Woman raped walking home after police impound car

I know it's hard for you to believe that a real live police man might not only have but occasionally display intellectual capacity (despite my typing, which I admit to be execrable).

I'm actually aware of what SCOTUS says about my duties, though that may surprise you. Further, I have a life that includes more than what SCOTUS says I can get away with. I get upset when people I'm supposed to help get hurt. It messes with my sleep and so forth. I like to see things end up with people safe and at least more or less satisfied. It doesn't float my boat to hassle people.

I say again, here at things like rock concerts and football games we arrest people, and take them to the magistrate where the paperwork gets done. The magistrate is in the same building as the jail so it's just a matter of opening a door.

WE CAN legally detain folks, and we do. Happens all the time.

"Some value" is one thing. "Enough value" is another. Your suggestion was that I use an existing form, like a ticket or a report form for the waiver. But wouldn't such a waiver need to have been written and vetted by lawyers? You're not suggesting that the officer write one out by hand every time, are you? Should he do it from memory or should he just make one up each time? Should he be able to make them up in Spanish as well as English?

Further, the punishment an officer is subject to is not limited to what happens in court at the end of a trial. Just being a defendant is a pain. Heck, when someone assaulted me and we tried that SOB being a complainant was a pain. Lawyers aren't cheap and it's the Sheriff's call whether I get to pay for my own or he will back me up. Finally, deputies serve at the pleasure of the Sheriff. He can dismiss me for no reason and it's up to me whether I want to risk the money to fight to get my job back.

In the kind of situation we are discussing, from the POV of the deputy, the contention that a concern is groundless in law is relevant but not competent to allay the concern in its entirety. I can be entirely legally right but piss off the sheriff and that's all it takes.

Have you gone on some ride-alongs? You might enjoy it and it might be educational to do a BUNCH of them.

I wish that every one of you that has had such bad things to say about cops would go sit down in the booking office of any major city's police station for just one night. When you see the lowlife vermin that they have to deal with every day, day after day and see how professionally they handle all the crap the lowlife vermin try to dish out to them, I think you would have just a little higher opinion of them.

You all sound like the liberals do when they put down our military because of a few bad apples. Just like a soldier, every day a policeman walks out the door to do his duty, he and his family don't know if he will be coming back home alive that night.

Policemen are just human beings. They have bad days, very bad days because they see more horrible things in a month than most of us will ever see in a lifetime. You see how upset we get when we just read about child abuse, rapes and senseless deaths. They see these things every day, up close and personal.

I know all of this because I worked as a booking clerk at a police station in a major city and my father was a homicide detective.

Hey, sorry if they are a little grumpy looking when they write you a ticket for speeding, but they might have just seen a couple of car loads of mangled bodies at the high speed collision accident they were called to the day before.

I have done ride-alongs in New Orleans, Atlanta (Dekalb), Atlanta (Doraville), Atlanta (Gwinette), Valdosta, and Quitman. Good for you! (I didn't know "DeKa'b" had an 'L' in it ;) )

What about my other comments? It seems to me that your reference to what SCOTUS says about my responsibilities was sort of non-responsive. I specifically raised the possibility of accusations not related to the issue SCOTUS decided. In every interaction with the public there are plenty of hazards for the LEO beyond the hazard of losing in court. And I'm' still not clear on whether you think the cops should carry a pre-printed disclaimer form, memorize one and write it out as the situation suggests, or make one up on the spot.

There are plenty of liabilities which are more than merely legal, and do we really want police who are so hedged about with legal concerns that they do no more than what is absolutely required? Clearly not, or this discussion would be a non-starter. There do seem to be more and more damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't double binds for LEOs

In a perfectly righteous shoot, for example, one has to deal with lawyers and civil rights groups -- and now even some legislators -- who think that cops in the midst of an adrenaline dump should be able to shoot like Annie Oakley. And now some of us are being told that suicide bombers need one-shot kills, head-shots, while, as I say, a legislator in New York is saying cops should be able to show that they shot to wound -- not to the center of mass, not "to stop", but only to wound. So I see a crazy-acting guy wearing a slightly too bulky vest on a day that just might be a little too warm for a bulky vest, and I have to decide to ignore him and have him turn out to be a mass-murderer, shoot for center of mass, and have him live long enough to push the button before he croaks, or shoot him in the head only to find that he was carrying, oh, I don't know - say twelve miniature booze bottles concealed in his vest.
You shoot back at someone who is shooting at you and you end up giving up your gun, sitting at a desk, and living under investigation for almost a whole year while the guy who killed your K-9 and tried to kill you gets free medical care and legal support.
You cuff one guy -- extremely drunk in public-- and sit him on the curb while you turn to see if your assistance is needed while another drunk assaults and batters another LEO. Your guy gets up, tries to run away, and falls on his face, breaking his teeth. His friends perjure themselves about how much he had to drink, his lawyer says the arrest was essentially ethnic profiling (though the drunk is a white kid -- go figger), his parents call you a liar in court and threaten you with a civil suit, and your supervisor reams you out for turning your back on someone in your custody.

It's a job where hours of boredom are intterupted by life and death decisions which are instantaneous, here-and-now, with a guy approaching you, brandishing a club, and asking if you're man enough to fight, but the evaluations are forever, conducted by lawyers in air-conditioned offices and courtrooms at a deliberate and even a contemplative pace.

And then some pajamahedin tells me I have no clue. Okay, I have no clue. Have a nice day, sir, and stay safe.

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