There is a growing controversy in Arizona over the arrest of Arizona State University Professor Ersula Ore who refused to show her identification to a police officer and ended up being thrown to the ground and arrested — a scene captured on the videotape below.
It remains unclear why the ASU police officer demands to see the identification of Ore. Libertarians have long opposed these laws required citizens to show their identification to police without any reasonable suspicion of a crime. In this case, Ore had allegedly jaywalked to avoid construction and then objected to what she considered a disrespectful tone of the officer. The officer, identified as Steward Ferrin, says “Let me see your ID or you will be arrested for failing to provide ID.” After he states that he has legal authority for the demand, Ore says that she has “no problem abiding by the law . . . But all I’m asking, do you have to speak to me in such a disrespectful manner?” Ore then resists efforts to handcuff her and eventually hits an officer in the leg.
As we have seen in other controversial arrests, the prosecutors and police piled on charges. She has been charged with assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, refusing to provide identification when requested to do so by an officer and obstructing a highway or public thoroughfare. The kick was so slight, it is hard to see the purpose of the assault charge beyond the desire to increase the possible sentence and force a plea. Likewise, obstructing a highway seems a bit over the top. It is the second charge is easy to establish, albeit controversial with many libertarians. There is no question that she was resisting the officer who did try to get her to yield with verbal commands. However, the proliferation of charges continue to concern many of us in these cases as a way of forcing citizens to enter pleas even when they would prefer to contest the original charge.
Ore is claiming self-defense and says that the officer was reaching toward her anatomy when she kicked him.
Ore is a professor of cultural studies in the English department and lists her interests as “Contemproary Rhetorical Theory, Race Critical Theory, Rhetorics of Race & Culture, Composition, Visual and Material Culture Studies.”
The university issued the following statement.
Arizona State University authorities have reviewed the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the arrest of assistant professor Ersula Ore and have found that the officer involved did not violate protocol and no evidence was found of racial motivation by the ASU Police Department officers involved.
However, the ASU Police Department is enlisting an outside law-enforcement agency to conduct an independent review on whether excessive force was used and if there was any racial motivation by the officers involved. In addition, although no university police protocols were violated, university police are conducting a review of whether the officer involved could have avoided the confrontation that ensued.
According to the police report, ASU Police initially spoke to Ore because officers patrolling the area nearly hit her with their police vehicle as they turned the vehicle onto College Avenue to investigate a disabled vehicle. Officer Stewart Ferrin had no intention of citing or arresting Ore, but for her safety told her to walk on the sidewalk. When Ore refused to comply and refused to provide identification after she was asked for it multiple times, she was subsequently arrested.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has independently reviewed all available evidence, including the police report, witness statements, and audio and video recordings of the incident, and decided to press criminal charges of assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, refusing to provide identification when requested to do so by an officer, and obstructing a highway or public thoroughfare. The charge of assaulting an officer is based on the fact that Ore kicked the officer as is shown on the video and as she admitted in her recorded statements to the police.
Sharon Keeler, sharon.keeler@asu.edu
(480) 965-4012
Media Relations
The academic status of Professor Ore could be raised if she is convicted or pleads guilty to some of these charges, particularly given the involvement of ASU police. Not only are criminal convictions generally grounds for such review but a crime technically against or involving the university can present a very serious issue for removal.
I was a liberal prior to maturing. Back in the 60’s and 70’s we liberals did not trust the police. Now liberals want us to trust them to protect us and are aligned w/ police not wanting private citizens to be able to protect themselves. Liberals used to be proponents of free speech, now they are purveyors of speech codes and PC. I obviously got the hell out of that cesspool just in time!
Bruce
Is that your way of saying you refuse to enforce your Constitutional rights?
If so, then you have no rights.
FYI Don’t Talk to Police
http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc
J Briant & Neo someday when your the victim and need a cop will you hand him your card?
I carry several laminated business cards printed front and back with the following:
____________________________________________
This Card Holder Fully Asserts
Their Constitutional Rights
And States The Following:
“I Remain Silent.”
“No Searches.”
“I want My Lawyer.”
____________________________________________
With the US flag faded and upside down in the background.
The other side quotes the Flag Code Title 36, USC, Chapter 10 section 176(a)
referencing the upside down flag.
When approached by a cop this is what I hand them. If they need more they will “demand” such and if it’s a lawful demand I shall comply while remaining silent at all times. I also carry a camera pen most of the time to record any encounters.
http://fairDUI.org
Given my understanding of various court decisions to the effect that a police officer can arrest anyone for the crime of obstruction for any reason that the officer can imagine, the better to serve and protect the public, and that it is especially a serious form of obstruction to not provide a police officer with identification of self, I have undertaken an effort to avoid not being reasonably accurately identified by police officers upon their request.
Luckily for me, I have never accepted the notion that I have any civil or other rights of any sort when I am in the presence of police officers. I do make as good an effort as I can figure out how to make to survive any encounters police officers have with me.
So, I carry my driver’s license certificate in a small transparent plastic bag, with me when I am outside my home. Also, in that bag is a list of relevant medical conditions which, if ignored by police officers, could lead to their murdering me through mere ignorance of my medical conditions and my conditional medical needs. That list contains the names and dosages of the medications I take to correct biochemical imbalances resulting from my colon having been removed in 1986 to reduce the risk of my dying from cancer resulting from a form of familial adenomatous polyposis, in the manner that my dad and brother died.
In addition to the aforementioned medical information, to do my part to accurately identify myself to police officers upon their request, I carry another card with what i deem to be information essential to my identity, and without which I would not be accurately identifiable by police officers.
One side of that card has printed on it the following words:
Notice: Law Enforcement Officers —
My name: Rev. J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.
Driver’s License & Insurance are herein.
I reserve my right to remain silent.
I do not consent to any searches.
I do not consent to any interrogations.
I do not consent to questioning.
I do not consent to intimidation.
I do not consent to coercion.
I do not consent to deception.
I do not consent to harm.
I do not consent to violence.
I do not consent to any abuse.
I am Autistic.
When I have handed my identification information to a police officer, I place that side of that card on top of the stack of identification cards, the bottom of which is my driver’s license certificate, which I hand to the police officer.
The back side of the card that I put on top of the stack has on it printed the following words:
Wisconsin Constitution, Article I, Section 18: The right of every person to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience shall never be infringed, nor shall any person be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship or to maintain any ministry, without consent, nor shall any control of, or interference with, the rights of conscience be permitted, or any preference be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship, nor shall any money be drawn from the treasury for the benefit of religious societies, or religious or theological seminaries.
As a Professional Engineer having a Ph.D. in Bioengineering, I find that the Anglo-American Adversarial System of Law and Jurisprudence is an unconstitutional establishment of religion of apparently pre-historic origin. I also find that no mistake ever made either should or could have been avoided, regardless of the mistake or its consequences. In accord with my conscience and in accord with the Wisconsin Constitution, I find that any contrary belief is deceptive and dishonest.
Rev. J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.
Wisconsin Registered Professional Engineer No. 34106-6
I carry with me, and provide to police officers who ask me for identification, such information as may allow my being accurately identified as a licensed driver, a licensed Professional Engineer, the holder of a Ph.D. in Bioengineering, the fact of my being Autistic, and a collection of facts that properly identify me as a human person who, on grounds of conscience, rejects any and every aspect of alleged or purported law which is adverse to truth and to truthfulness.
My doctoral dissertation is on the Internet, on the INDIGO web site of the University of Illinois at Chicago, with a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. On checking the statistics regarding my dissertation, I noted earlier to day that it has been downloaded, worldwide, more than 500 times.
No one has demonstrated that the core scientific finding of my thesis and dissertation, the finding that actually-avoidable accidents, mistakes, or events of any other kind whatsoever, are absolute existential impossibilities.
As a licensed Wisconsin Professional Engineer, I cannot be anonymous. Surely, if avoidable events actually happened, someone would have demonstrated one to me or told me how such demonstration could be accomplished.
The belief that people make avoidable mistakes or act in any other ways that are actually avoidable is, to me, a purely religious belief, and any social establishment which harbors this religious belief is necessarily a religious establishment.
Until someone actually demonstrates an actually avoidable event actually happening, I can find no recourse in conscience or in science to my finding that the Anglo-American Adversarial System of Law and Jurisprudence is actually an actually-unconstitutional religious establishment which is significantly supported by money drawn from the treasury.
Until someone actually demonstrates an actually avoidable event actually happening, I cannot, in conscience and in science, find that the American Bar Association, as also the diverse state Bar Associations are other than religious cartels, and that their standing in government (national and state) is other than a very destructive violation of the notion of separation of church and state.
Yes, I admit, as fact, that I am autistic, and admit as fact that my primary care physician’s medical records state, “Autism. High functioning.” For me to not identify myself to a police officer as autistic would be, in my view, a clear instance of my committing criminal obstruction of an officer.
I have no control over how a police officer interprets my correctly identifying myself in ways relevant to police work, and, therefore, correctly identifying myself to a police officer may be impossible, no matter what I do, because the interpretations the police officer makes, regarding the identifying information I give to the police officer are totally within the police officer’s locus of control and are, therefore, also, totally outside my locus of control.
Alas, I find that I am completely incapable of choosing to correctly identify myself to a police officer, regardless of what I do, or what i do not do.
Superb analysis. Seems almost everyone sees the chip on her shoulder as being the biggest contributing factor. As I’ve said previously, I taught my students and children about their Constitutional rights. I also told them to put their anger or chip on their shoulder in their back pocket. Be nice as pie and give “yes, sir and no, sir” answers. This professor would have not been arrested if she watched the hilarious and instructive video by Chris Rock, HOW NOT TO GET YOUR ASS KICKED BY THE POLICE. She was fortunate to have a university cop. If she were in the police brutality cities of NYC, Milwaukee, Chicago or LA, she would have been hospitalized.
If Professor Ersula should try walking in the middle of the road in NYC Times Square, she might get shot.
Arizona State University authorities have reviewed the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the arrest of assistant professor Ersula Ore and have found that the officer involved did not violate protocol and no evidence was found of racial motivation by the ASU Police Department officers involved.
Is there ever an instance where these folks violate protocol?
Ersula Ore was accosted by Arizona State University (ASU) Police because she decided to cross a street without walking within the arbitrarily proscribed pedestrian crossing area or as officer not so friendly states in his ASU PD officialese “obstruction of a public thoroughfare” even though the street is clear of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
Arbitrarily enforced pretext encounters such as this allow the officers an excuse to harass and intimidate otherwise law abiding citizens such as Erula Ore.
For the folks claiming that Ersula Ore should have reported the officers to internal affairs for their disrespectful actions and pretext encounter are most assuredly not living in reality.
Also resisting the tyrannical actions of a costumed cretin is the hallmark of a free person. Only pliably supine serfs genuflect to their oppressor in the face of tyranny.
Regardless of the verbal manner of which the officer is displaying it does not provide under the law a legitimate reason for her or anyone else to violate the law. If the officer was being rude that is an internal affairs matter, not one to excuse unlawful conduct in others which is a matter for the courts to decide.
Dave Luckens and Annie, I agree.
Good post, Darren.
I wonder if the ASU professor is one of those who believes that we should just eliminate the borders and allow everyone in, so she refused to show ID as a matter of solidarity with illegal immigrants.
Your clip does give more of the conversation -audio not video- than others. Her argument and refusal to cooperate and provide ID is definitely a violation of law. She could have shown respect herself and avoided this situation.
Jay walking, in the sense of crossing a street in the middle of a block, was not the reason she was stopped. She was walking in the middle of a street obstructing traffic. She then refused to provide ID and became belligerent when asked. Perhaps the police over reacted, but that’s not really determinable as all the clips I’ve found out there start at the point were she is wrestling with the officer and don’t show the prior conversation. Why is that? What is in the lead up to the physical confrontation that all the bloggers who are posting this do not want us to see?
I think people are jumping to conclusions here. The defendant was not simply thrown to the ground because she objected to being required to show ID and refused, nor was it a matter of her being disrespected being relevant. This is clearly defiant and resistive.
The pertinent factor in Arizona Revised Statutes reads:
It was stated above she had caused a hazardous situation by her jaywalking. ARS defines this as a misdemeanor crime. The officer in investigating this crime has the lawful authority to demand identification which the defendant clearly refused to do. The officer made multiple demands for her to produce ID and she refused to do it. The subject matter of what she said is irrelevant, she continually refused to obey the law and she would have went on longer and longer. This type of thing happens frequently with difficult individuals. Talking endlessly while still refusing to do something. This would have gone on indefinitely and the officer made numerous warnings to her to produce ID.
After the officer told her to put her hands behind her back and arrest her for this criminal violation she made a constant and demonstrated resistance to arrest. She repeatedly refused to put her hands behind her back and actively resisted.
Later, she actively fought with the officer not just passive resistance as before but pulling away and thrashing her hand about as the officer was trying to arrest her. The officer had already tried to use the trunk / hood of the car to maintain her but that wasn’t working. When suspects begin this level of resistance it is usually necessary to take them to the ground to cuff them because it is difficult to get them cuffed, as shown in the video.
I personally don’t see the PC for the Assaulting a Law Enforcement Officer but it is clearly a resisting arrest and a failure to identify issue.
This type of arrest situation occurs occasionally where the suspect behaves just as this woman has.
Furthermore, even if the defendant was being investigated for the most minor of criminal or traffic violations she is required to identify herself per statute. If she had done so the most that would have happened would have been the issuance of a citation for the traffic violation. I don’t see convincing evidence this was an abuse of office by the police involved.
Couple of things here. 1) Jaywalking is a real problem at ASU 2) you are required to identify yourself to police when asked and she refused 3) the officer handled the situation badly, but she handled it worse 4) she did resist arrest 5) she did kick him
As for her claims there was in incident of another black professor being stopped by the campus police (who are real police, not rent-a-cops) and the sidewalk was block by construction, her reason for being in the street.
>> Ore is a professor of cultural studies in the English department and lists her interests as “Contemproary Rhetorical Theory, Race Critical Theory, Rhetorics of Race & Culture, Composition, Visual and Material Culture Studies.” <<
Why is this relevant?
It does not matter what her profession is or her interests. I personally think that professors of "cultural studies" are not much more than highly paid left wing political activists. I also suspect I disagree with her politics on most issues. Neither of which is relevant to her situation.
Her situation is that authorities first abused her and then piled on charges. That's repugnant, oppressive, and anti-liberty. I hope she beats the charges and sues them civilly.
While I don’t endorse this process overall, for those who feel a need to talk to police, I offer the following link.
The RIGHT Way to Handle a Police Stop
http://youtu.be/eDJrQBwJpqk
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/freedom_watch/father_arrested_because_8_year_old_son_explored_neighborhood
The officer escalated wayyy to quickly, which just exacerbated the situation. She was overly insulted at his tone and didn’t provide what he was demanding. If the cop would’ve taken his tone down a notch she probably wouldn’t have felt as disrespected and provided the ID. To see her thrown to the ground was disturbing to say the least. It was excessive and unnecessary all around.