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Stealing this from @ToaKraka in the FF thread:
Our own BJ Campbell wrote that this is one of the important differences between the US and Western Europe. A German or British police officer would have the power to detain all juvenile males wearing a single article of black clothing within a one-mile radius of the robbery and physical evidence wouldn't be suppressed even if obtained without following the proper trail of investigation.
Is the USA shooting itself in the foot there? What will it lose if it changes its legal norms to lower the bar on probable cause and evidence suppression?
This sounds like woke judging for black youths. No detention took place. There is an underlying assumption here that black youth are not smart enough to talk to a police officer.
If I want to talk to someone I walk directly at them in their path. That’s a completely normal interaction. The black youth in question could have just responded to the cop “I don’t want to talk you can you get out of my way”
I would like to see the body cam to see how the cop impeded the black youth but everything in the report is just a normal human interaction. And yes a big way we catch criminals is they are not that smart. But that’s a criminals problem not a cops.
IMO if I had a bright orange t-shirt on and the officer did not think I was the criminal he was searching for but wanted to talk to me and asks “hey did you see a couple teens in black around here” the cops behavior would likely be 100% identical. This is just how you approach someone at night you want to talk to. We can’t make it illegal for cops to talk to people.
If you're approaching them from the opposite direction then yes, that's perfectly normal. What happened here is that the officer was following K.C. from behind, got ahead of him, and turned around, blocking his path forward. If a stranger did this to you in public, it would be highly abnormal and probably raise some kind of alarm. If a cop did this to you, it would not suggest that the encounter was casual.
Yes, I 100% agree that it is not casual. The office either suspects me of a crime or thinks I may have information he wants. It’s a clear indicator he wants to talk to me. I could see a colleague doing in this in an office walking up from behind and turning to face me. They have something they urgently want to talk to me about.
But wanting to interact with me and being detained are not the same thing.
Someone above posted prior case law like Florida v Bostick. I feel comfortable saying this ruling is not in line with US constitutional law. And this court is overstepping their authority (since apparently they haven’t stated this is based on state law).
If I were this suspect: Do I think the cop suspects me of a criminal offense: yes Has he detained me: no
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