Coast Guard officer, Shane Sprague, bought a 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 AT4X on June 21 from Doral Volkswagen in South Florida. For many years, Shane had wanted this specific truck: a GMC 1500 AT4X. He worked hard, and made sacrifices, to be able to save money for the down payment. He put down a $15,000 deposit, traded in a 2012 Ford Focus for $1,500, and financed the rest of the $61,230 purchase price through the dealer. A dealership employee even snapped a photo of Shane looking happy with his purchase, and later texted him, thanking him for the sale and wishing him well. But, 10 days later, on July 1, an unmarked F-150 rammed his rear bumper, and he was arrested at gunpoint by Broward County deputies…
In Marysville, Michigan, Jake Kidder was washing his truck at a self serve car wash. An off duty police officer claims to have seen a black man in a Cadillac hand a suspicious bag to Mr. Kidder. Assuming he handed him drugs, he called his on-duty buddies, who responded within minutes. They confronted Mr. Kidder, who responded that the black man was his coworker, who handed him a cigarette. This occurred in St. Clair County, Michigan.
Video from Texas shows a guy being pulled over based on the allegation that his mud flaps were too short. But then, the officer opens the passenger side door on his own, while holding his pistol. He orders the driver out of his truck, making the new allegation that he smells marijuana. Then he frisks the man and searches his vehicle. During this entire ordeal, the driver is filming with his phone and questioning/accusing the officer. He actually did a really good job of completely destroying the alleged justification for the officer’s conduct.
Ring doorbell video surfaced showing the arrest of a man at his own front door, after he refused to provide identification to police officers in Clayton County, Georgia. The footage showed officers arresting the man without a warrant. After the footage went viral, the police department then made their own Youtube video responding to the footage, as well as the allegations. But the issue remains: can cops constitutionally arrest a homeowner at his own front door without a warrant?
The Fourth Amendment guarantees the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The constitutional protection of people in their houses extends to the “curtilage” of the home, which is “the area ‘immediately surrounding and associated with the home.'” Collins v. Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 1663, 1670 (2018) (quoting Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6 (2013)).
Subject to a few exceptions, the Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement from entering a home or its curtilage to conduct a search without a warrant. United States v. Walker, 799 F.3d 1361, 1363 (11th Cir. 2015). United States v. Stephen, No. 19-12172 (11th Cir. Aug 06, 2020)
I literally received hundreds of requests for my take on this outrageous bodycam footage that was originally uploaded by Lackluster, showing a lady being arrested in Kentucky, after she attempted to criticize a police officer for his poor driving skills. Well, you were right that I would be interested in this incident. Here’s my take on it.
Here are the relevant Kentucky statutes (I mistakenly used disorderly conduct in the first degree in the video, but the operative portions are identical):
Imagine that your 62 year old father was driving late at night after 11 hours on the road. Would you worry that he would fall asleep? Hopefully he would just pull over somewhere and take a nap if he was tired. Right? Usually, yes. But not in Spokane County, Washington.
62 year old Kevin Hinton had just driven 11 hours into his road trip back from meeting his brand new baby granddaughter in Oregon. He was too tired to continue driving. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. So he pulled over into a parking lot at Terrace View Park, in Spokane, Washington, to take a nap. Shortly afterwards he would encounter Sgt. Clay Hilton with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office. Within three minutes, Hilton would forcibly remove Mr. Hinton from his vehicle in such a way as to leave him with 8 broken ribs, a punctured lung, severe concussion, shoulder injury, and a disfigured lip. Why? Because Sgt. Hilton thought he was being rude.Â
Police officers around the nation continue to misunderstand the Fourth Amendment and the concept of reasonable suspicion. This footage was submitted by Nick Failla, showing his arrest in Cocoa, Florida several years back. He just recently obtained the bodycam footage.
Many cops believe that they get to forcibly ID anyone they encounter as a part of their job. They are taught that its policy to do this for officer safety reasons. We see it over and over again. In this particular video, the female officer, who is a supervisor, explains repeatedly to Nick that, because she’s a police officer conducting an investigation, Florida law allows her to obtain the ID of anyone she encounters – whether or not a crime is even alleged. Nick disagrees with her and asks repeatedly for an explanation of what crime he was alleged to have committed. Let me see if I can clear this up.
This is a common issue and is the subject of one of my most popular Youtube videos – a case currently being litigated in federal court, involving the arrest of my client in a West Virginia Walmart. When police officers encounter pedestrians, they could trigger an investigatory detention, which requires reasonable suspicion, or they could just be engaged in a consensual encounter, which requires nothing. It’s just a conversation.Â
Consensual encounters, i.e., a conversation, does not trigger the Fourth Amendment, and can be easily identified if the subject asks whether or not he’s free to leave. If the question isn’t asked, courts will look to the circumstances. Would a reasonable, regular person believe that he was NOT free to leave? Were emergency lights activated? Multiple police officers? Guns drawn? Put in handcuffs? Accused of criminal conduct? Told to show your hands? Told to get on the ground? Or was it just a conversation.
The question is whether a reasonable person would feel free to terminate the encounter. If the person was involuntarily detained by the officer, that constitutes a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, no matter how brief the detention or how limited its purpose.
If a detention occurs, the courts require the detaining officer to be able to articulate why a particular behavior is suspicious or logically demonstrate that the person’s behavior is indicative of some sinister criminal activity. It must be based on suspicion of illegal conduct. In other words, it cannot be based on suspicion of legal conduct, such as walking down a public sidewalk, or hanging out on top of your van with two women in a parking lot in front of a lake.
Here, there was clearly a detention. Therefore reasonable suspicion is required. Even in Florida, a police officer must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the person stopped of criminal activity.” United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 880 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc).
This is a West Virginia case – bodycam of a traffic stop for lack of an inspection sticker and warrantless arrest. This involves the Martinsburg Police Department and Patrolman Daniel Smith. The guy in the video, D.J. Beard, wants to file a lawsuit. You tell me, what do you think? Does he have a case, in your opinion? Mr. Beard was almost immediately arrested for allegedly refusing to get out of his car. Is that what the footage shows?
This is the same police department that pulled over, and arrested, Corey Lambert, as featured in another video (different officer though).
Here are the criminal case filings, including the charging documents, police report narrative, as well as the dismissal orders:
This video was submitted by Tyler from Coweta, Georgia, showing him being pulled over while pulling into a gas station over an alleged seatbelt violation. That quickly escalated into a violent use of force wherein Tyler was slammed to the ground and tased. He was then arrested and taken to jail. Although he spoke to the supervisor, he was repeatedly accused of having “fought” with the deputies. Subsequently, all criminal charges were dropped prior to trial.
This bodycam footage comes to us from Richland, Mississippi, showing Ian Alexander’s traffic stop for speeding. Similar to the video I posted a couple weeks ago from Bexar County, this stop also documents a police officer who believes that he has some sixth sense when it comes to detecting seemingly innocent people who are actually smuggling narcotics. As in the other case, he was completely wrong and achieved nothing other than embarrassing himself and violating the Constitution.
