Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexB
I'm sorry that's not the point. Innocent until proven guilty is what applies in a court of law. Police have to have reasonable grounds (just cause) to stop someone. If 'innocent until proven guilty' is the premise for everything they wouldn't be able to stop and question anyone unless they were proven to be guilty beforehand, which means no-one would be stopped unless physically caught in the act, so policing would become 100% reactive rather than having any prevention aspect at all.
From the cops POV it seems he saw a well to do white bloke driving a nice car in a poor black area known for drug dealing. When stopped the person driving was evasive and could provide no good reason for being in the area. Seems suspicious to me, and worthy of further investigation.
Yes is sucks a bit when you are the person stopped and inconvenienced, but in the bigger picture if they didn't investigate potentially suspicious behaviour society would be a lot worse.
As before, he may have been a dick, and they were definitely wrong to not return all of your stuff, but I don't have a problem with them stopping you, or for detaining you following your reaction to being stopped, or for all charges being dropped when you no doubt provided further information after being arrested.
Innocent until proven guilty is a different attitude to 'nothing to hide' - the former is defensive, the latter open, and the latter is more likely, but not guaranteed if the cop was a tool, to get a reasonable attitude in return
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I have a problem with it. There was NO PROBABLE CAUSE to make an arrest. I would argue that the officer didn't even have reasonable suspicion, which is what is needed to pull him over. But even if he did, that's not enough for an arrest.
Refusing to answer the questions is not probable cause and is not grounds for an arrest. Being white in a black neighborhood is not probable cause. Having a rich car in a poor neighborhood is not probable cause.
Essentially you're justifying arresting people over their skin color just because you think they don't belong. That's not just bad policy, that's illegal. Maybe arresting people for their skin color is legal in England, but that's not the law in the USA.