I have experienced encounters with cops where I was asked to do something that I didn't understand or agree with. For instance, at the Tea Party rallies I've been to in Florida, the cops request the crowds to relegate themselves to certain areas to keep away from traffic and we comply.
They asked us when we were near the federal courthouse to not go onto the property thereof--even though we were citizens who had every right to go there. We didn't cry that we were being oppressed. We listened, had our protest and went about our business.
Not all of us agreed with the orders, but we were willing to get along with officers who were understandably doing a job that needed to be done.
This woman, with admitted mental problems, should have just complied.
I am sorry she died--she must have been profoundly lonely. But the cop didn't kill her. And he couldn't have known she was mentally ill, could he? The question is rhetorical. I think you and I will have to agree to disagree. :-)
Respectfully disagree.
To comply with an unlawful order is to enable evil. Every citizen should resist the impingement of authority with every means at their disposal.
We need 100 Bundys a day, everywhere.
A Founding Father would have put the cigarette out in his eye.
I can see an obvious difference between a cop telling me to not block a public way and one telling me to put my cigarette out while I sit in my car. There is a little bit of a difference. One is a lawful order. The other is not.