Recently I was on patrol in a high crime area. A detective, who had been watching a drug dealer from down the street watched me approach in my marked unit. When I got near the drug dealer, who was standing on the corner, the detective told me to 'check that guy out, he's been flagging down cars.' So, I stop my cruiser and tell the guy I want to talk to him. He takes off running, while reaching in his waistband and throwing something, that was not found afterward. The guy (17 year old) runs inside a house next door. I catch him inside. The people that live there say they don't know him.
I charged the kid with obstructing and burglary. We go to juvenile court. The judge says it's not a crime to run from the police and finds the kid not guilty of obstructing. But he does find him guilty of the burglary.
Recently I found out the judge told the prosecutor in the case that I was a "cowboy" for chasing this poor youth.
So, a detective sees a kid engaging in selling drugs in a known drug area, he runs, gets caught, goes to court and now I'm a "cowboy" for doing my job.
I should'a been a brain surgeon.
While I would probably not disagree with the judge's decision (since the thrown object was never found, there's no way of telling whether it would have constituted evidence of anything illegal), his comment is way out of line. That the person was willing to commit burglary in an effort to avoid talking to a cop would suggest strongly that he was up to no good. Whether or not such evidence would constitute probable cause for anything [other than the burglary arrest], it should at minimum be recognized informally.
What's unfortunate is that thanks to jury brainwashing it's often easier to convict law-abiding people of unintentional 'crimes', even felonies, than to convict real criminals. After all, since the law-abiding people aren't seeking to hide anything (having no reason to do so) it's much easier to gather adequate evidence against them. And if the judge can convince the jury that abbreviating the name of one's state of residence on a 4473 constitutes a failure to properly fill one out, it will be easy to come up with all the 'evidence' needed.
BTW, I'd like to see an attourney general announce that police officers who go after the law-abiding rather than criminals will have their cases thrown out. To my knowledge, at the national level Ashcroft has never said such a thing; at the Illinois level, the current attourney general spent considerable effort on a 'sting' of law-abiding gun dealers, and the Republican nominee sought, as state's attourney, to prosecute someone for unlawful use of a weapon because he was carrying a pistol in the manner specified by statute (in a case, within a backpack, unloaded, and while possessing a FOID card).