise funds for their legal defense, as Afroman did with hits like Lemon Pound Cake (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xxK5yyecRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xxK5yyecRo ) and Will You Help Me Repair My Door (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oponIfu5L3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oponIfu5L3Y). The right to record the police in public is well established now, and the claims the police are making (that technically Nathan Winter of the Newton Police Department is not a "convicted" domestic abuser, he's just an "accused" domestic abuser with a judge issuing a protective order against him) seem more likely to defame them than a brief caption in the teen's posted arrest video.
- salamanderss 3y ago
  FWIW those DV TPO are handed out like candy and not evidence of anything. David Letterman had one for bit because a lady (he didn't know, in a different state) accused him of sending her secret abusive messages through his TV program. It's kind of insane to depend on that for an opinion let alone stuff like constitutional rights.
  - User23 3y ago
    And yet many people support an automatic loss of constitutional rights if one is issued.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Fixing people's opinions is very difficult because they are mostly made emotionally and the idea of a person being harassed or abused is emotional fire while the idea of an innocent person accused (especially since they are often people of "power") is often met with apathy at best.
    - porkbeer 3y ago
      That is going to the supreme court this year. Hopefully it will affirm rights.
    - ohdannyboy 3y ago
mcpackieh 3y ago
> Captions in the YouTube video that the counterclaim quoted read that [...] Galanakis had been “kidnapped then raped by the NPD all night.” > In two decisions in May and September, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher dismissed almost all of the officers’ claims. Locher deemed most of Galanakis’s captions as “non-actionable statement[s] of opinion” or “rhetorical hyperbole,” which are both considered non-defamatory. This included the caption where Galanakis said he was “raped” by the police department, which Locher said was “distasteful,” but non-actionable. False claim of rape is distasteful but non-actionable? I don't get that.
- bottlelion 3y ago
  It's rhetorical. If you said said "the Denver Broncos raped the 49ers last night" you wouldn't be accusing the Broncos of literal sexual assault.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    There's a clear contextual difference between a ball game and a bogus arrest. In the latter, he was deprived of his freedom and placed at the mercy of the police with few if any witnesses.
    - kyleee 3y ago
      I think there is a non zero chance that big brute of an officer would have raped him in the era before body cams and ubiquitous surveillance
- brvsft 3y ago
  Most likely because these were captions on the cops' bodycam footage, so viewers who watched it probably did not get any impression that he was claiming to be literally raped.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    "raped by the NPD all night" seems to clearly reference (evidently fictitious) off-camera events.
brvsft 3y ago
> The only counts Locher has not dismissed are defamation and invasion of privacy against the officers related to Galanakis' claim that Winters had been convicted of domestic abuse. “Nathan Winter of the Newton Police Department convicted of domestic abuse after beating up his ex girlfriend,” Galanakis wrote in one caption. A subsequent caption stated that Winters had “beat the shit out of” his girlfriend. Though Winters had a protective order filed against him, the counterclaim states that he has not been charged or convicted of domestic abuse. Locher agreed that on this basis claims of defamation and false-light invasion of privacy for both Winter and Wing (because of the implication that Wing did nothing to discipline Winters) can proceed. Most important part of the article as far as I can tell. Everything else was dismissed. These two cops are quite disgusting, especially Winters. I remember seeing this video when it originally went viral, and the 19-year-old seems calm and coherent. The only reason I think you could mistake him for drinking is his normal speech pattern has a kind of 'slur' to it. Nothing he did seemed wrong, just what they initially pulled him over for re: his headlights, which he had a consistent explanation for. They're just power hungry cops who wanted to fuck with someone.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  Does defamation require the person to knowingly spread false information? As my understanding is that if they had heard of the protection order and misunderstood what that meant they wouldn't be guilty of libel. I'm not sure if that's true, or if it would also apply to defamation.
  - gspencley 3y ago
    > Does defamation require the person to knowingly spread false information? IANAL but there are certain criteria that must be met from what I understand. Knowing the statements to be false is one of them, but then there is intent and motivation as well as actual damages. The reason that intent matters is that I could say something like: "Jeff Bezos is the type of guy that murders cats for fun." The above is an opinion that is using colourful language. However, it COULD be construed as a statement of fact. So if Jeff Bezos* wanted to sue me for defamation, he would have to make the case that I was making a statement of fact which I not only knew to be untrue, but that I also knew was likely to cause reputational harm that would lead to financial damages. * - And I'm asking to put aside the fact that Bezos is a public figure which raises the bar even higher, since people are more likely to talk about public figures and thus it is more likely and reasonable to get the facts wrong, to share personal opinions in ways that could be confused as factual statements and it is much less likely to cause the individual damages since most reasonable people kind of "get" this.
logicalmonster 3y ago
I understand that the law might not take this into account right now, but if cops get some qualified immunity from lawsuits in the course of doing their jobs, it seems a fair trade to me that they should similarly be restricted in some ways from suing members of the public who criticize them in the course of their jobs.
- pc86 3y ago
  The first thing I thought when reading the title was that if a police officer sues a citizen in this manner they should immediately and irrevocably lose any qualified immunity status for the same incident. If the PO didn't do anything wrong and they actually do have a case against the person, they should lose nothing by no longer having QI.
- hk1337 3y ago
  At the very least, maybe qualified immunity in this specific case is revoked, i.e. they could counter-sue the officer.
MobiusHorizons 3y ago
I have seen the footage of that stop alongside body cam footage from the officers on YouTube, but I hadn’t seen the version released by galanakis. Even without commentary, it looked like a bad arrest to me. The officers refuse to use a breathalyzer at first, choosing a field sobriety test (which is known to have many problems) first. At one point the officers said something to the affect of “he’s a smartass” as part of their decision to arrest.
- nerdix 3y ago
  IIRC Galanakis uploaded the publicly available body cam footage and that's what he was sued for. Which makes it even more egregious.
  - hk1337 3y ago
    Well, he uploaded the video plus his commentary on the video.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    But in the USA, anyone can be sued for anything. This is how the system is designed. I could sue you for posting this comment and claim that it's defamatory to the Pope, and I would get my (hopefully extremely brief) day in court.
    - callalex 3y ago
      But you can’t sue the cops, they have immunity.
      - kyleee 3y ago
        Well you can certainly sue them but you are right in the sense that QI is rarely stripped
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        You absolutely can. It will probably be thrown out, just like most counts in this case.
lbwtaylor 3y ago
If you read through the end, the claims were thrown out, except the claim that the officer was abused his wife, which there is some question of whether that's actionable. Seems like the court is doing the reasonable thing.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- alex_lav 3y ago
  Reasonable to who?
  - ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
    To all the parties involved, I'd argue. It seems they were able to parse out all of the claims and readily dismissed the vast majority of the ridiculous stuff that the cops were claiming, while acknowledging that the assertion that the officer was a "wife abuser" could veer into defamation was plausible and merits a trial (where both sides are perfectly entitled to build their case). Seems reasonable!
    - alex_lav 3y ago
      This is a level of delusion I cannot fathom. I'm sorry you feel this way.
      - ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
        In earnest: Could you help lead me to a different perspective? Happy to seriously engage to see if there's a blind spot I'm missing
        alex_lav 3y ago
        Well, first and most obviously, I suspect the teen that's being sued probably does not consider this recourse "reasonable", so "all parties involved" is probably untrue. But mostly, two armed men terrorized a 19 year old and are now attempting to sue this 19 year old for the meany-mean things that 19 year old said while being terrorized. Is that reasonable, really, to anyone? If someone is robbing your house and you say they probably beat their wife, should the robber be allowed to sue you? Other than a badge, what's the difference between these two scenarios?
happytiger 3y ago
I’m cool with two way lawsuits as long as we can drop qualified immunity. You can’t have it both ways.
jawns 3y ago
Is it a stretch to think these police officers are trying to make things as painful as possible for this teen, even if they know a court is going to eventually throw them out, because he called them out on their outrageous behavior? Well ... it surely isn't an isolated incident. Seems like this town has quite an authoritarian streak. A man showed up at a Newton city council meeting to share his thoughts about Galanakis's arrest during a public comment period. He criticized the town's mayor and police chief -- and they had him arrested! Criticizing the government in a public forum expressly designed for public commentary is probably the most iron-clad protected of First Amendment speech, but the town must think they operate well above the Constitution: https://news.yahoo.com/iowa-man-files-lawsuit-being-175544785.html?guccounter=1 https://news.yahoo.com/iowa-man-files-lawsuit-being-17554478...
- dpedu 3y ago
  > Is it a stretch to think these police officers are trying to make things as painful No, I definitely agree. And it makes me wonder what the endgame is here. Could Abuse of Process come into play?
- joshstrange 3y ago
  > Is it a stretch to think these police officers are trying to make things as painful as possible for this teen, even if they know a court is going to eventually throw them out, because he called them out on their outrageous behavior? Yes and no. I mean police are on a power trip even if you do everything they say but as soon as he called the cop out and called him stupid (in any encounter that wasn't with a cop I might have used harsher language to describe the person in question) I'm sure it didn't help. But that's the problem, it didn't help but I honestly don't think he could have said/not said/done/not done anything to placate the cops. This kid is 19 years old, he gets pulled over later at night on his way home trying to follow the law the best he knows how (headlight out, using brights to have some light), the cops expect him to know the law about having your brights on when I've never heard of such a law (mind you cops don't need to know the law themselves as they prove more often than not but they expect a 19 year old kid to), then they shine bright lights in his face and expect him to know exactly where his registration is? And that's all within the first few minutes. The rest of the video that I watched it's more of the same, a power tripping cop gives confusing and contradictory instructions to someone who has never done this before and expects the system to work since he has done nothing wrong. Good thing the cops set him straight at a young age so he won't make the mistake of thinking they are there to "serve and protect" (yes I know they don't actually have to do either) or that the system works in any way, shape, or form. It's telling that this is what these bastions of society spend their time on instead of what should be slam dunk cases where someone's phone is stolen and they can tell the cops exactly where it is or similar solvable thefts that they don't bother with. What a waste of taxpayer dollars.
o0banky0o 3y ago
I wonder about a possible iatrogenic explanation for police being tyrants. I bet there's a case to be made that simply being educated on how tyrannical behavior works could help to cause it to happen in the first place. In fact, it almost seems like you'd HAVE to go through that in order to get a grip on the problem in the first place. This is pure armchair psychology, Can someone straighten me out? Is there something to this?
- klyrs 3y ago
  I'm having trouble parsing this line of thought. Are you suggesting that merely talking about tyranny is inducing tyrannical behavior; that not talking about the elephant in the room could make the elephant disappear? Taking it a step further: should police not be educated about corruption laws, or should corruption laws simply not exist?
  - o0banky0o 3y ago
    should doctors not perform surgery ever again because some people die as a side effect? No, I am not suggesting we stop talking.
- cultureswitch 3y ago
  The reality of abuse from cops, politicians, managers, HOA presidents, faculty deans and virtually any position of partially unchecked power is that these positions attract exactly the kind of person who would abuse that power. The fact of the matter is, the more cooperative, non-violent, honest and nice society is in general, the more viable it is to be a machiavellian, narcissistic and power-hungry parasite. These traits are innate parts of the personality of each of us from birth, and some of us get a lot more than others. It's generally not a very good thing for one's future prospects to have these traits. The risk of having everyone sniff you out and turn against you is high, and gets higher the less sophisticated you are. But even relatively unsuccessful little tyrants (HOA presidents are the perfect example of this) are more than capable of inflicting actual damage on others. If you're someone like this, and you have a tendency for violence on top of it, becoming a cop is an attractive prospect because most of these traits aren't particularly punished in that profession and sometimes are actively beneficial to your career. Perhaps unintuitively, the real solution to this problem is to attract normal people to fill these roles. This is particularly true for politics, where most normal people rightly evaluate that the risks of a career in politics are much higher than the reward. Normal people see the reward of a career in politics as essentially an interesting job and the ability to make things better for a community. This is motivating, but not as strong as the motivation of people who are in it for the power.
Racing0461 3y ago
> A subsequent caption stated that Winters had “beat the shit out of” his girlfriend. Though Winters had a protective order filed against him, the counterclaim states that he has not been charged or convicted of domestic abuse As much as i hate cops (qualified immunity), i hate this guilty until you are proven innocent in court but always guilty in court of public opinion about anything related to female directed domestic violence/r4p3/assault/red flags laws to take your property away without due proces etc even more. Im not saying he didn't do it, im just saying these things need to be private until its likely true (quick determination), then posted. Same way the asylum system in the us works where you can show a credible threat to cbp at the border than years later you get the actual court case to get the final approval.
footlose_3815 3y ago
Cops in the USA are trying to act like kings with their power. Crying crocodile tears when someone mildly inconveniences them. Youtuber is an absolute loser though. Imagine getting-off on distracting people from other jobs they could be doing.
ChumpGPT 3y ago
Teach you kids to avoid the cops at any cost. Their resources are limitless and they will use them to destroy your life. Follow their orders and accept any traffic violation with a smile. I am white and my family is law abiding and we have taught our kids from a young age to just make sure they stay away from them and avoid them as much as they can. This advice was given to me by an incredibly successful lawyer (Family friend) a very long time ago.
- UncleSlacky 3y ago
  Relevant video ("Don't Talk to the Police") by a law professor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
acyou 3y ago
The bodycam video is so incredibly heavily edited and manipulative. I struggle to understand how anyone can watch it and not feel like they are being overtly manipulated (and also start to heavily doubt the narrative being pushed). For example, what happens between 14:26 and 14:31 and 14:50-14:57, and 15:44-16:33? Or, we might ask ourselves, why does this interaction seem incredibly one-sided? Before people say "nothing could possibly justify", consider what might have happened between 14:26 and 14:31 and 14:50-14:57, and 15:44-16:33, which is literally the entire premise of the arrest (and omitted from the video).
- Clubber 3y ago
  The full body cam footage is public record and has been widely discussed by cop watching channels.
  - acyou 3y ago
    Is that true? Do you have a link to corroborate that claim? Quickly checking, I wasn't able to find anything that indicates the full bodycam footage is in fact public record.
    - Clubber 3y ago
      FWIW, all government records are by default public record thanks to the FOIA. The government can try to make exceptions and redactions, but even when they try to block it, they are forced to release related information in court in discovery. The only exception to this in recent memory is the SCOTUS refused to hear an NSA case due to sensitive material because they knew lots of stuff would be become public record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(Un... It was more difficult to find that I remember without all the commentary, but here it is. https://www.newtongov.org/CivicMedia?VID=277#player https://www.newtongov.org/CivicMedia?VID=277#player
RecycledEle 3y ago
You can always tell a company is too far gone to save when they start suing people. Same for cops.
zelon88 3y ago
> The lawsuit claims that such statements caused the officers “to suffer: pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of community reputation, loss of employability, [and] loss of time and inconvenience bringing this action.” How ironic. That the opinions of someone on a YouTube video can cause someone as fortified as a police officer such anguish. Listening to them describe the damages you would think these officers were wrongfully arrested or something.
renewiltord 3y ago
The town has 16k people. This is just standard "try that in a small town" stuff. It's sort of what the expression means.
- bequanna 3y ago
  I don’t follow. I’m familiar with the song. I don’t understand how this behavior relates to anything discussed there.
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    Extra-judicially maintaining the status quo is a prevalent practice in small town America. The song is referencing that, of course, but the behaviour here is quite typical of it. Essentially, if you're in a small town in America, the question isn't whether you have rights. What is law and what will happen to you are distinct.
    - bequanna 3y ago
      And how were the police “extra-judicially maintaining the status quo” here? Cops being pricks to teenagers happens everywhere, from small towns to urban centers or suburbs.
      - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
        > Cops being pricks This counts as extra-judicially maintaining the status quo.
        bequanna 3y ago
        Uh huh. And how is that behavior exclusive to a small town? This same exact thing could have happened in a town of any size. Cops harass teenagers everywhere. This has no relation to the themes of that song which discusses how antisocial, illegal behavior like rioting, theft, assault, etc which is permitted in urban centers will not be tolerated in smaller communities.
xrd 3y ago
See this related discussion three days ago: "Iowa man files lawsuit after being arrested twice for criticizing the police" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37910698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37910698
r3trohack3r 3y ago
Tangentially related, but incredibly important given the footage of this interview and its importance in civilian oversight of the U.S. government: never talk to the FBI unless it’s recorded. And they will never be recorded, which means you should never talk to the FBI. They have a long standing policy of refusing to allow any interview to be recorded. Instead, they fill out a 302 report after the interview with a “written record” of what was said. Unless you’re comfortable with your freedom relying on the honesty of the agent sitting across from you, an agent whose incentives are to close cases, do not talk to the FBI.
- noirscape 3y ago
  The second caveat is that you should probably get a lawyer if anyone from law enforcement wants to talk to you in any way that is more complicated than a speeding ticket. Similarly, don't sign any papers or agree to anything without a lawyer present. You aren't smarter than the people whose job it is (on paper) to enforce the law (even if in practice, many police officers in the US don't seem to know or care to enforce it). Things you might be able to "coax" out of an individual officer get thrown in the bin anyway and your statements will be read in the worst possible light if given half the chance. Your lawyer is paid to understand the law (and if they're any good, they'll do what they can to protect you). That advice goes double if it's any three letter agency.
- trogdor 3y ago
  >…never talk to the FBI unless it’s recorded. And they will never be recorded, which means you should never talk to the FBI. They have a long standing policy of refusing to allow any interview to be recorded. That hasn’t been true for nearly a decade. Here is the DOJ’s policy on the electronic recording of statements: https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-13000-obtaining-evidence https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-13000-obtaining-evidence
anon373839 3y ago
I remember hearing or reading a suggestion that many US policing problems would be solved overnight if the law would simply mandate officers to wear dorky uniforms. The “militarized badass in aviators” image attracts the wrong type of people to the job, while a dorky uniform would mean that only those who actually wanted to serve the public would remain. I have no idea if it would work, but I always liked the idea.
- postmodest 3y ago
  Safety vests and Bobby hats for everyone!
- Animats 3y ago
  This was for years actual policy in the UK, where most of the cops are unarmed. Using Land Rovers as police cars was considered too military, for example. Sunnyvale, California, has a combined police and fire department. They train their people for both and they move back and forth. Emergency medical services is in there, too. At one time, their cops wore red blazers with the city insignia.
  - jackhack 3y ago
    But consider that Sunnyvale, California has the benefit of a very upscale demographic, no gang activity, low organized crime, etc. What works for one place will likely not apply elsewhere (e.g. no one-size-fits-all solution). Organized crime (especially drug crime) is a quasi-military force. The police are threatening billions of dollars in illicit profit, and that will not go unchallenged easily.
    - init2null 3y ago
      Police will always need some SWAT and borderline military teams. The question is whether the average street cop needs to be weapon-wielding law enforcement, and I suggest the answer is no. The danger level goes down when it's known that a cop's power is in their reinforcements. The individual cop would be little danger and doesn't need to be shot.
tinyhouse 3y ago
If he didn't dim his high beams, which can lead to an accident, then I don't have much sympathy for him.
- alphabettsy 3y ago
  That’s an exceptionally silly take. Using your high beams against regulations is annoying and potentially dangerous. Police officers using a simple traffic infraction to abuse their power is more dangerous.
  - tinyhouse 3y ago
    Agreed. I'm not saying what the officers did was right or justified, just saying that I don't have sympathy for people who put others at risk on the road.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  Oof what a shitty, uneducated take. I suggest you actually read more about what happened before continuing to comment.
jimt1234 3y ago
Sorta related: What is the current situation regarding testing for being actively under the influence of marijuana? For better or worse, breathalyzer tests have been generally accepted for testing being actively under the influence of alcohol. Are breathalyzer tests used for marijuana, too? Or, is it just a field sobriety test? Further, what is the situation for recent-use testing? I've heard that marijuana can be detected in blood for something like 90 days. Like, how would a test work for a job like an air-traffic controller? Disclaimer: I'm not a smoker at all. Not trying to protect my job at the airport. Just curious, as more and more states are legalized recreational use.
- beeburrt 3y ago
  You get a Driving Under the Influence charge and everything that comes with it: suspended license, fines, etc. if there are traces in your blood, even if the traces are days/weeks old. And they can take your blood without your consent. Ask me how I know.
  - jimt1234 3y ago
    > And they can take your blood without your consent. Ask me how I know. I'm curious ^^^
    - beeburrt 3y ago
      I had been awake for far, far too long, when unconscious (and under arrest) they (the paramedics) took my blood, and according to my lawyer, there was nothing I could do about it.
- owenmarshall 3y ago
  > Sorta related: What is the current situation regarding testing for being actively under the influence of marijuana? For better or worse, breathalyzer tests have been generally accepted for testing being actively under the influence of alcohol. Are breathalyzer tests used for marijuana, too? Or, is it just a field sobriety test? A quick and very important slight tangent that there are two kinds of breath tests at play. When the police pull someone over for suspicion of DUI, they're attempting to establish probable cause for an arrest. The preliminary breath test is one of these tools, and in most (possibly all?) states it is voluntary & not admissible as evidence. You can look your own state's laws up, but here's a deep dive from Wisconsin on their laws[1]. If the police establish probable cause of intoxication because you volunteered to take a field sobriety test / preliminary breath test, because of their description of your physical condition (bloodshot/glassy eyes) or circumstances (open container, scent of marijuana), you'll be arrested & compelled to perform an evidentiary breath test on a stationary machine in a police station, or provide a blood sample to test for intoxication. And this is not a voluntary test – your refusal to provide an evidentiary test is considered evidence that you committed a DUI and you will be penalized accordingly. So in general: it's almost best to keep your interactions with the police limited & refuse any voluntary tests to prevent probable cause from being built. [1]: https://www.wisbar.org/NewsPublications/WisconsinLawyer/Pages/Article.aspx?Volume=88&Issue=1&ArticleID=23792 https://www.wisbar.org/NewsPublications/WisconsinLawyer/Page...
gwbas1c 3y ago
OMG, that kid is obviously sober. Obviously as in the cop comes across as someone so naive as to have never seen a drunk or stoned person; and have plenty of unfounded biases as a result.

385 points by isaacfrond 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

The 19yo narrated the encounter by captioning the videos he posted. That put him in legal jeopardy as he expressed opinions as fact, according to the lawsuit.

black6 3y ago
Then every talking head on cable news should be in legal jeopardy.
simcop2387 3y ago
That's what their claiming at least, but it's a lot different in how that actually gets interpreted once in court so it'll be interesting to see the filings and their reasoning in how they should be interpreted as fact instead of opinion, and how they claim that the statements are false too.

hooverd 3y ago

Up there with hits like "being charged with destruction of property because your blood splatter from being beaten got on a cop's uniform" [0] [0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-caught-in-a-bloody-lie https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-cau...

salamanderss 3y ago

Many police investigations depend on absolute control of evidence. Border and Customs especially depends on this and somehow have succeeded to this day in maintained regulations and laws that block you from accessing recording devices or recording when in the indoors secondary inspection. And of course that is the place where they fabricate all their lies and warrants.

wing-_-nuts 3y ago
The things border agents get away with make an absolute mockery of the constitution. They have the ability to seize and search devices (phones, computers) without a warrant within 100 mi of the us border or international airports. I also distinctly remember a story during the Portland protests of unidentified government agents (later revealed to be border patrol) throwing people into unmarked vehicles. I fail to see how that's any different than kidnapping. It's certainly how security services the world over 'disappear' their citizens. I am usually 100% for peaceful protest over violent resistance, but in such a circumstance I don't think any jury in the land would convict someone of killing such an agent that refused to identify themselves.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pc86 3y ago
  > I don't think any jury in the land would convict someone of killing such an agent that refused to identify themselves I think you give juries too much credit, and maybe voir dire in general. The prosecution would simply hammer on the fact that they "murdered a cop" and how they don't dispute the fact they killed them, they have the murder weapon, etc. They'd bring up crying relatives of the deceased. They'd bring up the defendant's prior criminal history if one exists, or find old social media posts critical of LE or the government. And they'd go right up to the line of perjury without crossing it, asking half a dozen people from the same department about "department policy" around identifying yourself. Not to mention they'd almost certainly ask for a change of venue to a more LE-friendly area of the country. So you end up with some young kid from an urban area on the coast on trial for killing a cop in rural Colorado or Nevada or something. It's unlikely that goes well for them, especially if they don't have the funds for a bulldog defense attorney.
  - LorenPechtel 3y ago
    Yeah, juries tend towards the stupid side because competent people likely have lives that would be seriously impacted by a major trial. As far as I'm concerned plainclothes officers should not be allowed to make arrests outside exigent circumstances. The target is likely to feel they are under criminal attack and very well might respond with lethal force.

Buttons840 3y ago

I predict they will lose and a video criticizing their arguments in the court case will appear on YouTube and receive millions of views. Even if he loses, a video that simply quotes court documents and offers opinion could attract a lot of views and cause a lot of outrage towards the officers and the system.

samtho 3y ago
Not sure why you are preoccupied with this being a video - that’s just the medium. There is already, rightly, a lot of scrutiny with how much law enforcement is allowed to get away with and the public is very receptive to this message at the current moment. This information combing to light is enough to effectively make a case to the public.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

rahimnathwani 3y ago

The headline is misleading. The suit is not about the footage of the arrest, but separate accompanying statements.

FireBeyond 3y ago
It's not misleading. It's the "footage of the arrest, with narration" (not "separate statements") that went viral.
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
  The headline suggests that the footage of the arrest is what the cops are claiming is an invasion of privacy. But the claim is about the accompanying comments/captions, some of which talk about things that don't happen in the video and didn't happen during the interaction.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    In this case, the two are intrinsically connected. I get what you're saying. I also think "Cops are suing a teen for invasion of privacy based on his narration of a viral video of their body cam footage of his arrest" is a little unwieldy.

zugi 3y ago

The teen should make a music video of the footage to help raise funds for their legal defense, as Afroman did with hits like Lemon Pound Cake (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xxK5yyecRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xxK5yyecRo ) and Will You Help Me Repair My Door (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oponIfu5L3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oponIfu5L3Y). The right to record the police in public is well established now, and the claims the police are making (that technically Nathan Winter of the Newton Police Department is not a "convicted" domestic abuser, he's just an "accused" domestic abuser with a judge issuing a protective order against him) seem more likely to defame them than a brief caption in the teen's posted arrest video.

salamanderss 3y ago
FWIW those DV TPO are handed out like candy and not evidence of anything. David Letterman had one for bit because a lady (he didn't know, in a different state) accused him of sending her secret abusive messages through his TV program. It's kind of insane to depend on that for an opinion let alone stuff like constitutional rights.
- User23 3y ago
  And yet many people support an automatic loss of constitutional rights if one is issued.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Fixing people's opinions is very difficult because they are mostly made emotionally and the idea of a person being harassed or abused is emotional fire while the idea of an innocent person accused (especially since they are often people of "power") is often met with apathy at best.
  - porkbeer 3y ago
    That is going to the supreme court this year. Hopefully it will affirm rights.
  - ohdannyboy 3y ago

mcpackieh 3y ago

> Captions in the YouTube video that the counterclaim quoted read that [...] Galanakis had been “kidnapped then raped by the NPD all night.” > In two decisions in May and September, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher dismissed almost all of the officers’ claims. Locher deemed most of Galanakis’s captions as “non-actionable statement[s] of opinion” or “rhetorical hyperbole,” which are both considered non-defamatory. This included the caption where Galanakis said he was “raped” by the police department, which Locher said was “distasteful,” but non-actionable. False claim of rape is distasteful but non-actionable? I don't get that.

bottlelion 3y ago
It's rhetorical. If you said said "the Denver Broncos raped the 49ers last night" you wouldn't be accusing the Broncos of literal sexual assault.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  There's a clear contextual difference between a ball game and a bogus arrest. In the latter, he was deprived of his freedom and placed at the mercy of the police with few if any witnesses.
  - kyleee 3y ago
    I think there is a non zero chance that big brute of an officer would have raped him in the era before body cams and ubiquitous surveillance
brvsft 3y ago
Most likely because these were captions on the cops' bodycam footage, so viewers who watched it probably did not get any impression that he was claiming to be literally raped.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  "raped by the NPD all night" seems to clearly reference (evidently fictitious) off-camera events.

brvsft 3y ago

> The only counts Locher has not dismissed are defamation and invasion of privacy against the officers related to Galanakis' claim that Winters had been convicted of domestic abuse. “Nathan Winter of the Newton Police Department convicted of domestic abuse after beating up his ex girlfriend,” Galanakis wrote in one caption. A subsequent caption stated that Winters had “beat the shit out of” his girlfriend. Though Winters had a protective order filed against him, the counterclaim states that he has not been charged or convicted of domestic abuse. Locher agreed that on this basis claims of defamation and false-light invasion of privacy for both Winter and Wing (because of the implication that Wing did nothing to discipline Winters) can proceed. Most important part of the article as far as I can tell. Everything else was dismissed. These two cops are quite disgusting, especially Winters. I remember seeing this video when it originally went viral, and the 19-year-old seems calm and coherent. The only reason I think you could mistake him for drinking is his normal speech pattern has a kind of 'slur' to it. Nothing he did seemed wrong, just what they initially pulled him over for re: his headlights, which he had a consistent explanation for. They're just power hungry cops who wanted to fuck with someone.

boomboomsubban 3y ago
Does defamation require the person to knowingly spread false information? As my understanding is that if they had heard of the protection order and misunderstood what that meant they wouldn't be guilty of libel. I'm not sure if that's true, or if it would also apply to defamation.
- gspencley 3y ago
  > Does defamation require the person to knowingly spread false information? IANAL but there are certain criteria that must be met from what I understand. Knowing the statements to be false is one of them, but then there is intent and motivation as well as actual damages. The reason that intent matters is that I could say something like: "Jeff Bezos is the type of guy that murders cats for fun." The above is an opinion that is using colourful language. However, it COULD be construed as a statement of fact. So if Jeff Bezos* wanted to sue me for defamation, he would have to make the case that I was making a statement of fact which I not only knew to be untrue, but that I also knew was likely to cause reputational harm that would lead to financial damages. * - And I'm asking to put aside the fact that Bezos is a public figure which raises the bar even higher, since people are more likely to talk about public figures and thus it is more likely and reasonable to get the facts wrong, to share personal opinions in ways that could be confused as factual statements and it is much less likely to cause the individual damages since most reasonable people kind of "get" this.

logicalmonster 3y ago

I understand that the law might not take this into account right now, but if cops get some qualified immunity from lawsuits in the course of doing their jobs, it seems a fair trade to me that they should similarly be restricted in some ways from suing members of the public who criticize them in the course of their jobs.

pc86 3y ago
The first thing I thought when reading the title was that if a police officer sues a citizen in this manner they should immediately and irrevocably lose any qualified immunity status for the same incident. If the PO didn't do anything wrong and they actually do have a case against the person, they should lose nothing by no longer having QI.
hk1337 3y ago
At the very least, maybe qualified immunity in this specific case is revoked, i.e. they could counter-sue the officer.

MobiusHorizons 3y ago

I have seen the footage of that stop alongside body cam footage from the officers on YouTube, but I hadn’t seen the version released by galanakis. Even without commentary, it looked like a bad arrest to me. The officers refuse to use a breathalyzer at first, choosing a field sobriety test (which is known to have many problems) first. At one point the officers said something to the affect of “he’s a smartass” as part of their decision to arrest.

nerdix 3y ago
IIRC Galanakis uploaded the publicly available body cam footage and that's what he was sued for. Which makes it even more egregious.
- hk1337 3y ago
  Well, he uploaded the video plus his commentary on the video.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  But in the USA, anyone can be sued for anything. This is how the system is designed. I could sue you for posting this comment and claim that it's defamatory to the Pope, and I would get my (hopefully extremely brief) day in court.
  - callalex 3y ago
    But you can’t sue the cops, they have immunity.
    - kyleee 3y ago
      Well you can certainly sue them but you are right in the sense that QI is rarely stripped
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      You absolutely can. It will probably be thrown out, just like most counts in this case.

lbwtaylor 3y ago

If you read through the end, the claims were thrown out, except the claim that the officer was abused his wife, which there is some question of whether that's actionable. Seems like the court is doing the reasonable thing.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
alex_lav 3y ago
Reasonable to who?
- ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
  To all the parties involved, I'd argue. It seems they were able to parse out all of the claims and readily dismissed the vast majority of the ridiculous stuff that the cops were claiming, while acknowledging that the assertion that the officer was a "wife abuser" could veer into defamation was plausible and merits a trial (where both sides are perfectly entitled to build their case). Seems reasonable!
  - alex_lav 3y ago
    This is a level of delusion I cannot fathom. I'm sorry you feel this way.
    - ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
      In earnest: Could you help lead me to a different perspective? Happy to seriously engage to see if there's a blind spot I'm missing
      - alex_lav 3y ago
        Well, first and most obviously, I suspect the teen that's being sued probably does not consider this recourse "reasonable", so "all parties involved" is probably untrue. But mostly, two armed men terrorized a 19 year old and are now attempting to sue this 19 year old for the meany-mean things that 19 year old said while being terrorized. Is that reasonable, really, to anyone? If someone is robbing your house and you say they probably beat their wife, should the robber be allowed to sue you? Other than a badge, what's the difference between these two scenarios?

happytiger 3y ago

I’m cool with two way lawsuits as long as we can drop qualified immunity. You can’t have it both ways.

jawns 3y ago

Is it a stretch to think these police officers are trying to make things as painful as possible for this teen, even if they know a court is going to eventually throw them out, because he called them out on their outrageous behavior? Well ... it surely isn't an isolated incident. Seems like this town has quite an authoritarian streak. A man showed up at a Newton city council meeting to share his thoughts about Galanakis's arrest during a public comment period. He criticized the town's mayor and police chief -- and they had him arrested! Criticizing the government in a public forum expressly designed for public commentary is probably the most iron-clad protected of First Amendment speech, but the town must think they operate well above the Constitution: https://news.yahoo.com/iowa-man-files-lawsuit-being-175544785.html?guccounter=1 https://news.yahoo.com/iowa-man-files-lawsuit-being-17554478...

dpedu 3y ago
> Is it a stretch to think these police officers are trying to make things as painful No, I definitely agree. And it makes me wonder what the endgame is here. Could Abuse of Process come into play?
joshstrange 3y ago
> Is it a stretch to think these police officers are trying to make things as painful as possible for this teen, even if they know a court is going to eventually throw them out, because he called them out on their outrageous behavior? Yes and no. I mean police are on a power trip even if you do everything they say but as soon as he called the cop out and called him stupid (in any encounter that wasn't with a cop I might have used harsher language to describe the person in question) I'm sure it didn't help. But that's the problem, it didn't help but I honestly don't think he could have said/not said/done/not done anything to placate the cops. This kid is 19 years old, he gets pulled over later at night on his way home trying to follow the law the best he knows how (headlight out, using brights to have some light), the cops expect him to know the law about having your brights on when I've never heard of such a law (mind you cops don't need to know the law themselves as they prove more often than not but they expect a 19 year old kid to), then they shine bright lights in his face and expect him to know exactly where his registration is? And that's all within the first few minutes. The rest of the video that I watched it's more of the same, a power tripping cop gives confusing and contradictory instructions to someone who has never done this before and expects the system to work since he has done nothing wrong. Good thing the cops set him straight at a young age so he won't make the mistake of thinking they are there to "serve and protect" (yes I know they don't actually have to do either) or that the system works in any way, shape, or form. It's telling that this is what these bastions of society spend their time on instead of what should be slam dunk cases where someone's phone is stolen and they can tell the cops exactly where it is or similar solvable thefts that they don't bother with. What a waste of taxpayer dollars.

o0banky0o 3y ago

I wonder about a possible iatrogenic explanation for police being tyrants. I bet there's a case to be made that simply being educated on how tyrannical behavior works could help to cause it to happen in the first place. In fact, it almost seems like you'd HAVE to go through that in order to get a grip on the problem in the first place. This is pure armchair psychology, Can someone straighten me out? Is there something to this?

klyrs 3y ago
I'm having trouble parsing this line of thought. Are you suggesting that merely talking about tyranny is inducing tyrannical behavior; that not talking about the elephant in the room could make the elephant disappear? Taking it a step further: should police not be educated about corruption laws, or should corruption laws simply not exist?
- o0banky0o 3y ago
  should doctors not perform surgery ever again because some people die as a side effect? No, I am not suggesting we stop talking.
cultureswitch 3y ago
The reality of abuse from cops, politicians, managers, HOA presidents, faculty deans and virtually any position of partially unchecked power is that these positions attract exactly the kind of person who would abuse that power. The fact of the matter is, the more cooperative, non-violent, honest and nice society is in general, the more viable it is to be a machiavellian, narcissistic and power-hungry parasite. These traits are innate parts of the personality of each of us from birth, and some of us get a lot more than others. It's generally not a very good thing for one's future prospects to have these traits. The risk of having everyone sniff you out and turn against you is high, and gets higher the less sophisticated you are. But even relatively unsuccessful little tyrants (HOA presidents are the perfect example of this) are more than capable of inflicting actual damage on others. If you're someone like this, and you have a tendency for violence on top of it, becoming a cop is an attractive prospect because most of these traits aren't particularly punished in that profession and sometimes are actively beneficial to your career. Perhaps unintuitively, the real solution to this problem is to attract normal people to fill these roles. This is particularly true for politics, where most normal people rightly evaluate that the risks of a career in politics are much higher than the reward. Normal people see the reward of a career in politics as essentially an interesting job and the ability to make things better for a community. This is motivating, but not as strong as the motivation of people who are in it for the power.

Racing0461 3y ago

> A subsequent caption stated that Winters had “beat the shit out of” his girlfriend. Though Winters had a protective order filed against him, the counterclaim states that he has not been charged or convicted of domestic abuse As much as i hate cops (qualified immunity), i hate this guilty until you are proven innocent in court but always guilty in court of public opinion about anything related to female directed domestic violence/r4p3/assault/red flags laws to take your property away without due proces etc even more. Im not saying he didn't do it, im just saying these things need to be private until its likely true (quick determination), then posted. Same way the asylum system in the us works where you can show a credible threat to cbp at the border than years later you get the actual court case to get the final approval.

footlose_3815 3y ago

Cops in the USA are trying to act like kings with their power. Crying crocodile tears when someone mildly inconveniences them. Youtuber is an absolute loser though. Imagine getting-off on distracting people from other jobs they could be doing.

ChumpGPT 3y ago

Teach you kids to avoid the cops at any cost. Their resources are limitless and they will use them to destroy your life. Follow their orders and accept any traffic violation with a smile. I am white and my family is law abiding and we have taught our kids from a young age to just make sure they stay away from them and avoid them as much as they can. This advice was given to me by an incredibly successful lawyer (Family friend) a very long time ago.

UncleSlacky 3y ago
Relevant video ("Don't Talk to the Police") by a law professor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

acyou 3y ago

The bodycam video is so incredibly heavily edited and manipulative. I struggle to understand how anyone can watch it and not feel like they are being overtly manipulated (and also start to heavily doubt the narrative being pushed). For example, what happens between 14:26 and 14:31 and 14:50-14:57, and 15:44-16:33? Or, we might ask ourselves, why does this interaction seem incredibly one-sided? Before people say "nothing could possibly justify", consider what might have happened between 14:26 and 14:31 and 14:50-14:57, and 15:44-16:33, which is literally the entire premise of the arrest (and omitted from the video).

Clubber 3y ago
The full body cam footage is public record and has been widely discussed by cop watching channels.
- acyou 3y ago
  Is that true? Do you have a link to corroborate that claim? Quickly checking, I wasn't able to find anything that indicates the full bodycam footage is in fact public record.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    FWIW, all government records are by default public record thanks to the FOIA. The government can try to make exceptions and redactions, but even when they try to block it, they are forced to release related information in court in discovery. The only exception to this in recent memory is the SCOTUS refused to hear an NSA case due to sensitive material because they knew lots of stuff would be become public record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(Un... It was more difficult to find that I remember without all the commentary, but here it is. https://www.newtongov.org/CivicMedia?VID=277#player https://www.newtongov.org/CivicMedia?VID=277#player

RecycledEle 3y ago

You can always tell a company is too far gone to save when they start suing people. Same for cops.

zelon88 3y ago

> The lawsuit claims that such statements caused the officers “to suffer: pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of community reputation, loss of employability, [and] loss of time and inconvenience bringing this action.” How ironic. That the opinions of someone on a YouTube video can cause someone as fortified as a police officer such anguish. Listening to them describe the damages you would think these officers were wrongfully arrested or something.

renewiltord 3y ago

The town has 16k people. This is just standard "try that in a small town" stuff. It's sort of what the expression means.

bequanna 3y ago
I don’t follow. I’m familiar with the song. I don’t understand how this behavior relates to anything discussed there.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Extra-judicially maintaining the status quo is a prevalent practice in small town America. The song is referencing that, of course, but the behaviour here is quite typical of it. Essentially, if you're in a small town in America, the question isn't whether you have rights. What is law and what will happen to you are distinct.
  - bequanna 3y ago
    And how were the police “extra-judicially maintaining the status quo” here? Cops being pricks to teenagers happens everywhere, from small towns to urban centers or suburbs.
    - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
      > Cops being pricks This counts as extra-judicially maintaining the status quo.
      - bequanna 3y ago
        Uh huh. And how is that behavior exclusive to a small town? This same exact thing could have happened in a town of any size. Cops harass teenagers everywhere. This has no relation to the themes of that song which discusses how antisocial, illegal behavior like rioting, theft, assault, etc which is permitted in urban centers will not be tolerated in smaller communities.

xrd 3y ago

See this related discussion three days ago: "Iowa man files lawsuit after being arrested twice for criticizing the police" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37910698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37910698

r3trohack3r 3y ago

Tangentially related, but incredibly important given the footage of this interview and its importance in civilian oversight of the U.S. government: never talk to the FBI unless it’s recorded. And they will never be recorded, which means you should never talk to the FBI. They have a long standing policy of refusing to allow any interview to be recorded. Instead, they fill out a 302 report after the interview with a “written record” of what was said. Unless you’re comfortable with your freedom relying on the honesty of the agent sitting across from you, an agent whose incentives are to close cases, do not talk to the FBI.

noirscape 3y ago
The second caveat is that you should probably get a lawyer if anyone from law enforcement wants to talk to you in any way that is more complicated than a speeding ticket. Similarly, don't sign any papers or agree to anything without a lawyer present. You aren't smarter than the people whose job it is (on paper) to enforce the law (even if in practice, many police officers in the US don't seem to know or care to enforce it). Things you might be able to "coax" out of an individual officer get thrown in the bin anyway and your statements will be read in the worst possible light if given half the chance. Your lawyer is paid to understand the law (and if they're any good, they'll do what they can to protect you). That advice goes double if it's any three letter agency.
trogdor 3y ago
>…never talk to the FBI unless it’s recorded. And they will never be recorded, which means you should never talk to the FBI. They have a long standing policy of refusing to allow any interview to be recorded. That hasn’t been true for nearly a decade. Here is the DOJ’s policy on the electronic recording of statements: https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-13000-obtaining-evidence https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-13000-obtaining-evidence

anon373839 3y ago

I remember hearing or reading a suggestion that many US policing problems would be solved overnight if the law would simply mandate officers to wear dorky uniforms. The “militarized badass in aviators” image attracts the wrong type of people to the job, while a dorky uniform would mean that only those who actually wanted to serve the public would remain. I have no idea if it would work, but I always liked the idea.

postmodest 3y ago
Safety vests and Bobby hats for everyone!
Animats 3y ago
This was for years actual policy in the UK, where most of the cops are unarmed. Using Land Rovers as police cars was considered too military, for example. Sunnyvale, California, has a combined police and fire department. They train their people for both and they move back and forth. Emergency medical services is in there, too. At one time, their cops wore red blazers with the city insignia.
- jackhack 3y ago
  But consider that Sunnyvale, California has the benefit of a very upscale demographic, no gang activity, low organized crime, etc. What works for one place will likely not apply elsewhere (e.g. no one-size-fits-all solution). Organized crime (especially drug crime) is a quasi-military force. The police are threatening billions of dollars in illicit profit, and that will not go unchallenged easily.
  - init2null 3y ago
    Police will always need some SWAT and borderline military teams. The question is whether the average street cop needs to be weapon-wielding law enforcement, and I suggest the answer is no. The danger level goes down when it's known that a cop's power is in their reinforcements. The individual cop would be little danger and doesn't need to be shot.

tinyhouse 3y ago

If he didn't dim his high beams, which can lead to an accident, then I don't have much sympathy for him.

alphabettsy 3y ago
That’s an exceptionally silly take. Using your high beams against regulations is annoying and potentially dangerous. Police officers using a simple traffic infraction to abuse their power is more dangerous.
- tinyhouse 3y ago
  Agreed. I'm not saying what the officers did was right or justified, just saying that I don't have sympathy for people who put others at risk on the road.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
Oof what a shitty, uneducated take. I suggest you actually read more about what happened before continuing to comment.

jimt1234 3y ago

Sorta related: What is the current situation regarding testing for being actively under the influence of marijuana? For better or worse, breathalyzer tests have been generally accepted for testing being actively under the influence of alcohol. Are breathalyzer tests used for marijuana, too? Or, is it just a field sobriety test? Further, what is the situation for recent-use testing? I've heard that marijuana can be detected in blood for something like 90 days. Like, how would a test work for a job like an air-traffic controller? Disclaimer: I'm not a smoker at all. Not trying to protect my job at the airport. Just curious, as more and more states are legalized recreational use.

beeburrt 3y ago
You get a Driving Under the Influence charge and everything that comes with it: suspended license, fines, etc. if there are traces in your blood, even if the traces are days/weeks old. And they can take your blood without your consent. Ask me how I know.
- jimt1234 3y ago
  > And they can take your blood without your consent. Ask me how I know. I'm curious ^^^
  - beeburrt 3y ago
    I had been awake for far, far too long, when unconscious (and under arrest) they (the paramedics) took my blood, and according to my lawyer, there was nothing I could do about it.
owenmarshall 3y ago
> Sorta related: What is the current situation regarding testing for being actively under the influence of marijuana? For better or worse, breathalyzer tests have been generally accepted for testing being actively under the influence of alcohol. Are breathalyzer tests used for marijuana, too? Or, is it just a field sobriety test? A quick and very important slight tangent that there are two kinds of breath tests at play. When the police pull someone over for suspicion of DUI, they're attempting to establish probable cause for an arrest. The preliminary breath test is one of these tools, and in most (possibly all?) states it is voluntary & not admissible as evidence. You can look your own state's laws up, but here's a deep dive from Wisconsin on their laws[1]. If the police establish probable cause of intoxication because you volunteered to take a field sobriety test / preliminary breath test, because of their description of your physical condition (bloodshot/glassy eyes) or circumstances (open container, scent of marijuana), you'll be arrested & compelled to perform an evidentiary breath test on a stationary machine in a police station, or provide a blood sample to test for intoxication. And this is not a voluntary test – your refusal to provide an evidentiary test is considered evidence that you committed a DUI and you will be penalized accordingly. So in general: it's almost best to keep your interactions with the police limited & refuse any voluntary tests to prevent probable cause from being built. [1]: https://www.wisbar.org/NewsPublications/WisconsinLawyer/Pages/Article.aspx?Volume=88&Issue=1&ArticleID=23792 https://www.wisbar.org/NewsPublications/WisconsinLawyer/Page...

gwbas1c 3y ago

OMG, that kid is obviously sober. Obviously as in the cop comes across as someone so naive as to have never seen a drunk or stoned person; and have plenty of unfounded biases as a result.