SFPD's turn to **** up

It's usually LAPD and NYPD that get famous for this stuff - with the occasional bum**** Alabama sheriff - but apparently San Francisco's boys in blue weren't content to let the fame pass them by:

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/28/san-francisco-deputy-public-defender-detained-for-intervening-between-police-and-her-client/

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — San Francisco’s public defender has released a video showing police arresting a deputy public defender outside a courtroom for intervening in an interaction between police and her client.

The video shows Deputy Public Defender Jami Tillotson refusing to step aside as a man identified as San Francisco Police Inspector Brian Stansbury tries to take a cellphone picture of Tillotson’s client in a hallway at the Hall of Justice on Tuesday.
“I just want to take some pictures, ok? Then he will be free to go,” says Stansbury on the video. Tillotson refuses and Stansbury then tells her she can either step aside or be arrested for resisting arrest, according to the subtitles on the YouTube video.

Tillotson, an 18-year veteran of the public defender’s office, is calm throughout the video and does not resist officers. She continues to assert she is representing her client as she is led away.

Click to expand...

I understand that not every law enforcement officer can be a shining beacon of light and hope, but one would think that to become a detective, an officer would need to show that he has the modicum of intelligence required to realize that arresting a public defender inside the court house while she's doing her job for a trumped charge is a really ****ing stupid idea.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/29/san-francisco-public-defender-jailed-intervening-police-questioning

The officer, identified by local CBS news as Brian Stansbury, a San Francisco police inspector, then continues: “No, you’re not pretty sure. If you continue with this … I’ll arrest you for resisting arrest.”

“Please do,” Tillotson responds. She is then placed in handcuffs and led down the hallway.

Tillotson, an 18-year veteran of the profession, was subsequently detained for about an hour at the Southern Station in San Francisco before being released. At a press conference on Wednesday a spokesman for the police said the officer had the right to arrest anyone obstructing him from doing his work and that a criminal investigation into the event was ongoing.

“This is not Guantánamo Bay. People have an absolute right to have their attorneys present during questioning,” said a furious Adachi in an earlier press release. “A uniform does not give you a license to bully innocent people into submission. If this happens to a public defender in front of her client, I can only imagine what is happening on our streets.”

Click to expand...

I love how apparently US police can arrest anyone, anywhere, at anytime with the excuse of "resisting arrest". Without actually providing a reason for the arrest in the first place, you know, the one that the victim is supposedly resisting, not to mention that Stansbury wasn't actually arresting anyone. The SFPD spokesman claims that police have the right to arrest anyone obstructing him from doing his work - so I guess SF doesn't have to honour Miranda warnings anymore? Since she was the "attorney present ... during questioning" as the text goes.

Unsurprisingly, it's not Inspector Stansbury's first clash with the law:
http://sfbayview.com/2015/01/deputy-public-defender-unjustly-arrested/

Stansbury, the subject of a 2013 federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a Black SFPD officer alleging racial profiling, cites Tillotson for resisting arrest as a uniformed officer places her in handcuffs.

Click to expand...

Turns out Stanbury stopped an off-duty black SFPD officer without due cause, thinking he was a ganbanger or whatever. You'd think that getting slapped with a lawsuit in 2013 would have made him a tad more careful.

Arrested for resisting arrest? Really?

The client's reaction is funny, it's like a combination of "wtf" and "You can do that?"


Anyway, I hope this loose cannon will be turning in his gun and badge.

Wow, arrested solely for resisting arrest. That's something I'd expect to see on the Onion.

That's sickening. Its even more so for the fact that the police department even defended the officer.

Nord Champion said:

That's sickening. Its even more so for the fact that the police department even defended the officer.

Click to expand...

Obvious first reaction is to close rank and defend one of your own, can't fault them for that. Unfortunately that same culture can lead to non-investigation of any actual issues which then erodes public trust in law enforcement.

Suspicious Pilgrim said:

Anyway, I hope this loose cannon will be turning in his gun and badge.

Click to expand...

Extremely unlikely. Most likely outcome is a week of paid leave for the guy and the department issuing an apology to brush it under the carpet.

Just dropping by to say that upon arrest, a police officer dosn't have to read a Miranda to the arrestee. Unless they start questioning them beyond identification/or basic information.

Quail knows a thing or two about getting arrested - pimpin' ain't easy.

QuailLover said:

Just dropping by to say that upon arrest, a police officer dosn't have to read a Miranda to the arrestee. Unless they start questioning them beyond identification/or basic information.

Click to expand...

Nah, I was talking about the fact that one of the Miranda warnings/rules is that the suspect has the right to have legal counsel present before and during questioning. The man Stansbury wanted to question was her client; thus she had all the right to be present. If he merely wanted to take a picture, he could've taken one and be on his way. Pretty obvious that he was actually questioning him as well and thus violated Miranda by arresting her for obstruction.

In other words, he found it inconvenient to have a defence lawyer present when he was trying to trap a possible burglary suspect and got rid of her illegally. Or maybe he was trying to bluff her to get her to back down but when she called his bluff, he didn't have the IQ to call it a day and had to prove his macho cojones.

Will be interesting to see the followup over the next week.

This police officer is totally a hero to me and I shall adopt his policing method into my moderation of this forum.

Now, everybody send me cookies and first-born sons or I'll BAN YOU for obstructing a Pharaoh moderator taking over the world performing her duties.

I'll send cookies just to see how they're used to take over the world. I have no sons, but I could send you half of a preconceived child with unknown gender. Actually, how many half potential children would you like? I can supply an army. 

I can supply an army. 


_army.





Oh my god.

Fehnor said:

Actually, how many half potential children would you like? I can supply an army. 

Click to expand...

Well, if you supply that are fully formed from the waist up, and half that are fully formed from the waist down, I will use Frankenscience to mash them together and create whole people.

Jhessail said:

I understand that not every law enforcement officer can be a shining beacon of light and hope, but one would think that to become a detective, an officer would need to show that he has the modicum of intelligence required to realize that arresting a public defender inside the court house while she's doing her job for a trumped charge is a really ******** stupid idea.

Click to expand...

Honestly. Now and again you see senior policemen that makes you wonder how the hell they even managed to be recruited in the first place.

Well. Hopefully police departements around the world will put higher and higher recruitment standards on their workforce so that incompetent/criminal or outright a-holes will in time be filltered out.

And then police enrollment will decline, the police force will be overburdened, more and more criminals will walk the streets...
I don't actually think that would happen, of course, I was just wondering what your opinions were...

Pharaoh X Llandy said:

Fehnor said:

Actually, how many half potential children would you like? I can supply an army. 

Click to expand...

Well, if you supply that are fully formed from the waist up, and half that are fully formed from the waist down, I will use Frankenscience to mash them together and create whole people.

Click to expand...

I could supply the large amounts of lightning required to awaken them.
Building a large electrical plant next to your nefarious lair would be an easy task Doctor.

Vraelomon said:

And then police enrollment will decline, the police force will be overburdened, more and more criminals will walk the streets...
I don't actually think that would happen, of course, I was just wondering what your opinions were...

Click to expand...

Hopefully that would be a worst case scenario though.

If that happens, Maw and Wheem can get their militia together and  provide TRUE AMERICAN frontier justice for San Fran. 

PinCushion said:

Well. Hopefully police departements around the world will put higher and higher recruitment standards on their workforce so that incompetent/criminal or outright a-holes will in time be filltered out.

Click to expand...

Nah, overly intelligent policemen are a hindrance to the flawless functioning of a police state.

Being intelligent doesn't necessarily mean that they won't support the police state, they are after all beneficiaries of such a system.

This is, of course, assuming that a police state exists in the Western world outside of the figments of the final hangers-on of a dying countercultural movement of the last century, slowly hanging on to the grass on the cliff before they're swept up into the abyss of history like so much trash.