It’s one thing to be told you must obey the law. But what being told to obey a cop who is acting contrary to the law?
This happens routinely – and (usually) without consequences.
For the cop, that is.
Here are a few examples:
In many states, it is still legal to “open carry” – that is, to openly carry a firearm on one’s hip (in a holster) or a rifle slung over one’s back… and so on. That is the law. Cops are supposed to know the law as well as enforce the law.
And, more to the point, to be bound by the law.
Not infrequently, they enforce their own law with regard to open carry.
Many videos of such interactions may be viewed on YouTube and so on. A citizen open carrying his firearm and doing absolutely nothing contrary to the law finds himself confronted by a threatening/order-barking cop who has no legal authority to do this.
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The law is clear. It does not matter.
The cop typically begins by demanding ID. Absent probable cause that a crime has been committed or is about to be committed, the cop is already out of legal bounds. The accosted person has every legal right to simply go about his business; to walk away.
God help him if he does so.
The cop’s claim (as an example) that it is “suspicious” to walk around in public with a pistol on one’s hip – or that the sight of this has “alarmed” someone (a Clover) who then called in hysterically to police about it – is irrelevant as far as the law is concerned.
Unless the person was threatening people with his gun (the mere sight of it being openly carried doesn’t qualify) he is acting within the bounds of the law.
And yet, he finds himself being hassled by the law.
Eventually, after much rigamarole, he is “free to go.”
There are no consequences for the cop who – using threats and intimidation – abused a citizen contrary to the law.
Another example, recently detailed in a video posted by Will Grigg and also made infamous by the infamous Sandra Bland case:
A motorist is pulled over by a cop for a minor traffic infraction. The cop is within the law to do this. What happens next is another matter.
