Posted on 08/14/2013 11:06:15 AM PDT by marktwain
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) - Lawyers say Bellingham has agreed to pay $15,000 to a man who was threatened by a police officer for wearing a holstered gun in a city park.
The police officer pointed his gun at the citizen who was not breaking any law. Second Amendment activists who exercise their rights are winning these cases by being scrupulously law abiding, polite, and recording their interactions.
Several settlements have been reached in Michigan.
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Though in a sense it doesn’t seem quite right to pile-on to the beat cops for following a policy being set by Elected Liberal Cretins in City Hall, the State Capitol and Washington, D.C.
Police have unions so they don’t have to be educated.
I disagree. The morons can read the bill of rights just like we did. They swore an oath to defend the Constitution. They are paid to enforce the law, which they obviously do not understand.If they are too stupid to think they need to get a job that requires no thought.
I think they would learn better if the money came out of the offending officer’s pocket instead of the tax payer’s pocket. I am glad that we are winning these little victories but, at the same time, it’s BS that cops themselves are rarely held personally accountable for their misdeeds. No other profession allows it’s members to get away with so much. I think the fact that they are never held accountable is a large part of what is driving all the abuse of power stories we have been hearing. They think they’re above the law and nothing ever happens to make them think otherwise.
Bingo. The rest of the taxpayers are footing these ‘bills’.
If I failed at my job as badly as these ‘cops’ I’d be out on my ass, if not in jail like the rest of the serfs.
In the 1970s, police procedure changed from the “Old West” rules to “SWAT” rules, because of a few high profile police assassinations by leftist radical terrorists.
However, the change was for the worse. While by the very nature of their job, police need to be somewhat confrontational, there is a huge difference between doing so with a holstered weapon and a brandished weapon.
This is why today, still using SWAT tactics, police are huge fans of Tasers, because they give them far more options than life or death. Or perhaps loss of their gun.
But the underlying problem remains. Brandishing a gun seldom makes a bad situation better; but it can most definitely make an okay situation bad.
Add to this what I can call the “Reverse Tueller Drill”. That is, a policeman whose gun remains holstered, instead using a weapon like a nightstick, can himself “close the gap” very quickly.
So what does all this mean? It means that states should consider migrating the police departments in their states *away* from the SWAT techniques. It would likely result in far fewer police casualties, far fewer unintentional shootings, and far fewer “bad” or unnecessary shootings.
This does not leave policemen helpless, however, because one of the premier Old West rules was that if a police officer *did* remove his gun from its holster, his intent was to shoot to kill, not to menace, threaten, or to “take control of the situation.” This said to criminals that they had to *immediately* take a submissive posture, or they were likely to be killed.
It wasn’t the gun, it was the sign. In the shrunken mind of the LEO, this must have been a radical right-wing nut.
15,000 is too little.
i think every fine needs to be taken out of the specific involved officers’ pensions, and then if they are broke, out of the general police union monies.
Buckeye, ever heard of “ignorance of the law is no defense?” It applies particularly to the fuzz as well.
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