That's a total spin on what really happened. The system worked here, and worked perfectly. The police recieved a complaint, investigated, found the complaint to be groundless and immediately released the suspect on the scene. It doesn't get anymore perfect than that.
I'm much happier with a system where the police investigate first, dismiss second. I'd have a much greater problem with Psychic Police (tm) who're inclined to decide the validity of a complaint without even showing up.
In Florida v. J.L., the Supreme Court required that a tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just its tendancy to identify a particular person, before it may be relied upon to effect a seizure.
An accurate description of a subject's readily observable location and appearance is of course reliable in this limited sense: It will help the police correctly identify the person whom the tipster means to accuse. Such a tip, however, does not show that the tipster has knowledge of concealed criminal activity. The reasonable suspicion here at issue requires that a tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person....
Firearms are dangerous, and extraordinary dangers sometimes justify unusual precautions. Our decisions recognize the serious threat that armed criminals pose to public safety; Terry 's rule, which permits protective police searches on the basis of reasonable suspicion rather than demanding that officers meet the higher standard of probable cause, responds to this very concern. See 392 U. S., at 30 . But an automatic firearm exception to our established reliability analysis would rove too far. Such an exception would enable any person seeking to harass another to set in motion an intrusive, embarrassing police search of the targeted person simply by placing an anonymous call falsely reporting the target's unlawful carriage of a gun. Nor could one securely confine such an exception to allegations involving firearms.
Wrong. The only reason someone wasn't injured or killed was because the subject wasn't paying much attention and apparently hadn't taken any weapons retention training.
The police have NO RIGHT to lay their hands on you unless you have committed a crime, or they have probable cause that you have. I still haven't seen a single poster state what law the citizen was accused of breaking. It is not illegal to go to a bookstore in New Hampshire. Nor is it illegal to carry openly in New Hampshire.
The police recieved a complaint, investigated, found the complaint to be groundless and immediately released the suspect on the scene. It doesn't get anymore perfect than that.
Like I said, they got very lucky. Bad guys are starting to impersonate police officers more and more often nowadays, and it's very reasonable for a citizen to assume that when someone comes up and grabs them when they haven't committed a crime, that the person grabbing them isn't a cop.
The cops got lucky that this guy didn't have much formal training.
Police officers can come up and engage you in conversation, but you don't have to acknowledge them, and they sure as hell can't put their hands on you if you ignore them (unless of course, you have committed a crime).