Legal positivism! F*CK YEAH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvjpm1mJXlE

Sigh, a guy with a gun being a douchebag, harassing a cop for answering a call from concerned citizens and looking into it.

I agree that the guy is being a jerk. I wonder, though, how many of those 'concerned citizens' would react if they were illegally detained and had their property seized by the police. My guess is that most of them would turn into incredible douchebags as well.

Also, in light of the fact that the cop stopped the guy for no legal reason (thereby breaking the law), I think the harassment started with the cop and not the gun owner.

A cop can stop anyone for any reason (something this guys seemed to be wrong about). They cannot however detain someone, or search someone without reason. The cop didn't search him, asked some pretty basic questions for his police report, and despite the guy not cooperating, the cop after determining the guy wasn't a threat (just a douche) allowed him to go on his way. If you ask me the guy was trolling for a police stop so that he could record it and spout a ton of legal shit that frankly isn't going to keep the cop from ensuring that there isn't a problem. You don't memorize that many court descissions without purpose, not even my lawyer, who I've been friends with quite a while, can quote legal cases of the top of his head, he has no reason to memorize them.

your lawyer can't quote legal precedent?

ummmmmmmmmmmmm.....

May come as a suprise, but they don't memorize random case law, can they quote case law for cases they are working on, yes, because they actually research cases that are related. Can my lawyer quote landmark descissions and supreme court descissions? Yes, but this is not at all the case here.

I think I agree . . . an officer can stop someone for a reason. It is my understanding that where I live a police officer must have a reasonable suspicion that you are violating a law in order to stop you. "A police officer cannot stop you just because he or she thinks you are suspicious. " This officer could not articulate why he stopped the guy other than the fact that someone had a 'concern.'

I also agree that the guy was trolling for cops. He caught one. The officer was courteous, controlled, and did the right thing by calling in his supervisor. The problem is that he was outmatched. If the people in this town don't want someone openly carrying a weapon on the streets, then they need to change the law. If the law allows for open carry, which in this case it looks like it does, then what seems to be the problem?

I'm a little confused, did the cop say that this guy pointed his gun at him? If that's true then why did this guy feel compelled to draw his weapon when a cop approached? Also, our troll wouldn't even identify himself to the officer and if the officer can't bring up any records on this guy then how can the cop know that he's not a felon? For all we know this guy could have a felony conviction on his record and he just doesn't want to get busted.

The disagreement here is the term stop. An officer can stop you without probably cause, and officer can't detain you without probable cause. The guy in question was not detained or charged, the officer was called to a scene, requested information, and allowed the person to go on his way.

For Clarity: "Reasonable suspicion is defined by a set of factual circumstances that would lead a reasonable police officer to believe criminal activity is occurring. This is different from the probable cause (what a reasonable person would believe) required for an arrest, search, and seizure. If the stop and frisk gives rise to probable cause to believe the detainee has committed a crime, then the police officer should have the power to make a formal arrest and conduct a search of the person." If a citizen reports a suspicious person on the street to a police officer, that officer has every right to stop and determine that the individual is not in fact in the process of a criminal activity. The guy in this video was frankly wrong.

I understand what you are saying. What I don't understand is this: Other than admitting that he stopped the man for a LEGAL activity, what was the criminal activity he believed was taking place?

per legalzoom:
A stop is justified if the suspect is exhibiting any combination of the following behaviors:

1. Appears not to fit the time or place.
2. Matches the description on a "Wanted" flyer.
3. Acts strangely, or is emotional, angry, fearful, or intoxicated.
4. Loitering, or looking for something.
5. Running away or engaging in furtive movements.
6. Present in a crime scene area.
7. Present in a high-crime area (not sufficient by itself or with loitering).

I would assume #3 would be the legal justification in this case. Someone calls and says that a suspicious looking man with a gun is walking down the street and when the officer approaches him he is acting defensive and is obviously emotional as you can hear in the video, the officer has reasonable suspicion at that point for a stop. The guy saying "I don't consent to search" does not protect him from being frisked if the cop has reasonable suspicion for a stop. It also does not stop the officer from holding onto his weapon while they are conversing.

My guess is this: It's not that this was a suspicious person. It's that this was a person with a gun. And in someone's mind that made the guy suspicious. (In actuality, for many people, anybody with a gun becomes suspicious.) It isn't really the person. It's the gun. Somebody freaked out because someone else had a gun. It's understandable, but it is also not against the law, apparently, where the video was shot. Are we going to going to agree to stop anyone who is conducting themselves in a legal manner because someone else freaks out over it?

Well, we got it sifted on the merits of the discussion (at least).

I agree that people calling the cops when they see a guy with a gun is wrong, we shouldn't assume that because a guy has a gun that he is out to commit a crime. However I am glad that once the police were called that they came, ensured that there was no cause for concern, and let the guy go on his way. I really do think that the cop only made one mistake and that was saying that he stopped the individual because he had a gun (which wasn't really true, he opened by saying they had received a call).

So, guy acts suspicious, police asked to check it out, they ask the guy the basic questions, guy acts like a total asshole. The end.

*backup

Added alternate embed code for this video - backup requested by Grimm.

Replaced video embed code with backup #7661 (supplied by member Grimm) - embed replaced by member Grimm.

47 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

Something does not have to be illegal for it to be suspicious. If you are found to be carrying a hammer and a towel down a residential street at night, you will be stopped and checked out to be sure you aren't using them to steal from cars or homes. That doesn't make hammers illegal, it makes someone carrying one at night suspicious.
A gun on your hip on a public street is more suspicious than a hammer, and at the least should give the officer the ability to stop and identify the person carrying it. In most jurisdictions, you must identify yourself to an officer when asked, (but nothing more) and they can 'hold' you until your identity is known.
As mentioned before, he could be a felon, therefore committing another felony by carrying a gun...therefore it's legally suspicious. Or you might be a known suspect in another crime...suspicious. Or you might be about to use that gun for a crime...suspicious. Or you might be selling crack and using the visible gun as a deterrent other crack dealers....also suspicious. So yes, anyone intentionally visibly carrying a gun on main street (where there's no need for a gun to protect yourself from anything) is suspicious, just as anyone carrying 15 legal knives would be, or someone with a samurai sword, or handcuffs, a blindfold, and a stun gun might be...none of them illegal but totally suspicious.
His actions were suspicious, more so when he won't identify himself. The officer could have said he 'met the description of a suspect at large', which he (and nearly everyone else on earth) does, there's lots of suspects at large of every description, and as I understand it he could have held him until they identified him. (really I would see that as harassment, but as I understand the law it would be allowed, I was held for 'meeting the description' of a vandal once, and the person eventually arrested turned out to be a 25 year old 6 foot black man, while at the time I was a 13 year old, 5 foot tall white boy).
Yes, people who act in a way that 'freaks normal people out' will likely be stopped and inspected if they're reported. We have all tacitly agreed to that long ago.

All below exercised, and the point is lost to so much sophistic treason. The cop get's a glimpse of ego-loss and goes about his merry cop way, and Billy here making a non-violent public statement of laws vs rights is fingered by a paranoid delusional (cop-caller), harassed-with-the-hope-of-a-fumble by a dutiful enforcer/instigator (cop), and the ONLY thing that kept him off the National Terrorist Database was his acumen and legal knowledge...in publicly showcasing his RIGHTS under the LAW, he barely escapes arrest.

The point being, that with increasing frequency, a routine police-encounter because of someone's 'suspicion' may quickly and more often than not, escalate into an innocent citizen being FUCKED into a state-system of the state-sanctioned organized criminal business of keeping people in a state of fear of arrest and incarceration, oh ye clueless dumb-asses who think the world works or should work in some universally, equitable fashion.

Bravo for this Mainer's low-swinging balls and fuck the vortex of the US police forces in retrograde-The entire justice machine is rotten with institutional corruption and overdue for a major douche, or the future of Americas' headed for boots, clubs, and riot shields.

Rather, some moronic miscreant transforms a simple encounter into felony charges by spewing Its baboon red butt out of Its filth drooling mouth and then persistently but characteristically blames and vilifies the system that far more often than not, but not enough, protects people from....

Obviously...It's still here to spew Its insipid...

Insipid...word of the day...brought to us by Swirlry

Hey chicchorea?? Clean out your fuckng ears and get with the program-It's your bullshit which ought to be banned and I thought I told ya plenty to keep the fuck away from me with your personal and DIRECTED hating and internet social-dysfunction, you vapid cunt. Again, and here publicly, the fuck away from me-Take your ban-hammer and fuck the fuck off-NOT sarcasm, no 'ignore', take your pathetic horseshit downstairs will ya, ya cretin punk??

How about dag and lucky taking the higher ground for a change and ditch this imposter, eh?? I'd like to get-on with posting bubble-gum videos and kicking more comment thread's assess....

....'moronic miscreant'-Check a fucking mirror, douchebag.

(For all you late-comers, the pricks' baiting me daily as I continue to hope-against-hope for the dick to cop to a discussion, rather than a dick-battle.)

Again, fuck off, chicco, your shits' transparent and tiresome and about as 8th-grade cock-bag as it gets...

...the basic flaw of bad loud liars is that not only are they incapable of the critical thinking process and are then unmindful of that capability in others. Case in point...the successive timeline of It perpetrating that which it attempts to lay at others feet is Its own pathetic pathological pattern.

That others have no more interest in bothering to glean such no more than they would to follow the canine scatological trail of a poor neighbor doesn't provide grounds for Its delusions that It is believed by anyone here.

But, "Little...thing," I have a record of the pattern and...wait for it...past being merely tired of you and your abusive presence here.

...seems like It thinks I was talking about It.

...oh, wait a minute, didn't you,...wasn't it you that...and aren't you on....

Then I must have been.

Mirror mirror in the bowl, who's the "Little...thing" in the swirl.

Down and down It goes, round and round It goes. In a spin,,,,