Apparently @northwesty has already adjudicated the whole thing, and that’s his right, but there are plenty of law enforcement officials who haven’t yet come to the same conclusions, including the former Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County:
http://www.wbrc.com/story/30489341/former-sheriff-reacts-to-video-of-ua-student-arrests
Being a criminal justice instructor does not make him an expert, it makes him an ex cop. Above someone suggested all freshmen take a first amendment course so they’d know their rights. Well, constitutional law is not usually taught in first year law school because there are other courses needed to get to the point needed to reason a constitutional law question. If it were easy, we wouldn’t need the supreme court. 'This is legal, this isn’t ’ is not possible to teach. Change this circumstance or that fact and the outcome changes. First amendment rights can be limited. Search warrants are not always required. Really, the only right you need to know is to shut up. Say nothing.
I think there was something else going on in this case. There were a lot of people in that apartment at 3 am. Was this the first time cops were called or the 10th? Why were there so many cops on a routine call? Maybe it wasn’t routine. The girl kept shouting ‘is he being arrested or detained?’ but what difference does that make to her? It might make a difference to his attorney if there was questioning after arrest, but to the drunk girl in tbeapartment? I see no difference and just a lot of legal words being shouted.
Bottom-line for me as a parent: I tell my D to always be polite and cooperative with police. Never resist arrest or get physical. She knows that we will sue and pursue legal avenues of redress if necessary. But I’ve also told her to never voluntarily agree to a search of her person, her property, her car, etc.
What actually spurred that conversation was when she was learning how to drive and said that cops scare her (lots of stories of shootings of unarmed people at the time). Cops may be legally right as stated in this thread, but they’re not doing themselves any favors by alienating the people they serve.
It probably would be, because the 3 officers probably wouldn’t have been immediately suspended.
^ I said that because we can know that’s true about as easily as we can know that this “would be headline news around the country”.
In my observation, police violence against black people tends to make news when the officer is not disciplined immediately, or ever, for the action. When justice is swiftly dispensed, there isn’t much to report.
Let’s use some common sense here folks.
If there’s an illegal search, then any evidence illegally obtained can’t be used. And maybe the kids can pursue some kind of legal action against the cops and the PD. That’s how those issues get adjudicated and handled in a civil society.
Also, the videos don’t show anything that suggests that the police were trying to gain entry in order to do a search. So the whole search/warrant analysis is beside the point. The kids weren’t objecting to a search. They were objecting to their friend being arrested. Those are two totally different things.
You don’t deal with those search-type issues by provoking a physical altercation with a police officer. That is creating a danger to the students and to the officer. Because that is dangerous behavior, all states have defined resisting arrest as an offense. In some states, resisting arrest is a felony.
If there’s a wrongful arrest on BS grounds, that also is something that properly gets handled in a hearing in front of a judge. Not by provoking a physical altercation with the police.
We don’t know exactly what happened before the tape was turned on. But the incident has already been going on for a while before the tape starts. The tape shows that the officer spent two full minutes negotitating with the kids while they yell at him, play lawyer, play tug of war with the arrestee and try to close the door on the officer.
I’m not sure it is reasonable or wise for the officer to keep going like that for another 1 or 2 or 5 minutes. The kids are actually getting more excited and more aggressive as the clock continues to tick. At that point, dragging the kid out of the apartment likely is the safest thing to do under the circumstances.
One more point no one has mentioned. Note that the taser and night sticks don’t come from the cop who was doing the arrest. It comes from the back up cops. If you view the other tapes from the vantage point of those back up officers, it absolutely looks like the arresting cop has been pulled into the apartment. That’s a DEFCON 1 situation and those back up officers have no choice but to go in strong to protect an officer who at that point they can’t see and who could be in great danger. Only with the benefit of hindsight and multiple camera angles can you tell that the arresting officer went in to get the guy rather than being pulled in by the kids.
Sure the police officer could have handled the situation differently. I’m sure he wishes he did. Hindsight is 20/20. But there’s absolutely no question that the arresting cop spent an awful lot of time trying to resolve the situation while getting flack from the kids the whole time. But the kids refused to take any of those available exit ramps. The drunk ball cap kid screams “GET OUT” at the cop a total of 8 times during the two minute tape. He also screams “ABSOLUTELY NOT” at the cop three times. He also tries to shut the door on the cop in the doorway three times.
Seriously folks?
I’m very pro-body cams by the way.
So they can show bad and illegal policing. And also show unacceptable, illegal and dangerous behavior by citizens. BOTH occur.
If there were video of my kids acting like that, I wouldn’t be making the spring tuition payment. The police presumably weren’t there on a social call - there was a noise complaint. So the occupants of the house were disturbing the neighbors, then rudely and belligerently arguing the law with the police. Wow. Regardless of what happens to the officers who used the nightsticks, the kids need to grow up and learn some manners.
“Why were there so many cops on a routine call?”
It appears likely that the initial responding cop (or maybe two) had to call in back up because of the belligerence of the kids.
As the drunk ball cap kid is screaming “GET OUT” eight times and “ABSOLUTELY NOT” three times you can clearly hear sirens in the background. Presumably those are the back up police cars en route. The arresting cop is presumably waiting for his back up to be on site before he reaches in to take the kid out of the apartment.
As parents, what would you do if that was your son acting that way and caused such a mess? My son wouldn’t be worrying about getting roughed up by the cops. He would have much more serious concerns about what his mother was going to do.
One of the news articles I read said that several of the officers were wearing body cams, including the first officer on the scene.
It’s a wonder people still want to pursue law enforcement as a career.
Crime rates are up - I wonder why.
As speculated/expected:
“Chief Anderson said the reason that so many police officers responded to a noise complaint is that several officers were nearby working on the Strip and monitoring the bar scene, which was busy after the game. Several officers heard the initial responding officer’s call for backup and showed up at the apartments.”
My guess is that the body cams will show more stupid egregious behavior upon the part of the drunk kids. Why else would an officer feel the need to call for back up for a noise complaint?
I also guess that the baton cop will get meaningfully punished. But not the arresting cop and not the taser cop.
“One of the news articles I read said that several of the officers were wearing body cams, including the first officer on the scene.”
One more piece of evidence of the kids mistaken stupidity. They all think that they are going to be able to get the cops to back down and go away once they pull out their iphones.
It doesn’t even occur to them that the cop has been filming THEM the whole time. The cop knows everything he says and does is being recorded from the moment he gets out of the squad car. He presumably believes that his body cam is going to show how out of line the kids are. Not how out of line he is being.
Well, the Tuscaloosa PD released two hours of body camera videos yesterday. The Chief of Police said in a press conference that based upon his review of the video, the students did not have to exit their apartment and his officers were not justified in entering the apartment… Doesn’t sound good for the officers, but the kids might have their educations paid for along with some walking around money courtesy of the taxpayers of Tuscaloosa.
Here is the video they released. It doesn’t seem to contain the actual arrest, just the after actions of various officers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blWRWsTj5jg
Here is the video of the press conference.
There’s about a five minute gap on the video from the body cam of the primary officer. Apparently the camera got knocked off his shoulder and didn’t function again until after the incident was over.
What you can see is that (i) the officer went to the apartment twice over very loud music playing at 3:40 a.m., (ii) the main kid does open the door voluntarily but only about two feet wide, (iii) the cop asks the kid to step outside, (iv) the kid says clearly he will not come out, (v) the cop grabs the kid’s arm after the kid extends his arm outside the apartment through the partial open door and then the kid pulls back and stays inside, (vi) the cop clearly calls for back up assistance. The video ends there.
My two cents based on what we can see:
so here we are a couple weeks later… and as I said originally, there is a bunch of yawning and people that don’t care.
Maybe if the kids had attacked the police officers like the guy in Ferguson did, they would have more support?
I find it very revealing that some people are still defending police brutality even after the chief of police said his officers were in the wrong. Talk about political agendas.
I’ve read this comments with interest. From what I’ve read some people are clearly mistaken as to what the Fourth Amendment requires.
First, yes, the kids are being jerks. But do be aware that as soon as that guy steps outside the apartment he is likely to be arrested for public drunk. As for the yelled comments about being “detained,” this is important. A police officer has a duty at all times to inform one as to whether he is being detained, and if so on what charge. I used to have a party house (it was about 50 yards away from two different bars, so a popular late-night spot), and they would always say if they came by a third time someone was getting arrested. I never really believed anyone was complaining about the noise, but that’s another story. We never pressed our luck on the third visit.
Opening a door does not give an officer the right to enter a building. Opening the door is not “consent.” I do not think it wise to refuse to open the door, although it might be wise to only open it a crack. Note that no arrest was for anything other than resisting arrests that the officers had no right to make! And the cannot come in unless he witnesses a felony. In this case he did not. The film clearly shows him illegally grabbing the student and jerking him outside the apartment.
As for the warrant, there are search warrants and arrest warrants. Again, unless an officer is in hot pursuit he cannot enter a home to make an arrest without a warrant. Nor can he require anyone to “step outside.”
I think it’s important to note that the Tuscaloosa police chief has publicly said that the kids were right and the police were wrong. I really think that trumps everything else said on this thread.
Indiana has passed a law which permits its citizens to use deadly force against police who act as these police did, overturning a court ruling which said the issue should be left to the courts, which is silly, since a court has no time machine which can cause an innocent person not to be tasered or billyclubbed. In other words, had these students attended an Indiana university they simply could have pulled out their guns and blown these policemen away. And from what I’ve seen, they deserved it.
Our homes are sacrosanct. Our Stand Your Ground laws are certainly a good start, but we need to protect our citizens and our students from the police. Hopefully more states will join Indiana in passing these laws to protect our homes and our students from violent, out-of-control police.
Honest question.
So what do you think a cop can/should do in this instance if the kids simply refuse to answer the door and talk to the police?
The kids do have the legal right to stay inside behind closed doors. But do they have a right to blare music at 3:40 am loud enough to draw a complaint from a neighbor?
Does the cop just slide a ticket under the door and go away, telling the complaining neighbors that he’s unable to do anything because of the fourth amendment?
My wife is a LEO, and from the stories she tells, folks refusing to answer the door is fairly common. SOP is to secure the perimeter so that nobody can sneak out (easier than it sounds - you can do this with two officers if they are posted at opposite corners of the perimeter), and then obtain a warrant. It’s a PITA, but it ensures compliance with the Fourth Amendment.
The officers who responded to this particular noise complaint could have explained that to the students. Something along the lines of “you can turn the music down, and everyone’s happy, or you can be a jerk and force me to get a warrant. If I have to get a warrant, you’ll get arrested on the noise complaint, I’ll breath test all your underage guests and arrest any who’ve been drinking, and I’ll confiscate your stereo system and speakers as evidence in the noise complaint investigation. So what’s it going to be - the easy way or the hard way?”