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Police vs. armed hiker... You make the call

Grim17

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The following video was taken in Texas. It's of a police officer stopping a man and his son who were hiking, after they received a call from a concerned citizen who was alarmed because the man had a rifle.

I'd like everyones opinions on this...

Do you think:

The police officer acted appropriately during the confrontation?
The police officer acted legally during the confrontation?
The man acted appropriately throughout the episode?
The man acted legally during the entire episode, or do you think he broke any laws?
The police were correct to arrest him?​


I'll be back later and give you all my opinion on all this... It's a tough one for sure...

 
The officer's conduct was grotesquely wrong and if arresting him for "resisting" it was a knowingly and deliberate false arrest. The officer is a thug and should be fired. Also, if the officer will lie calling that "resisting," he is a pathological liar who would lie without hesitation on any affidavit and in court.
 
The charge as near as I could tell, of resisting surrender of the rifle, is 90% sure to be dismissed but the assertion of the citizen that the officer had no right to disarm him was 100% wrong. The citizen was wrong to try to argue the law with the officer before the officer was finished with the disarming and identification process, that is the 10% chance that he could be considered to have resisted.
 
I don't think it is a tough one at all.


The police officer acted appropriately during the confrontation?
Click to expand...
Yes
The police officer acted legally during the confrontation?
Click to expand...
Yes
The man acted appropriately throughout the episode?
Click to expand...

He acted like someone who was looking to be confrontational. Whether that is "appropriately" depends on as to what

The man acted legally during the entire episode, or do you think he broke any laws?
Click to expand...

I think he broke laws, or at least if that happened in my state, he would have broken laws
The police were correct to arrest him?
Click to expand...

Yes.
 

Well, that was pretty interesting.

IMO, as soon as the guy said, "Hey! Hey! Don't disarm me!" And pulled back on the gun? He was toast.

I'm sick of these idiots trying to make some ridiculous statement. Unless a person is hunting, target shooting, participating in militia exercises . . . they shouldn't be able to walk down the road with a gun slung over their shoulder. If I lived in Texas, I'd support such a law. That's the solution to this idiocy. They do much more harm than good toward preservation of our Second Amendment rights.

A cop gets a report of a suspicious person. And, damn it, a guy walking down the road with a gun slung over his shoulder is a suspicious person in the world we live in. Sorry, but that's just the realistic fact. That copper has the right to safely investigate. Personally, I wish he'd have asked the guy to put the gun down in the road from the safety of his loudspeaker. But he didn't. Or I wish he'd have approached him with his gun drawn and commanded the situation better than he did until he was satisfied this was just a dad out for a hike with his son for a scouting project.

The law should be changed so coppers can be as safe as possible. Period.
 

I'm not sure about this, but I think that it's against the law not to follow any lawful direction given by a police officer. I think you're missing that the officer got spooked. I probably would have, too.
 
It's a terrible state of affairs that we would even think of entertaining the idea that it should be acceptable for a free American to be treated in such a manner as a consequence of legitimately, harmlessly, and peacefully exercising one of his most essential Constitutional rights.

He was carrying a rifle. So what? The Constitution explicitly affirms his right to do so. There's absolutely no justification or excuse whatever for any agent of government to harass him in any way for so doing.
 

What law did he break? You don't even hint what you think it is, and the only person who was confrontational was the officer.

The officer hands the rifle back toward the man. Then the officer thinks he has cleverly come up with reason to assault the man with a deadly weapon, and proceeds to arrest the man for saying he is going to file a civil suit.

He had NO obligations to answer ANY questions (I understand that you like most anti-gun people generally hate the Bill of Rights including due process, the right to remain silent or anything else in the Bill of Rights) nor is there any basis to take a firearm from someone just because a person has it, nor "check and see if you can legally have the gun" without some probably cause - of which there was none whatsoever.

That officer was 100% aware it is entirely legal in Texas to walk down a public road carrying any rifle or shotgun.

Since it was no more illegal or suspicious for the man to be walking down the road with a rifle than walking down the road holding a flashlight, this was entirely instigated by the officer from the start, escalated by the officer and ultimately the officer openly lying. At no point in time did the man "resist arrest."

Your opinion is clearly based upon hatred of firearms for which anyone who has one should be arrested as a criminal - whether any law broken or not.
 
MaggieD said:
I'm sick of these idiots trying to make some ridiculous statement. Unless a person is hunting, target shooting, participating in militia exercises . . . they shouldn't be able to walk down the road with a gun slung over their shoulder.
Click to expand...

The Second Amendment says otherwise.
 

In Illinois, he would be running the REAL risk of being shot. Texas ought to change its laws re carrying rifles down the road or, for that matter, down the street in the middle of town. Or, sans that, have a specific procedure in place for law enforcement to accost these people for doing something that makes absolutely no sense.
 
The officer committed two or three criminal offenses:
1. Official oppression
2. Assault with a deadly weapon
3. If he (or any) of the officers swear to an affidavit of resisting arrest it is felony perjury.
 
MaggieD said:
I'm not sure about this, but I think that it's against the law not to follow any lawful direction given by a police officer. I think you're missing that the officer got spooked. I probably would have, too.
Click to expand...

You've lived in Chicago too long. You've become brainwashed with the idea that government is our master, and we are to be its sheepish servants.

More than any other single factor, it is this mindset that is most tragically wrong with our country today.
 

Yeah, well, I understand your comment. Ha!

I also have family in coal-country Kentucky. They have their shotguns sitting loaded at their front doors. And four more on the wall the same way. But know what they don't do?? They don't walk down the middle of the road with them. Nor the middle of town as we've seen these idiots do.
 

By what right should you, or any police officer, or anyone else, have any authority to decide whether or not it makes sense for someone to be legitimately exercising an essential Constitutional right? Since when does one's exercise of such a right even have to make sense? As long as he's not harming or threatening anyone else, IT'S NONE OF ANYONE'S DAMN BUSINESS!
 
joko104 said:
The officer committed two or three criminal offenses:
1. Official oppression
2. Assault with a deadly weapon
3. If he (or any) of the officers swear to an affidavit of resisting arrest it is felony perjury.
Click to expand...

Since there's a video, that's hardly going to happen.
 
MaggieD said:
I'm not sure about this, but I think that it's against the law not to follow any lawful direction given by a police officer. I think you're missing that the officer got spooked. I probably would have, too.
Click to expand...

Not technically, but the key is what happened around the 30 second mark. The man grabs onto the gun in what appears to be the area of the trigger. That is where the ball game changed for him. He seemed so intent in making some grand statement about his rights he probably didn't notice what he did. He is lucky he did not get shot. They both are really. That was an unnecessary situation that could have been resolved in 5 minutes if the man had been level headed in what was going on and not out to make a point.
 

I disagree with you. Texas should change its laws.
 

Completely agree.
 
The cop overreacted and the "resisting" charge is a steaming pile of cow dung.
 

I disagree. The officer was responding to a citizen complaint; which is worthy of investigation on that basis alone - that is exactly what they are paid to do. It is not unreasonable to stop, disarm and identify the citizen. You have no right, or reason, not to cooperate with the police. What should have taken no more than 5 minutes of his day was drawn out considerably due to the uncalled for actions of the "inconvenienced" citizen.
 

Because as long as a person is on a public road they are absolutely 100% safe for which no firearm ever needed? In fact, if a person ever feel in danger in your house just run out to the public street as no crime ever happens there. Being in public is the safest place to be?

That seems your point, that it "makes absolutely no sense" to have a firearm in public. So I gather you have decided against wanting a CCW permit? Or that you want one, but want would-be assailants to believe you are defenseless?

It has ALWAYS been legal in Texas to openly carry are rifle or shotgun. The officers know that. Texas is OPEN CARRY for rifles and shotguns. Always has been. This happened in Texas, not Illinois. It is due to that thuggery of officers who don't like that right in Texas that is the reason people don't. Officers just make up laws to arrest people legally openly carrying a rifle or shotgun. Most police officers only want themselves armed - because they really have no reason to care if anyone else is assaulted, raped or killed. They care about their safety - at the expense of everyone else - and openly violate laws and make false arrests to do so.

Carrying a rifle or shotgun is the best way to suggest you are not an easy target for robbery or assault. It also is legal to shoot all but protected animals in Texas - such as rabbits, squirrels, possums, racoons, most wild birds etc. It also is legal to shoot cans or just about anything else along the way such as he or his son wished if they decided to. Or maybe you want hunting outlawed - and since it isn't - you want officers to just create that law. When that officer stopped he knew, 100%, that man carrying the rifle was breaking no law whatsoever. None.

Sometimes you moan about all the anti-gun attitudes in Illinois. You really shouldn't, Maggie. There is a reason Illinois has such laws and states like Texas doesn't. Texas is the most gun-friendly state in the country. All gun-folks know that. The fight against gun control always is most waged there. Illinois is a gun-control-freaks state.

Do you really think what you wrote? Would YOU feel perfectly safe walking along a remote section of a state highway in Illinois with a teenager? It would seem that you would.

Yeah, in Illinois it would be illegal. It Illinois the requirement was for him to expose both of them to being robbed and killed, or drive-by defenselessly shot. He wasn't in Illinois.
 
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Lutherf said:
The cop overreacted and the "resisting" charge is a steaming pile of cow dung.
Click to expand...

He reacted from instinct. Knowing what we know now, I think you're right. But when you want to make sure you get home in one piece after your shift? Sometimes you over-react when a firearm is involved. And people out there playing damned "gotcha' games"? Ought to be horse whipped.
 

No, I absolutely haven't decided not to get a CCW. I sincerely think these idiots do much more harm than good by doing what they're doing.
 

His instincts were all messed up.

From the perspective of someone who has been there the cop screwed up in multiple ways not the least of which was being overly concerned with the AR and paying no attention at all to the kid. If he really believed that there was a threat then he's a candidate for the Darwin award.

The guy made no aggressive moves at all and a simple conversation would have sorted everything out but the cop was having none of that and chose to escalate the situation unnecessarily. Stupid decisions like that are what gives cops such a bad rap and in different circumstances could have got him killed.
 
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