I totally agree. I mean, if you aren't doing anything illegal then why wouldn't you allow a quick search of your home. A simple "go ahead and look around" and nothing will come of it. The officers are just doing their job.
/end sarc
Ohio Man Illegally Arrested for Open Carry Sparks $3M Lawsuit
- Thread starter neginfluence04
- Start Date
I totally agree. I mean, if you aren't doing anything illegal then why wouldn't you allow a quick search of your home. A simple "go ahead and look around" and nothing will come of it. The officers are just doing their job.
/end sarc
Public and private are 2 completely different scenarios. If you were on private land/dwelling, I'll tell them to skip rocks unless they had probable cause. If you are in the general public, I do think it is different, and apparently someone called in, giving some questions of probable cause. In a state that allows open carry, either people aren't used to it yet, and then you are giving people a reason to have fear of it with actions like that, or you were doing something to draw negative attention to yourself in the first place that made people question your actions. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for both the LEO and the individual.
Do you really expect if you were a LEO doing your job and you get a call that someone has a gun at XXX location, you aren't going to verify they are eligible to carry said weapon? Is that not their job, to verify the good guys have the guns, and the bad guys don't? I didn't see in the OP WHY the LEO was contacted in the first place, as in if he were causing a disturbance, etc.
I have to side with the citizen and hope he gets all or most of the money. If the pd gets a slap on the wrist it makes it easier for them to continue to trample on our rights with little or no consequences. I hope he doesn't settle and it's made public he is getting a large sum to deter future instances.
Was the individual breaking the law?
Did it appear that he was going to commit a crime?
Was the person who called the police informed that it was perfectly legal to open carry, and that the police are supposed to uphold the law?
Citizens who follow the law, and exercise their rights make easy targets because the assumption is made they will comply with leo's requests IMO.
Did it appear that he was going to commit a crime?
Was the person who called the police informed that it was perfectly legal to open carry, and that the police are supposed to uphold the law?
Citizens who follow the law, and exercise their rights make easy targets because the assumption is made they will comply with leo's requests IMO.
I'm with the citizen on this one. If I break the law I am expected to be fined. If the ones that are commissioned to keep the law break it they should be fined also, and it should be a stiff enough fine to set an example to not do it again. I think 3.6 million is a fair fine for a government entity. Just as a few hundred/thousand is pretty fair for the average citizen.
You need to read the Constitution. I'll give you a hint. Skip ahead to the 4th Amendment. Doesn't matter if it's out in public, you still need probably cause, which apparently you don't know what that means either. The officers themselves admitted that they didn't have any probable cause.
And, no it wouldn't be my job to verify if someone carrying a gun is a good guy or a bad guy unless the law gives me the ability to do so. Clearly, according to Ohio law, open carry of a weapon is legal and there is no law giving officers to determine the status of anyone carrying a weapon. So my response would be, "Are they committing a crime? Do you have reason to believe that they are about to commit a crime? No. Okay, well, carrying a weapon openly is legal in Ohio. Have a nice day". That's the law. Going to this scene and harassing a law abiding citizen is outside the bounds of the law and the officers were not "just doing their job". If you don't like it, then work to have the laws changed. If you think officers should be allowed to check the status of anyone carrying a weapon, that's fine, but it's not the law of the land. Get the law changed to suit what you like.
Besides, wasn't the argument of "just doing my job" or doing what I was told abolished at Nuremberg?
^^^Well put.^^^
This reminds me of the Volkswagon commercial where the guy wears the ski mask into the store. It is implied that he is going to rob the store, but doesn't. People always think the worst. Same in this situation, the guy has a gun he must be up to no good so I will call the police. The police have a job to determine if a crime was committed. If one has not been committed according to Ohio law the victim here doesn't have to tell them anything, and them using strong arm tactics is what is getting them sued for $3.6 mil. Pay up!
It doesn't say why the authorities were alerted. I didn't look into it other than what the OP posted. If he wasn't doing anything suspicious, then yeah of course, he was within his right's. You nor I know, (unless that particular information has been released) why the caller called the LEO about him. If he had suspicious activity, LEO were doing their job. There's always 2 sides to a story, and this only depicts one.
