The NYPD Took This Dog Into Custody Because His Owner Filmed the Police

[Dill]

(05-21-2023, 10:19 AM)GMDino Wrote: Or, as in the case of the OP, "obstruction of government administration" which conveniently gets an advocate off the streets for awhile until the charges are dropped and no officer is reprimanded for it.  Even in the story the men being stopped were not charged with anything.  

One can exercise quite a bit of personal power just arresting people and taking them "downtown" or wherever.

Even if they are never charged, you just bent someone's life out of shape on a whim. 

And they know you can do it again if they don't shut up and follow your orders RIGHT NOW!

I remember watching police in Mubarak's Egypt stopping people for whatever they wanted to, with no 
evident consequences or controls. Not good to give police a sense they can just do that as a matter
of policy.

I have some personal experience of this too, as in 1971-72 I was stopped and frisked three times by police for, apparently, looking like
a hippy, which resulted in two arrests. In one case that meant spending a week in jail until the charges were 
dropped in court,* and in the other I was charged** and spent a week end in jail, though for some reason
that arrest does not appear on my record (i.e., did not turn up in the increasingly thorough security clearances required by the U.S. military
and the state of Qatar back in 2006 and 2010, though a hitchhiking charge did and almost tanked my clearance for the Qataris.)
All this came to mind as I read about the woman being taken downtown--even her dog, then charges dropped. No harm done.

This was an easy fix though: I cut my hair. Haven't been frisked since. Plus society loosened up a bit for hippies. 
NY targets of stop and frisk had no easy fix though, beyond rescinding the policy. Society had tightened up for them.

*Turns out the "drugs" found on me were over-the-counter cold medication or caffeine. They sent my SS card to a crime lab to
check for heroin, because years earlier, my mother had washed my billfold in my pants leaving the card with a bluish hue. Never got the
card or my billfold back. I also had a pipe which "looked like" a dope pipe to the arresting officer's trained eye, but turned out to
contain tobacco residue. Didn't get that back either. I had been hitchhiking home from the East Coast, and had sent my suitcase 
home ahead of me. The police in South Dakota, where I was detained, alerted the police in Montana, who called my father 
(to whom the suitcase was addressed) into the local station and opened it in front of him, having been alerted that he might be
receiving 44 lbs of marijuana. Turns out he was not.  A few weeks later, a friend asked him: "Someone said you were selling
marijuana on the reservation--is that true?" So my arrest led to false rumors and family humiliation hundreds of miles away.

**A police officer grabbed my arm without warning to "look for tracks." I reflexively pulled it away, 
and that was resisting arrest. Once arrested he said I had to show him my arm, which miraculously
had no tracks. And I was wearing a t-shirt; all anyone had to do was just look. But I still went to jail for "resisting." 
Lost a job because I could not show up for work.