How will you feel when its ACORN filling those positions and making up the law to fit their best judgment of what “their people” want in their absence? Law as you go is no law at all. The answer to your problem is in making the law clear, not making it a matter of opinion.
By your acknowlegement the cops were making a judgment call vice enforcing code, so why were they incensed at the idea of having to explain that judgment? After all, I wasn't refusing to comply, I just wanted justification.
Why should they have to explain their call to you? You don’t own the property nor did you have explicit permission to use the pillar in a manner it was not designed for.
Your assumptions that your usage prsented no threat to public safety and order and no liability to the property owner) are biased in your favor. The cops assumptions (that a possible fall either by your children or some doofus imitating your use could present a liability to the actual property owner as well as public order and safety) are biased in favor of the ACTUAL property owner.
Where do you get off asserting a right not explicity granted by permission to someone else’s property?
Furthermore, have you consulted a lawyer or researched the code yourself? Do you know for sure that you have a common law right to assert a public use of a privately owned pillar that was specifically designed to not be clambered on as indicated by it’s height (or they would have made them shorter)?
Your serf crap is just that, crap. I’m the serf (as a small business owner) that is taxed, fee’d and regulated six ways from Sunday to pay for everyone else’s public benefits while my spouse and I work 80 hours a week to scrape by, stay in business and pay the freaking commercial mortgage (higher rates for them too, yippee). Everybody and their cousin wants a hand up or hand out and thinks their entitled to free use of my property in anyway they see fit because I allow use of the parking lot.
Your attitude is the problem. It wasn’t your property, you have no right to usage not specifically granted and certainly no right to use it in a manner that incurs significant liability to the owner, nor do you have the right to determine if it is a liability or if it is significant. Police officers are charged with the protection and patrol of business property (especially during non business hours) and business property owners pay significantally higher taxes for it.
You are so hung up on your rights and your animus against intrusive government that you’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Which is me and people like me, business owners trying to stay in business and serve the community we live and work in, to make it a better place.
How do you think we feel about intrusive government? We should be allies, but you’re too busy being an intrusive public nuisance to realize that your behavior was an unreasonable risk to the business owner and too proud of yourself to admit it.
The cops were wrong to be rude about it and you were wrong to assert a non existant right to free usage of someone else’s property.
I get your desire to push back against the tyranny. I get in spades, in fact I can write the book on getting it, because until you’ve run your own business you have no idea how many times you have to bend over for the petty bureaucrats at city hall and the county planning commission who think you’re freaking milk cow.
Obama is just a larger than life national version of the planning commission plutocrats that make my life adventurous.
You pushed back in the wrong place, wrong time and wrong issue. Push back at your local city government meetings, planning commission, mayor’s office and more than anything else consider becoming one of them yourself and most especially become a local GOP precinct representive or comittee person in support of Sarah Palin.
That’s how and where to push back.
Give the cops a break, they're beat cops, not Harvard lawyers, but they displayed good cop instincts even if their manners were lousy.
Your usage was a liability, had your child or children or an some idjit seeing your usage and deciding they could also do whatever they wanted been injured, I can just about guarandamntee an ambulance chaser would encourage you to file a claim and seek restitution from our insurance company. It's what they effing do for living.
Yes, the cops were making a judgement call on the behalf of the property owner and general public order and safety, which is entirely within their job description and authority.
You on the other had were demanding they justify themselves to you over a right you didn't have and that they knew you didn't have. And that's why they puffed up like peacocks.
So does your local law enforcement have a citizen's oversight board and are you on it? Ever been to a city or county planning committee meeting? Ever think about running for local elected office?
You want to change the cops attitude, become their CO.