VIDEO: It’s Not Against the Law to Be Crazy in California, However . . .

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. . . a sheriff’s deputy in Imperial County, Calif., made a traffic stop and arrested the driver. The female passenger evidently was not a licensed driver, and so the car had to be towed. When the deputy asked the passenger to exit the vehicle, however, she began to rant crazily about her status as a “free inhabitant” under the Articles of Confederation (???) and shenanigans ensued:

Let me explain, for the benefit of any fool who doesn’t understand, what this squeaky-voiced crazy woman did wrong. The man with a badge is called “law enforcement” for a reason. There is a law, and his job is to enforce it. As a Roman centurion said to Jesus, the policeman is “a man under authority” — he is answerable to his superiors, who are responsible to officials elected by the people, whose authority he exercises by proxy. A good officer is sensible of his duty, and is therefore scrupulously fair in upholding the law. There are bad cops, and there are also bad situations where even a good cop may make a mistake. However, the law-abiding citizen has no reason to fear the police, and there is no reason why any honest person should exhibit the kind of hostility toward law enforcement that results in an angry confrontation like this. We may summarize the proper protocol very simply:

  1. Every citizen must obey the law.
  2. At the moment a citizen is confronted by a police officer, the officer is the law, for all practical purposes;
    therefore
  3. Do what the officer says.

Comply with the officer’s orders. Keep your hands where the officer can see them, and do not make any sudden moves. He’s got a pistol on his hip, and he’s got a wife at home praying that he comes home alive, so if you do anything that a police officer perceives as a threat to his safety, guess what? You lose. And we may add this to proper protocol:

4. Never try to lecture a cop about your “rights.”

The cop has been trained in criminal law, and if there is one thing that every experienced cop knows, it is that anyone who starts yammering about his “rights” is an obnoxious dirtbag who deserves zero tolerance. Whatever the situation, anyone who takes the kind of chip-on-the-shoulder attitude where he starts in on a “rights” lecture is going to be charged with everything the cop can plausibly charge him with. He pulled you over for a busted tail light, and maybe it would have been just a warning or at most a $50 ticket, but you want to imply the cop is violating your “rights”? Well, buddy, you better not have a dime bag of dope or an empty beer can anywhere in your car.

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”
— Romans 13:1-2 (KJV)

Watch the video again. Notice how the deputy is polite, but firm? Notice how he keeps his cool and talks reasonably to the crazy lady? This ain’t his first time at the rodeo, my friends. An experienced cop is a sort of expert in behavioral psychology. He knows that crazy people can’t handle the polite, reasonable approach, so he just gave the crazy lady enough rope to hang herself — impeding an investigation, resisting arrest, etc. All she had to do was to comply with the deputy’s instruction to get out of the car and she could have walked away, but she chose to escalate it into a confrontation she could not win.

The majesty of the law is a beautiful thing to behold, really.

(Hat tip: @ulisesjorge on Twitter.)





 

111 comments

  10. Too many of today’s cops are just bullies who think that breaking the law is a perk of their job. Lois Lerners with badges and guns. They’re the spear point of the nanny state, their unions obstruct justice and blackmail the public, and for some reason some conservatives can’t find anything wrong with the police part of the incipient police state.

  11. I once received 50 cents worth of advice from an old lawyer.
    He said, when confronted by a policeman, assume he is god.

  14. You must be meeting the wrong kind of cops.

    I’ve met cops from several countries besides the US and believe me, being polite works wonders. In a foreign country, being an asshole can and will get you shot and their cops have better immunity from prosecution than American cops do.

  15. Once had a cop from a neighboring city write a ticket in the wrong city.I asked him if he knew what city he was in.When he turned bright red and affirmed he did,I just told him that was my only statement.In court,the dufus wore every possible accessory on his belt to look more ‘professional’.Even the judge was giggling at the idiot.When he revealed where he had written the ticket,I told the judge I had a question for the officer.She said,’I got this one’,and explained the limits of his authority to him.The rest of his ticketed victims in the wrong city quietly applauded,and we all left with our driving records and wallets intact.He got to talk with his captain.

  19. Alas, very much in the minority. Too many cops have simply become thugs with a costume. The old southern saw about “one gang of thugs to keep the others in line” has spread country wide. Even the “good” cops cover for the bad ones.

    The work Police are supposed to do is important. But they have lost sight of the fact they are supposed to uphold the law in their own conduct as well.

  21. “She had the right to remain silent…but she didn’t have the ability,” or intelligence for that matter.

  22. I have met pure a**hole cops and I have met really decent cops. They are people just like everyone else, albeit people with legal right to arrest or shoot you if necessary.

  23. It is certainly not correct to state that “the cop has been trained in criminal law.” Many, many cops are woefully ignorant of the law. And that is why we get so many of these “bad-cop-encounters” recorded and posted to youtube.

    I don’t think most of it malicious (though some small amount of it certainly is) but cops don’t spend endless hours reading law journals and certainly are thinking of other things during encounters with citizens as crazy as this one was.

    Not getting shot or stabbed is a major and understandable distraction and that is why so many cops stood aside in Baltimore recently.

  24. There are some situations where the cops get it wrong. I know of at least one situation like that personally. In those cases, you do, in a polite and respectful manner, advise the officer where his opinion is at fault, using the law itself, if possible. Sometimes even this does not work. I hate to say it, but even some officers of the law can be arrogant a$$holes who enjoy the power they wield, and have no business being cops, granted this is a small minority from my experience. Most police I’ve dealt with have been good, decent, reasonable folks.

  28. I use Edit all the time, usually to either fix typos that I didn’t notice, or to fix mangled formatting. If I change content I’ll put the strike tag around what no longer applies, but that is seldom needed.

  29. I live in rural America, and I think there’s often a difference in attitude between metropolitan police and rural sheriff’s departments.

  30. As for meeting the wrong sorts of cops… I can honestly say (haha) that I simply *don’t meet cops*. I’ve been pulled over, “your tags are expired…” or “did you know your headlight is out?”… and I’ve gotten a ticket for running a red light (I did it, the intersection was weird and I was distracted) and gotten a warning for driving too fast once and a ticket once… because I was driving too fast. But that’s in 30 years. What… five or six “meetings” with cops in 30 years? What the heck do people DO that they keep having run-ins with jerk cops? And how much are the rest of us right to expect that, really, it might not be *them* because the common element in each interaction is *you*?

  31. I would think that there is a pretty obvious difference between “suck it up” and “become belligerent”. If your concern is the cost of a lawyer, being belligerent with the cop isn’t going to reduce your lawyer fees, even if you win. Being polite might get you somewhere or it might not, but it’s not the same as “suck it up.”

  32. “As my tough, working-class dad used to tell me, “Son, NEVER smart off to a cop — even if he’s obviously in the wrong…””

    Which is what gets me (tangential rant here) about this whole “what I told my black son about cops” idiocy… it all depends on a *fantasy* about what white sons are told (and daughters too, but mostly sons) about talking to the police. The fantasy is that white sons can mouth off, break the law, do stupid things, complain if they are questioned for walking down a street minding their own business, and somehow they don’t get in trouble. But mostly the reality is that they’ve been told “NEVER smart off to a cop” it’s all “Yes, sir. No, sir. I will, sir. Thank you and have a nice afternoon, officer.”

    THAT is what white sons are told.

  34. The fact that our rights can be over-ridden by an ignorant official and that we are required to be polite are indications that the US, or parts of it, is approaching a tyranny. This is not the way matters ought to be in a nation founded by rebels.

  35. You’re not required to be polite and you don’t have to, but next time you interact with the police and act belligerent, let the rest of us know how that works out for you.

  36. So far it has worked out well, though I don’t specifically act belligerent. Neither, though, do I act subservient, nor am I hesitant to proclaim my rights. I occasionally inform them I have a lawyer and know how to use him. On the other hand, if someone in government demonstrates good manners I’m willing to follow suit.

    Remember these people work for us not the other way around. Feel free to let me know if playing Uriah Heep works for you.

  39. Usually there is. I had a very good relationship with my County Sheriff when I was County Engineer in Ohio. The County just to the south mine, however, had an A**hole as a Sheriff who tried to cover for a couple of Deputies that shot a guy without cause during a drug raid at the wrong address. His county was not as rural as mine, with several municipalities and with a lot drugs crossing the river from WV. Still, he tried to avoid accountability for himself and his deputies. Such men have no business with a badge of the power it brings.

    The county ended up paying a large settlement and the Sheriff didn’t run for re-election as he was finished. It’s just a shame he was eligible to retire.

  40. No, they are not people just like everyone else, and they are trained not to see themselves as just another citizen. They are trained to see themselves as above the “civilians,” and that is the major problem. When one of their own is going to be brought to book, the circle the wagons and will lie, cheat, steal, and murder to cover themselves and each other. And lawless courts are no help the rest of society when they cover for them as well, as they usually do.

  41. My Uncle was a cop and a lot of my parents’ friends were Cops. I was taught at a young age to be polite and not to argue…that’s what lawyers are for.

    Being polite has worked rather well for me over the years. Saved me several thousand in potential fines and numerous points on my license.

    I have gotten out of several tickets by not being an asshole.

  44. Nothing of the sort. Perhaps we’re of a different age. Back in the day, most Cops believed the oath…to serve and protect.

    Unfortunately, those days are mostly long gone. I still stand by my premise that being polite works better than being belligerant and claiming your rights.

  45. The law and justice by no means fully intersect. Police at times erode our rights, at other times fail to challenge criminals due to timidity. The courts often fail to provide justice, and many a judge is either corrupt or power mad.

    None of us want this. The question is, do we improve matters by standing up for our rights or is it wiser to kowtow? The latter is often safer, I’ll admit, but is it perhaps better in the long run for a republican society to resist tyranny?

  46. Yes, that’s what also happened in the particular case I was peripherally involved in. A complaint was filed against the two officers and the department investigated their officers’ “alleged” wrongdoing and found they did nothing wrong (big surprise! The complaint even referenced the laws that were broken, but no dice). Suffice it to say, If anything happens and someone eventually gets hurt or killed because of what they allowed to take place, they are going to get their a$$es sued for all they are worth. Sorry, can’t go into details.

  49. I am not sure I share that opinion and perhaps some cops think themselves superior to “civilians” but they are citizens like us. They are not military and thus they are civilians albeit with some extra prerogatives, authority and responsibilities most citizens don’t have.

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