I saw this story on Reddit and it raises a lot of unanswered questions. The Examiner below reports that the video was taken by the wife of Gary Grana, 33, who was arrested for firing a crossbow in his yard at a target. Grana ends up under a pile of officers after a rather large number of officers respond to the call.
Here is how the video was originally described before it was removed by YouTube (it is back now):
“This is a video that I took of my husband being wrongfully accused and detained. They originally came because someone wrongfully accused my husband of firing a crossbow in our yard (crossbows are legal in our state). He told them he was not firing a crossbow and there was not a crossbow outside or any evidence of one being outside. The police asked him for ID and he refused on grounds that he wasn’t doing anything to facilitate them asking for ID. Next thing he knew the police jumped him, then the police tripped over our steps and crashed through a wooden fence which injured the officers hand. They slammed my husbands head against my front door, breaking my door (I can’t even shut it properly now and have to replace it) and sprayed him with mace and started beating the crap out of him. All of a sudden my husband is being charged with assault on an officer?! SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE!!!!!”
Despite the obvious tension, there are officers at the scene who are trying to calmly determine what occurred in this incident that left officers injured and a man arrested.
He was charged with discharging a weapon within city limits, even though he was not holding the crossbow when the police encountered him. The police added charges of third degree assault on an officer, refusing to comply, and resisting arrest.
Source: Examiner
When I first came to the Turley Blog and read some of the comments of J.Brian Harris,Ph.D.,P.E., he sounded somewhat pompous to me. Fortunately, I didn’t say anything. After one of his comments in which he described his view of the world around him through the filter of his form of autism, I understood that he is “in this world”, but not necessarily “of this world”. With this knowledge, I now read his comments without my previous prejudice and find he has much to say of great interest to me. He is a gentleman by every definition of the word, and his humanity is evident to all who read this blog.
“It may often be difficult to listen well and completely to what someone says of inner pain not yet understood, not yet reconciled, not yet forgiven; pain so intense that it is impossible to forget and beyond impossible to remember.
My lifelong sense of such pain is that it can only surface through expressed hostility, whether it ranges, in the manner of a continuum, from less than insignificantly mild to beyond unspeakably horrid.” (J. Brian Harris)
==========================================================
ishobo,
Pay attention, kiddo … you just might learn something.
Otteray Scribe,
Thank you for the kind words on Dr. Harris’ behalf.
Ol’ Doc Harris wrote:
“For those who would critique my competence as an engineer and the validity of my engineering work, please inform the members of this blawg of your bioenginering undergraduate education, your doctoral bioengineering degree and dissertation, your professional engineering and other association memberships, and in which state or states you hold Professional Engineer registration.”
______________________________
I wait with bated breath for a reply from others! Oh, Please I beseech thee!
The LEOs were most likely within their rights, although so much is unknown. However, they appeared too zealous in their actions given that this violation is most likely a misdemeanor. I could posit my LE training and some of my experiences; however, Wikipedia has some very relevant and spot-on information regarding “Stop and Identify Statutes” (Must I show my I.D?). Clearly, beyond a Terry Stop—as Mespo mentioned—you must consult state statutes.
I will briefly state that at least one overzealous LEO with whom I worked wanted to arrest every subject of a misdemeanor warrant and could not wait to get those “*%#@)*% dirt bags”. That LEO was one of the worst at applying double standard LE and routinely broke the very laws the person had sworn to uphold and for which the person cited others that violated the same state or federal statutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_Identify_statutes#States_with_.E2.80.9Cstop-and-identify.E2.80.9D_statutes
It may often be difficult to listen well and completely to what someone says of inner pain not yet understood, not yet reconciled, not yet forgiven; pain so intense that it is impossible to forget and beyond impossible to remember.
My lifelong sense of such pain is that it can only surface through expressed hostility, whether it ranges, in the manner of a continuum, from less than insignificantly mild to beyond unspeakably horrid.
Until such hurts rise to conscious awareness, people are at the mercy of what they, as individuals and as social groups, can neither know nor understand in any manner allowing other than as though being enslaved by the seemingly unknowable.
I had to use an online dictionary to figure out a plausible meaning for “piss poor engineer.” That is a phrase of endearment not within my active or passive vocabularies-in-use.
I choose to use words familiar to me instead of ones I may misunderstand for lack of familiarity with their use. Yes, as engineers go, I allow that I may indeed be an extremely poor engineer.
My wife and I had life savings which allowed us to buy, merely by writing a valid check, a house for our son, daughter-in-law, and their two children to live in, in Sturgeon Bay. On February 10, 1996, their car exploded on the curve in front of the Southern Door Schools, the car had many defective spot welds as I, as a competently educated engineer, observed when I was given access to the dismembered remnants of the car. My wife and I were sued, the suits had as their main effect our being driven into and through Chapter 7 bankruptcy. That happened, not because we were poor at money management or had squandered our money on addictions, but because we found we could never get the money to pay the attorneys we consulted what they required, and the time it took for me to become sufficiently capable as a pro-se lawsuit defendant to not be incarcerated for contempt of court.
Our son and his wife were buried on his birthday, St. Valentine’s day, 1996. Otteray Scribe, and others, what can one say of an emptiness an eternity may be unable to fill? Compassionate Friends may help…
Alas, the result of the court process into which we were dragged did result in my being in contempt, in accord with the Wisconsin Constitution, according to dictates of conscience, of the adversarial process as a method of justice.
Thanks, also, for the “meds” reminder. I do take a few prescription meds to compensate for the blood-biochemistry effects of not having died from colon cancer (as did my dad and brother) because my colon and its blood-biochemistry benefits were removed in the summer of 1986.
I freely confess to being a financially-extremely-poor engineer, if my so doing is helpful to anyone else. Only, my wife and I are in a house (the mortgage balance on which, thanks to the financial industry tricksters, grants to us little financial equity; we are warm enough if we wear enough clothing, and a gallon or so of roof cement seems to have stopped the roof leaks — we cannot now afford to re-roof the house, so the “poor-folks” methods are what remains for us as being practical).
When I come upon someone who acts as though to treat me hurtfully, as I never seek being hurt, nor welcome being hurt as such, I surmise that whoever acts as though hurtfully toward me is acting out unresolved hurts too hurtful to be told of in mere words used with evident civility.
As much as I seek never to hurt more someone who, in words, deeds, or combinations thereof, inform of said someone’s unresolved hurts; also, I seek to communicate with people as decently as I can attain, for I find no other achievable path from the abuses concomitant with present human society toward a society in which such hurts can only be studied in the historical record.
If, alas, it was meant to be claimed that I am an incompetent engineer, I may wisely comment that I have studied engineering ethics and the law as relevant to engineering, as an engineer and not as an attorney, of course.
As I understand applicable law, for someone who is not a Registered Professional Engineer to critique a Registered Professional Engineer and/or the work of a Registered Professional Engineer is actionable. Furthermore, for a Registered Professional Engineer to critique another such Engineer and/or the work of another such Engineer, the critiquing Engineer needs be competent in the field of the Engineer so critiqued.
My Certificate of Registration as a Professional Engineer was issued by the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing on May 8, 2000; my current registration expires in 2012, and my credential number is 34106-6.
For those who would critique my competence as an engineer and the validity of my engineering work, please inform the members of this blawg of your bioenginering undergraduate education, your doctoral bioengineering degree and dissertation, your professional engineering and other association memberships, and in which state or states you hold Professional Engineer registration.
I will go first: (Verifiable facts herewith follow.) I graduated, High Honors, from the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle on June 14, 1970. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with the Doctor of Philosophy in Bioengineering on May 10, 1998. I became a Wisconsin Registered Professional Engineer on May 8, 2000; Credential No. 34106-6. I became a member of the National Society of Professional in Engineers in May, 2000. I became a Life Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers on January 1, 2005. The title of my doctoral dissertation is, “Mental Health and Mental Illness: Cause, Purpose, Cure, and Prevention; A Bioengineering Perspective.
Whosoever can match my credentials and demonstrable studies is welcome to demolish any aspect of, or the entirety of, the validity of the work I have done in bioengineering. Such folks will readily be capable of paraphrasing my work so as to demonstrate their having actually understood it. Without really understanding the work, all I find anyone can do is refute work not of my doing. Refutation of what I have not done commands no refutation of what I have done.
I neither expect people to agree with the findings of my bioengineering research, neither do I expect disagreement. Alas, without adequate understanding of the actual work accomplished, neither actual agreement nor actual disagreement seems attainable as best I am yet able to discern.
In an earlier comment, I indicated that I live my life as though, under law, I have no rights. I do so to avoid acting as though I have rights and finding my body dying because someone else believed their rights trumped mine. After consulting with the Door County Sheriff Department, I take with me when driving two laminated 8.5 by 11, two-side documents.
One has an enlarged photocopy of my Wisconsin driver’s license certificate and my insurance cards, so I need not get out my wallet to show the information on the license certificate and insurance cards to police officers.
On that laminated page, I have, in large print, words to inform police officers that I am autistic, that -in the past- I have become catatonic when experiencing “terrifying coercive intimidation, and a request, in large-font caps, “Please do not disregard my autism and murder me.”
The other two-sided laminated document informs police that I am autistic, that I find I am entitled to ADA reasonable accommodations, and that I do not waive my right to remain silent; this written notice apparently being required subsequent to SCOTUS: BERGHUIS, WARDEN v. THOMPKINS, June 1, 2010. This second, two-sided document is a signed and sealed professional engineering document.
I allow no one and nothing to bully me such that I would deem revenge, restitution, or retaliation to ever be justice.
On the second mentioned document are printed, among other words, the words, in bold italics, “I absolutely decline any and all invitations, regardless of how coercively threatening, to other than abide in accord with the dictates of my conscience.”
In conscience, I can find no fault with anyone who, for whatever reasons, is as though a person who is finding fault with me.
Welcome to the new world! Armed Regular Militiamen come to your house and demand ID without evidence of a crime, even though Nebraska’s stop and identify statute (Section 29-829) clearly states that ID is only required in a “public place”.
Essentially these thugs went to a guys house on the call of a nosey neighbor and found one of their uncooperative subjects. Then proceeded to show this man why the police are better than him. I’m surprised they didn’t discharge their sidearms just to show him that they’re the “only ones” allowed to fire weapons in the city.
This should have been handled by one cop looking for the illegal activity, and quietly leaving when he didn’t find any. Armed Thugs who are not only allowed to but are encouraged, sometimes required to start personal confrontations are in no way part of a free society
Mespo writ:
“…the place to vindicate your rights is not on the street corner or at your threshold unless some fatal intrusion into your rights is threatened based upon reasonable belief. You are better served a few weeks later, at the courthouse, in front of a judge with your lawyer at your side.”
__________________
Mespo,
That sounds like the perfect information for criminal defense attorneys’ business cards or Yeller Pages Ads…Along with:
Have *Latin*–Will Travel
OS,
My comments are sometimes posting before I submit them — I’m not sure why. I had decided to scrub the last partial sentence, but my comment sailed away… No talk of “torture” today, I think…
Anyway, Otteray Scribe, I’ve been looking at the IGTNT and Honoring the Fallen sites. Thank you. There are many good people in this world and, as such, there is still hope.
Otteray Scribe,
What a beautiful tribute to your son and others who have fallen, including the photograph and the prayer. Too many have died… and it’s time for these wars to cease.
I grew up in a military family. My father retired “early” after 24 years and, in doing so, avoided going to Vietnam and gave up a promised promotion to full colonel My sister was very young at the time and, having just spent a year in Korea, he didn’t want to be away from the family again. I suspect that there was more to it, but he kept it to himself. He was the ultimate patriot –he loved this country, and he “hated” war.
I wish that I could recall his exact words, but he once said that no one in the military should ever want to go to war, or take us into one carelessly. He died last May. When I discussed the issue of “torture
Thank you again, Anon Nurse. The surviving son is a physician and he is the one who married his office nurse. The younger of the boys is the one who rests in the gardens of stone. He was engaged to a nurse, so he did believe in following the family tradition–my mom was an RN as well, so there are three generations of the guys in our family marrying nurses. I posted a photo and comment over in Daily Kos this morning, which will give you a visual image of the setting.
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2011/1/1/95837/92027/5#c5
Otteray Scribe,
Thank you for your kind words, and the story about your family. You’ve given me “a lift” on this rather dreary day in NY.
I’ve never said anything about the loss of your son, though I’ve thought about it many times. My heart goes out to you and your family — there isn’t any equivalent to the pain of losing a child and, as such, it’s difficult to find the right words.
Last night, I read your comment about the empty chair in your house, and the daily visits to the cemetary. I felt a profound sense of sadness, but words failed me, as they do now. From what I know of you from this blog, he was blessed to have had a father like you. Forgive me for being presumptuous but, I’m guessing that he knew that… For you and yours — and for all of us — I hope your “strangest dream” comes true. It’s a lovely dream.
-D.
ishobo/OS/Chaz:
Kudos to OS for civility. A little of it would have gone a long way to pacify this situation.
In this instance, the man clearly could have been detained and searched under the circumstances of the encounter due to probable cause existing to believe that a criminal violation had occurred, and his obvious resistance to the officer’s questions to determine what exactly was going on. Probable cause doesn’t require the officer to be a mind-reader. I’d like to know precisely why the police were called to the house and by whom. For example, knowing that a neighbor with personal knowledge was complaining of the crossbow shooting in the alley would shed more light on the probable cause aspects of the case.
ChaZ’s point about the putative “tea bagger flag” is instructive of attitude, but not legally relevant. Would ChaZ have felt better if the stars and stripes were hanging on the wall? Would it’s presence have made the officer’s action unjustified? Assuredly not. Even if the officer was conducting a false arrest, the citizen could not violently resist. He certainly could passively resist the arrest however under the law of most states.
To ishobo’s point that a citizen need not identify himself or submit to a search, that would depend on the circumstances. In a high crime area or where the officer reasonably believes that a crime may be occurring or had just occurred, he may conduct a Terry stop and frisk to ascertain the situation and protect his safety and that of others. Here the belligerence of the homeowner coupled with the reasonable belief in the proximity of the weapon would likely allow the officer to act to stabilize the situation. I agree the encounter perhaps could have been handled better, but I think on balance the conduct was permissible under existing law.
I do have a healthy fear of government intrusion into our privacy, but I saw nothing to suggest the officer was doing anything other than conducting a professional inquiry within the bounds of lawfully doing his job to respond to a complaint of criminal activity.
As an aside, the place to vindicate your rights is not on the street corner or at your threshold unless some fatal intrusion into your rights is threatened based upon reasonable belief. You are better served a few weeks later, at the courthouse, in front of a judge with your lawyer at your side.
Happy New Year, Anon Nurse, and thank you. BTW, I used to have a bumper sticker on the back of my truck that said, “Love a Nurse PRN.” I put that into practice every day. Son followed in my footsteps and married his office nurse–he was taught well by example. We are rather fond of nurses around our house.
Very nicely said, Otteray Scribe. Happy New Year.
ishobo:
You may be in the wrong blawg.
The points ChaZ raises are correct. If you are stopped by an officer and asked for identification, you need to produce it. The officer may be looking for someone with your description and all you have to do is show an ID and be on your way. Refuse and you raise immediate suspicion. If that happens, you may find yourself “assuming the position” against a wall at best and at worst eating a mouthful of gravel while spread-eagled on the ground. You will then have the pleasure of explaining the law to a judge who will probably be singularly unsympathetic. Second, as a profiler myself, if I pull up and see one of those tea bagger flags on the porch and the guy runs from me, I go on high alert and will respond accordingly.
As for your commenta to Dr. Harris, you do not know him and that is probably a good thing–for him. You have no idea what kind of engineer he is or anything else about him.
There was a lot wrong with that arrest and how both the police and the suspects handled the situation. Both have to accept some culpability. Insulting regular users here does nothing to shed light on anything.
As I said, you may be in the wrong blawg. Civility is the tradition here. You might try it sometime–it will get you extra mileage as a human being.
@ChaZ
1) Irrelevant.
2) Incorrect, it depends on the jurisdiction and activity (such as driving or being a resident alien). If you are indeed a police officer, you are incompetent. Although police can start a conversation with anybody at anytime there is no legal requirement to provide identification unless being detained, and even then it is a little murky.
@J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.
You need to go back on your meds, and you are a piss poor engineer.
From the comment of BBB, December 31, 2010 at 10:01 am
In Lincoln, Nebraska:
9.36.050 Discharge of Weapons and Other Instruments Unlawful.
It shall be unlawful for any person, except as provided in this chapter, to fire or discharge, within the corporate limits, or on any property of the City of Lincoln outside of the corporate limits, any air rifle, toy pistol, toy gun, slingshot, or any other air, gas, or spring operated gun, weapon, apparatus, or instrument for the purpose of throwing or projecting missiles of any kind by any means whatsoever in such a manner as to endanger the safety of persons or property, whether the instrument is called by any name set forth above or by any other name. (Ord. 15625 §5; July 9, 1990: P.C. §9.28.040: Ord. 9382 §2; January 22, 1968: prior Ord. 3489 §9-103; July 6, 1936).
Here comes Brian with his interpretation; as there is no evidence available to me that the firing of the crossbow endangered the safety of persons or property, absent anyone having such evidence, the alleged perp may have committed no violation of “9.36.050”?
Corrections to the above engineering-based interpretation are welcome.
I’ve got few things to say.
1. Did anyone see that “Do Not Tread On US” flag inside their house (2nd video)? Sorry, but I have to do profiling. It’s safe to say that he might be a tea-bagger who might believe all kind of conspiracies that’s brewing about new world order and all that. That may explain why he was combative toward any kind of authorities.
2. I’ll break it down to you. Whenever a police ask you for your ID, you must provide one. If you refuse, you can be charged for not complying with officer. If you do not stay where you are or told to not to move, you can be charged with resisting arrest. If you try to push away police officers or even shove them to prevent them arresting you, you can be charged for assault on officers.
Now, I’ll say it again. It does not matter why the police want your ID whether you think you didn’t break any law. It doesn’t matter if you think you are innocent, you are required by law to comply with police officers and give them your ID. I cannot emphasize how many times I’ve had many people tell me that they do not have ID on them whenever I ask them for their ID. I would detain them and run their names, birth dates and addresses through our system and if it does come through that they do not have any outstanding arrest warrants out for them, then I’ll let them go. Don’t like to be detained? Then start carrying your damn ID with you everywhere you go. Oh, it also help us identify your dead body so next of kin can be notified right away.
3. As for misdemeanor child abuse. What the F? I think that’s where they might be overstepping their boundaries. Haven’t they heard that sometimes families suck at cooking and tend to take them out for McDonald’s all the time? To be honest, I am not entirely satisfied with what they have said in regard to child abuse and I need to wait until court where more evidences will be shown.