(Disclaimer: This article is only the blogger’s opinion and should not be considered legal advice, nor should be depended upon as a proper defense in court. The reader should always seek the advice of a reputable attorney)
From the start of my career, I observed a trend in law enforcement that I personally felt was, at best, an overreach. This tend was not specific to the derpartment I worked for, but was utilized in other departments as well. This was the premise that, if an individual was walking down the street in a high crime neighborhood at night, it was, in and of itself, reasonable suspicion, and therefore granted the officer authority to stop that individual (Terry Stop) and pat down and question him or her. This was an actual detainment where the individual was not free to go. The act of a pedestrian’s mobility in these high crime areas increase the likelihood that they are engaged in criminal activity when the sun goes down. At least this is the idea.
Now, this was occurring in the first part of our brand new century, and I trust and hope that this is not the case any longer. However, if that practice still exists, let me shed some light on why this is unreasonable and possibly violates the individual’s constitutional rights. To set the basis of this arguement, the case law of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) needs to be examined. A summary from the following website
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/392/1/
needs to be examined. I will provide a summary statement given by that site below:
Under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a police officer may stop a suspect on the street and frisk him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion (italics mine) that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person “may be armed and presently dangerous.”
If you have a scanner for listening to first responders, you may have heard in the night time officers marking out with suspicious individuals in high crime areas. You would either have them mark off of the investigation, or you may even hear that an arrest has been made. Most likely the supervisor would not ask or look too hard at the reasonable articulable suspicion (RAS) that would permit the detainment. To those who do supervise their men and women on the street, the word to the wise is always question what made them get out with the individual and detain them. It should be clearly documented in the narrative of the IBR (Incident Based Reporting), or commonly known as the police report. For those police sergeants and lieutenants who do still believe this geographical and time environments allow for aggressive policing with just the suspicion due to the proximity and time of the individual walking down the road in high crime areas need to consider the following case law:
Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (2000)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/528/119/
You may click on the link to read the particulars, but in summary an individual spotted a caravan of police vehicles descend to the area he was walking in, so he ran. When the police caught up with him, after detaining him, they patted him down and they located an illegal gun on him. In the lower courts, they denied his motion to suppress in that they felt it was a legal detainment. The State Appellate Court disagreed and overturned the conviction citing that if one runs from the police without any other articulation of criminal suspicion, he is merely “going on his way” and that detaining him for solely running is not sufficient for a legal detainment.
So let’s compare: Is not an individual walking (not running) down a street in a high crime area at night just “going on his way”? I would say even more so, since there isn’t the least bit of evidence to state that he or she is committing a crime or even showing the possibility of guilt by running. It can only be assumed he or she left their domicile in the conquest of reaching another destination (friend’s or family member’s house, going home from a friend’s or family member’s house, going to the store, going to work, etc). It is too far of a stretch to believe everyone in a high crime neighborhood is engaged in criminal acts. And in case you ask, the one running in the above case law was in a part of Chicago known for high rates of narcotic trafficking. In other words, it was a high crime area.
Now, I did not say that police officer should not stop pedestrians in a high crime area. If more evidence is discovered, or observations of that particular individual produce RAS, then by all means, the officer must fulfill his or her duty and investigate. The other evidentiary observations that may rise to RAS are that the individual starts making furtive movements, such as attempting to conceal an item when they see the police, the individual is a known drug dealer and is in the vicinity of where he deals, an individual is known to be wanted, or the individual is indeed committing a crime.
Another practice I had observed in many departments is the “No Tolerance” directive from command staff to the street officers. It was usually imposed on a particular community or section of the city. What this means is that the officers patrolling the designated zone, if observing any crime or city ordinance violation, would abandon all descretion and either cite or arrest the individual. To be clear, usually these decisions were made above the command staff’s purview by elected city officials, such as city council, city manager or the mayor. Re-election is on the horizon and they want to be seen as one who is “tough on crime”. The way to do this is to get the numbers of citations and arrests way up, and the best way to do that is to prosecute even the most trivial offenses.
When I was researching odd and unbelievable laws and city ordinances, I came across these ordinaces in Virginia (some are now repealed, at least I hope they are) that blew me away:
- Illegal to flip a coin to decide who pays for coffee in Richmond.
- Illegal to wash a mule on the sidewalk in Culpeper.
- Illegal to spit on a seagull in Norfolk.
- Illegal for a woman to be out at night in Norfolk unless she is wearing a corset and is accompanied by a male chaperon.
- Tickle a woman. Men, however, can be tickled.
- Hunt any animal other than a raccoon on a Sunday. If you are going to hunt a raccoon on a Sunday, however, you must do so by 2 a.m.
- Have sex with the lights on.
Now these seem to be outrageous, but the next one takes the cake.
In Stafford County it is illegal for a man to beat his wife…
Okay, Jonah, what is so outrageous about that? It should be illegal for a man to beat his wife. Wait a minute. I’m not finished.
… on the courthouse steps…
Wait. What? Just on the court steps? Yeah, still not finished.
…after 8 pm.
So there used to be an ordinance in Stafford County, Virginia (hopefully repealed now) that would allow a man to beat his wife on the court steps, but he must cease and desist once the clock in the tower chimes 8. At any other venue there were no restrictions on where or when to beat your wife.
To give credit, I found these ordinances on the following website:
So, the reason I displayed these odd ordinances in this article is because some laws and ordinances even now need to change and have with them a tendency into trivialism and abuse.
For instance, for a short time we had two officers in our department that took the “No Tolerance” directive, I believe, too far. They actually made a contest to see who could come up with the most unused and outlandish codes. They would cite people if they saw someone spitting on the sidewalk, if a vehicle in a driveway was sitting a few inches over the sidewalk, or even for noise ordinances if someone’s dog barked during the day and there were no complaints. It finally came to a head when one of them utilized the Virginia Code Section 46.2-928 when he spotted a couple hand in hand walking down a dead end residential street with virtually no traffic. The code states that if there is no sidewalk pedestrians are to walk on the extreme left edge of the hard surface (pavement), So the officer stopped the couple, and since the male was the furtherest out into the road, cited him for this. When asked why he did this, the officer simply told the man that they should have been walking single file down the road. The command staff, it appeared, upon receiving a complaint concerning this, pulled the directive and advised the officers to use descretion. It sure wasn’t a hit with the judges in court.
As I said before, “No Tolerance” directives do not work, but there are some other negative consequences police departments may reap as well. First, these directives stretch the enforcement activity too thin. With limited manpower, an officer may be writing a no complaint noise ordinance at the same time there is a day time home invasion in that same community where lives are in jeopardy. He could have taken the time to patrol and perhaps would have detected the criminal action in progress.
Secondly, every one that is cited or arrested on trivial violations have mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and acquaintences that will surely be informed of the pettiness of the department. The police will lose the trust of good people, citizens that would normally call in suspicious activity, but will not for fear they themselves will be targeted by officers.
And thirdly, understanding that most high crime neighborhoods are those of color, the accusations of racism cannot easily be defended against.
One of the enforcement activities I participated in was parking tickets. I did not cite people for overtime parking or violations of such. The parking tickets I issued were safety sensitive. One of those violations was parking left side to curb where it was a two way road. Right away I may have some complain that there is no safety issues with that type of parking. Let me give you three safety issues that I see.
- When a motorist parks left side to curb, he drives on the wrong side of the road twice, once to pull in and once to pull out.
- If a larger vehicle parks directly in front of the illegaly parket vehicle, the motorist cannot, from the driver seat, see if a vehicle is coming toward them, and as they blindly pull out, it may cause a head-on collision.
- If the front seat passenger is not paying attention when they open their door and put their right leg out at the time another motorist hits the door–instant amputation. If you were parked properly (right side to curb), and you the owner opened the door in the path of a moving vehicle, it would be coming from behind and would strike the door away from you.
Having said that, I was patroling through an affluent neighborhood and I noticed several vehicles parked left side to curb. So I got out with those vehicles and I wrote all of them parking summons. Later in the shift, I was called in and advised by my lieutenant at the time that perhaps I should cool it with the parking summons in that neighborhood. I told him, “Okay, can I still write parking summons in C—— S—– (a Section 8 housing community in our city). He said that would be okay. I then respectfully pointed out that it would be unfair to those citizens living in the poorer areas to suffer enforcement that the wealthy citizens never experience. When I put it that way, he knew I was right and told me to never mind what he told me.
What I did not say is that a “No Tolerance” directive is always a bad thing, but it could a be proper one , as long as it is directed at certain crimes and not certain communities. For instance, our department had that directive when it came to domestic violence violations, DUIs, weapons violations, violent felony violations, etc. Also no breaks on reckless driving, especially when it resulted in a vehicular crash. With speeding, I personally also had a no tolerance stance when someone drove over 15 miles over the posted speed limit. This speed was only 5 miles from being reckless by speed.
Additionally, if you have certain crimes that are prominant in a community and are jeopardizing lives and the quality of living of those who live there, focusing on those crimes specifically is not a bad thing. This is when you will get the trust and cooperation of the community that a police department desperately needs, whether it admits it or not. Utilizing descretion in these communities with the smaller issues will inevitably produce some allies with the police.
So, in summary, one question to be answered is, “Should citizens experience more police enforcement based on where they live and the crime rate of that community?” I believe to answer in the affirmative will raise questions of racism and inequality. Also, high crime areas are often poverty ridden. Most, perhaps, do not wish to live in a neighborhood where they are in constant fear of theft, home invasions, shootings and the sound of gunshots every night, gangs, etc. They do so because it is the only thing they can afford. Most Section 8 housings are in high crime areas. So, the family that is struggling financially, why should they be the focus of extreme police enforcement and, some would say, harassment?
The answer is to utilize enforcement the same across the board. I understand the urgent need to get crime under control in some zones. Sometimes, we may need more officers in those areas due to the high crime rates, but we should not have to act differently than if we saw the same crime or violation occur in a wealthy community. And yes, there is plenty of criminal activity in wealthy communities. Those residents have the means to hide it better. In my career, I have arrested a fair share of individuals from homes whose collections of paintings were worth more than what I will make in a lifetime. I have arrested individuals for DUI who were driving vehicles that most would not be able to afford. I also have arrested a pastor of a prominent church in our city. The crime was domestic assault, not on his wife (who somehow still stayed with him), but on his baby’s mother who he impregnated while he was married.
Individuals who have no affliation with gangs, drug dealing, violence, criminal activity and so forth, should not be detained because they are walking in the wee hours of the morning in a high crime area trying to get to work (they cannot afford a vehicle) just because of where they live and travel. Entitled individuals should not be due a pass based on their affluence or position in the community or city. This, is of course, my opinion. If you have a differing opinion, I would love to hear from you.
Below is a video of an individual that felt that because of his political position he was above the law and felt that law enforcement should have treated him differently.
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TO THOSE WHO LIVE IN OR ABOUT HIGH CRIME AREAS PROTECT YOURSELF NOW BY CLICKING BELOW!!
