Reflecting dangerous soundwaves back to the police may be prosecuted as assault on a police officer, a serious crime (automatic felony in NYC, for instance).
Because the hypocrisy of American policing wasn't obvious enough already.
> He also was arrested for what police say was “assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer” and resisting or obstructing an officer. The deadly weapon apparently was a tear gas canister that police tossed toward him and other protesters and alleged he tossed back in their direction.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/06/protester-recounts-ge...
The only reason they get away with it is that they are unwilling to enforce the law against themselves.
The problem is that QI rulings are insanely narrow, to the point where minor differences get cops off scot free. The differences can be as minor as the difference between setting dogs on a surrendering suspect in a “wooded creek” vs. in a “shrubby ditch”. And every single time this happens, a specific precedent is denied for future incidents.
You may not like their enforcement, and in some cases they are clearly going too far, but there is no real argument on the legality of the tools they are using in the situation. We gave them the right to act as the state's expression of force.
If this is your takeaway from the last two weeks, we won't be able to agree. My position is that the police are shooting rubber bullets at random citizens, and that protestors "pushing the line between peaceful and rioting" is a mostly–manufactured narrative to give them post–hoc justification for doing so.
Even when police are behaving exactly by the book, they are absolutely allowed to take actions that would otherwise be considered a crime when undertaken by a private citizen. It is not accidental that they are empowered with more authority than an average citizen.
It was deemed ok because the man spit at the officer and spitting is considered assault where I live.
Man I can only imagine what would happen to me if I beat the hell out of a guy and told the judge it was self defense becausehe spit at me.
FTFY.
But you just said you couldn't prove this above... Which is it?
Given that we live in a constitutional republic that provides rights to all citizens, any use of force on them that lacks justification is therefore unjustified.
Rubber/plastic bullets have cost how many eyes at this point?
There IS NO justification for LE to use this stuff, as their charter in the case of protests is about maintaining peace and de-escalating any confrontational violence that may occur.
The very notion of being a force confronting/opposed to protesters is WRONG, as they should be de-escalating things, and THIS is the greater issue. LE is waging war upon protesters instead of providing security services.
Cops might have the legal right to use force, but they must have clear justification for that application. Indiscriminate application of tools designed to injure people by the police should be a crime, but in practice it does not appear to be so.
Aside from reversing the burden of proof, I can’t prove a negative, such an attitude hands the police a carte Blanche to strip citizens of their rights until the citizens can argue for their rights back. This is not how functioning democracies are supposed to work.
But for some reason the moment the police are involved, that presumption is reversed. Why?
When did the tear gas throwers show they were justified in throwing tear gas at the police?
Throwing tear gas back (important word) at the police when you feel it’s unjustified is an interesting question. Arguably such an act could be an act of self defense, but that gets very complicated when the police are involved.
What right do citizens have to defend themselves against what they feel is unlawful police violence? Against non-state actors, you have the right of self defense, obviously. Against state actors it is obviously complicated, since nominally they have a monopoly on the legal use of force, and we don’t want everyone with a valid warrant to feel justified in shooting at the police.
But to assume that there is no force that the state can apply that would not justify self defense is to accept a complete erosion of all civil liberties once the police are involved. Not all wrongs perpetuated by the police are amenable to court restitution; if you lose out on your right to peacefully assemble, then can a court give that back after the fact? What happens if the police apply lethal force without justification; you can’t sue to get your life back.
It is obvious that some right to self defense against state action exists, but exactly where the line is seems quite fuzzy to me.
Because the testimony by police is treated as a proof more reliable than nearly any contrary evidence, short of very clear video.
1. that the police used force at all
2. that the civilian on which force was used did something to justify it
For claim 1, the police absolutely have the presumption of innocence. But once they concede that they did use force, the burden of proof flips around. Otherwise, you're placing a presumption of guilt on the civilian by asking them to prove that they weren't threatening a cop.
This is essentially an affirmative defense [0]: it concedes the unlawful action (e.g. police use of force) but alleges a specific set of circumstances that would shield the person from repercussions. The burden of proof lies with the one using the affirmative defense.
> that the civilian on which force was used did something to justify it
When was that proven like you demanded?
> I never said anything about self–defense.
If it isn't self-defense, then they just illegally assaulted one or more officers and deserve to be punished.
> If they are unjustified, then you should be able to prove that. Otherwise what you're talking about is the police having to prove their innocence.
If I allege that a police officer used force on me, they have the presumption of innocence. However, if they admit to using force, that presumption vanishes. We can assume they did it, because they just admitted to it!
The question then becomes whether or not that force was justified. In answering that question, the burden of proof shifts to them: I am presumed innocent of threatening them, and they must affirmatively prove that I did something to justify their use of force.
Edit: I never said anything about self–defense because your original comment was about the burden of proof for use of force by the police, not against them. You are moving the goalposts.
On top of that,the effectiveness of a single point-source falls with the inverse square of the distance so the effectiveness of this "assault" would likely be minimal.
" a reasonable officer could have believed that beating a subdued and compliant Mr. Davis while causing only a concussion, scalp lacerations and bruising with almost no permanent damage did not violate the Constitution,” the district court ruled in tossing out the case."
With even federal judges like that i wonder what hope can be there at all.
Another judge rubber stamped an subpoena against reason for mean but non-threatening comments against the FBI (“go to hell” I believe was the phrase), and a gag order preventing reason from talking about it.
Do not underestimate the willingness of the courts to rubber stamp shocking abuses by the police. They are, after all, the ones that made up QI.
https://www.al.com/news/2020/06/alabama-protester-arrested-f...
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ferguso...