Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutch
DT, all I did was copy and paste what some lawyers posted on their web-site on how to handle police approaching you.
The dude in the video absolutely could've handled it differently and better. If he was truly just there to pick up his kids, he was 100% grade A moron for handling it the way he did. Remember, ignorance of the law isn't a defense. I'm sure there have been specific cases that have covered these scenarios in the court of law and the law has won this exact scenario. A cop has a right to question a suspect on the grounds of public safety. And that includes asking the suspects name.
A couple of questions for you DT.
1. Why do you suspect he had a camera on himself recording at this specific time?
2. What was he doing that was suspicious enough for the cops to be called over?
Those are just some key missing facts that would go a long way to clarifying this situation.
Now for you, just out of curiosity, if you were the cop, how would you have handled it differently?
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1. I suspect he only started recording when the cop came up to him - if you watch it you see that it starts sort of in the middle.
2. According to the story in the paper he was just sitting on the bench and the person inside the store/bank/whatever it was (I don't remember) didn't like that/felt uncomfortable.
If I'm the cop - I wouldn't handcuff the guy and tase him. I'd approach him calmly, let him know that the person inside had called, find out what he was doing there, and then go inside and tell the person inside there's nothing to worry about, that he's just waiting for his kids.
Absolute most paranoid-case scenario I'd loiter around for the 10 minutes or whatever it was until he said he was picking up his kids at school.
At no point does that require (a) asking him his name (although I can see "hey, what's your first name" so you have a way of conversing with him, and certainly not (b) getting into a physical confrontation.