tvc184

Again you draw conclusions that have not been posted. No one said it was "the norm", no one said that they would do it in the same situation and no one said that Neil chose the least confrontational approach. The only thing that he did was reach for a door. Maybe he did it to expose her to criminal charges. Maybe he did it to make her look stupid. Maybe he just wanted in the room. No one can read his mind. Whatever his intent, he did not break the law and she did by blocking a door and then from my perspective, by shoving Neil on the way out.

Why would my mother or wife be blocking the door to a public meeting? Why would I want to defend either if it happened? If it happened to anyone in my family I would be very angry. I would be outraged that one of my relatives would be so stupid.

That is exactly what I was talking about. Just because somebody could have done something differently does not make the person wrong. Well, maybe it does if you're looking for an excuse to blame someone else.

People always want to discuss what "could" have been done differently. That is the way to take the blame off of the guilty. It is like a man running a stop sign and killing someone. Then you blame the dead guy because had he taken time to look both ways as a reasonable person would be for crossing an intersection, he would have seen the car about to run the stop sign. It is the victim who is at fault for causing his own death and not the person that ran the stop sign. That is nonsense. When and officer tells you to get out of a car did you do it because it is the law. It does not matter if the officer could have been nicer. When a person is blocking the door and another person reaches to open it, it is the person that blocked the door that caused the entire incident not whether the other guy should've backed off, been nicer or called the police instead. You don't like the fact that Neil reached around Haynes to open the door and it caused her to be convicted in court. There is one person responsible for the entire turn of events and she was found guilty. Blaming the victim won't change that.

By the extra cost of a death penalty trial and all associated appeals.

It is cheaper to have life in prison.

Then on the video, she is seen assaulting him all the way out (assuming that he was offended). Had he wish to file charges then she would have likely been convicted of that also.

I did not say anything about according to logic. I stated the law. It is against the law in Texas to block a passageway. Unless a person who is ordering from the menu is doing so while standing in the doorway of McDonald's and blocking other people, it has nothing to do with this situation. If you see someone standing in the doorway at McDonald's with the person's arms out keeping you from getting in, feel free to make a citizen's arrest. You are trying to add 2+2 and make it come out to 6.732 squared.

Trying to open a door is not taking the law into your own hands. Trying to make an arrest would be. In this case, he could have made a lawful arrest on the spot just as if he was a police officer because that chapter of the law is specifically allowed for citizen's arrest.

Sure it is retaliation. The problem is that there is no legal retaliation.

​I thought the UIL did find it in violation but gave a warning.

The perpetual victim.

People can hold anyone to any standard they see fit. Opinions and legalities are two completely different issues. And I started to respond to AAW and his statement that the media is using the athlete to make the story seem more important. I started to say, "you mean like they do with the cops?".

​The sheriff might be somewhat culpable. I have no clue what their procedures are or where it has been determined that someone did not follow procedures. If so then get it out in the open. You mention an argument that almost always comes up. It is not against the law to argue/smoke/be disrespectful/etc. That has to be the biggest grasping at straws of all the arguments. It is true that she might not have broken a law by using profanity (actually it can be against the law but the USSC has said that not if only the officer is offended) or being argumentative but I do not recall the officer arresting her for using profanity or for arguing. Had the officer said "You are under arrest for being disrespectful"... Houston we have a problem!

​Yeah, I guess we can disagree. I fail to see where "can you put the cigarette out" and "step out of your car" are out of line.

​More like arrogant.

​Does it really matter why an officer lawfully stops a person? Does it make you feel better if it had been speeding or rolling through a stop sign without coming to a complete stop? Had she not killed herself and had gone to trial for assaulting the trooper, she might have been convicted of a 2nd degree felony and up to 20 years in prison. The lane change is a tiny crime. Assaulting an officer or resisting arrest because you don't like the officer's authority is not. I am never sure why there is that need to challenge authority that sides almost completely with law enforcement. Unless the officer does nothing unlawful, the person has to comply or face legal consequences. I guess some people are the ones that disrupted class or generally want to throw temper tantrums just because.

​That is debatable and I would side with a court ruling on the side of the officer for safety. When the officer can lawfully and at his discretion give/make 1. a warning, 2. a citation or 3. an arrest and when an officer can lawfully and at his discretion 1. leave you in a vehicle or 2. order you out of a vehicle, why would anyone want to challenge an officer?

​Grasping at straws and nothing left.

​When it seems fairly obvious that the argument is not going to go your way (facts), you divert attention to something that does not matter.

​ ​There simply is nothing to try again. The question is legally too easy. Did the officer witness a violation of the law?

​Assuming you mean this as a serious question, you then are an example of what I have talked about in several threads and a short time ago, in the Sam Dubose thread. He needs no constitutional right (except perhaps free speech). The word "rights" is thrown out so often that I have serious doubts if very many people even have a clue what they are and I am serious. What the officer has is no "rights" but "authority". This are not against the law unless some government authority has written down something that says it is against the law. It can be statutory such as a state legislature passing a law or it can come down from a court of competent jurisdiction, not making law per se but ruling that an action violated someone's constitutional rights. The better question is, if an officer tells you to put out your cigarette, what right has he violated of yours? An officer under both statute and case law has fairly extensive authority for safety. In fact if you want to see as close as you can routinely get from the US Supreme Court in close to a unanimous ruling, read many of the cases of officer's authority over people (over their constitutional rights) for safety purposes. You might find several 9-0, 8-1 and 7-2 votes in favor of officers. That is not true on searches and detentions but when it comes to safety, the highest court comes down heaving in favor of the police and people complying with orders. The entire argument of the cigarette is a moot point because while it is a smoke screen from people trying to defend Bland, it has no bearing. She was not arrested for smoking. I can tell you to recite the alphabet, sing me a song, discuss your favorite music or anything else and there is no right violated. That would happen if I tried to arrest you for those things. What the officer does have the authority to do under TX law and US Supreme Court rulings is to stop her for violating the law (Terry v. Ohio), order her out of the vehicle without any further cause needed (Pennsylvania v. Mimms) and make an arrest even for the simply charge of not signaling lane change (Atwater v. Lago Vista). It seems that people often overlook those points as it ends most discussions. This is the most simple this case can be put. The officer saw a criminal charge in his presence and stopped the person. The officer told the woman to put out her cigarette and she refused. The officer then orders her out of the vehicle by law and intends to arrest her. After being ordered out and refusing (a crime in itself in TX). The officer tries to get her to comply and she continues to refuse. He then tries to use force to get her out of the car and she resists. In fact TX law says that resisting arrest is a crime even if the arrest turns out to be illegal to begin with. The reason as mentioned previously, the place to fight that is in court, not convening your own person court of opinion on the side of the roadway. Arrests are not voluntarily by law. You might go without resistance but the arrest is not done with a person's consent. The officers tells you that you are under arrest, not asks you if you mind consenting. Case closed. The officer might have been rude, he might have been angry and he might have broken his company rules. None of that is illegal. It will fall on mostly deaf ears but I will make a suggestion that if an officer orders a person to do something while being detained, the best course of action is to comply.

​A. Sure. Politicians, doctors, lawyers, judges, clergymen and everyone from every walk of life abuse their authority. Is there a point or are you simply stating the obvious? B. Yep. I would go as far to say that all cops (and like above, almost everyone else) need more training. The state mandates a minimum of 20 additional hours of training per year for officers. In my career I would have to have just over an additional 600 hours. My total training hours to date is about 3,000 or 500% more than state mandate. Many officers are in that same category and pass the same information on to those that have not had so many. In fact I teach a few times a year at the police academy on just such additional training, specializing in arrest, search and seizure. C. See (A.) D. This one alone would end about 99% of all confrontations. Chris Rock even does that great video on it and if he had $1 for every time it has been shown on youtube, he could start out a broke person on government assistance and be a millionaire. It is funny but like most comedy, the funniest stuff is true. You can youtube any number of current black citizens that keep saying the same thing and on many occasions offer no excuse for police officers. They simply say, quit fighting, quit running, quit arguing and if you feel that the officers violated some rights or laws, fight it in another venue, namely court.

​But they slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night..........