Race and Inclusion in America and Beyond

[saevel25]

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

Requires police to provide a predicate offense for resisting arrest. (That is, a reason for why an arrested was occurring in the first place.)

Is it like probable cause for when cops search a vehicle. They need probable cause to arrest someone, and if that exists, then any resisting is resisting arrest. 

Is there a situation where detaining a person physically, with no intention to arresting them? 

I wonder if they are trying to get rid of cops just blanketing saying that the person is resisting arrest when they had no intention to arrest them in the first place. 

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by saevel25

[DeadMan]

Here's my best shot at an explanation, with the caveat that I don't do criminal law work at all, so I could be wrong.

In most states, you can get charged with resisting arrest for resisting a cop, regardless of the reason for the arrest. If a cop is arresting you illegally, you can be charged with resisting arrest even though the arrest is illegal. As an example, say you're being arrested by a cop for something that's not illegal - wearing glasses while walking on the sidewalk. If you resist that arrest, you can be charged with resisting arrest. To go further, in some states, force isn't required to be charged with resisting arrest. 

What the Illinois law seems to do is make it so the police officer will have to have an valid reason to arrest someone in the first place to arrest* a person for resisting arrest. That reason will have to be another crime that the police officer can make an arrest for. 

*The law says "arrest," not charge, which seems strange to me. But I'm not familiar with Illinois criminal laws, so I don't know if this means just arresting or charging a person as well.

In response to your specific questions:

24 minutes ago, iacas said:

I’m trying to understand how that part of the bill works. Is this how these things happen (an example):

• police called to scene of disturbance
• they witness a guy yelling or something
• they say or think to themselves “let’s arrest that guy, or at least put him in the back of a cruiser because it’ll calm the situation”
• the guy “resists” because he’s just having an argument with his ex-girlfriend or something and, really, he hasn’t done anything wrong legally except maybe “disturb the peace”

So the police in that case are covered by a disturbing the peace “arrest” and thus when the guy “resists” they can (in their minds, I’m not saying correctly/justly/legally) use the force necessary to stop his “resistance”?

My best guess is yes, the police would be able to arrest him for resisting arrest. The predicate offense there would be disturbing the peace or something like that. The issue is that I don't know exactly how Illinois criminal law works in this situation. Under the US Constitution, a warrantless arrest is legal if a crime is committed in the officer's presence, or if the officer was not present, if there are reasonable grounds for the arrest (which would mean probable cause to believe that the person being arrested committed a crime). That is a really easy standard for the police to meet. You can be arrested if a police officer sees you jaywalking, for example. In this example, there would be reason to believe that the guy was disturbing the peace or some other crime that would justify an arrest.

41 minutes ago, iacas said:

And if so, what does the “provide a predicate offense” change? If they witness a man actually breaking bigger laws (baseball bat to someone else’s car, punching someone, whatever) that’s a clearer infraction that warrants arrest, but it didn’t exist before they went there. They didn’t go there to arrest someone, they went there to respond to a call and see what’s up.

I think what it means is that you can't charge someone with resisting arrest without charging them with an additional crime that you were arresting them for. Like I said above, the law is written weirdly to me, so I'm not 100% sure. In that example, the police would be able to arrest the man, and if he resisted arrest, he could be charged with resisting arrest as well.

Hopefully that all makes sense. I'm not well versed in this area at all, besides a few classes I took in law school.

[iacas]

43 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I wonder if they are trying to get rid of cops just blanketing saying that the person is resisting arrest when they had no intention to arrest them in the first place. 

That feels like a part of it.

Thank you for taking the time, @DeadMan.

7 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

If a cop is arresting you illegally, you can be charged with resisting arrest even though the arrest is illegal.

Ah, I wondered about that!

That feels like something that could be curbed/should be curbed. But I am worried I am maybe a bit like someone saying "this rule of golf is dumb" without considering the ramifications.

7 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

What the Illinois law seems to do is make it so the police officer will have to have an valid reason to arrest someone in the first place to arrest* a person for resisting arrest. That reason will have to be another crime that the police officer can make an arrest for.

*The law says "arrest," not charge, which seems strange to me. But I'm not familiar with Illinois criminal laws, so I don't know if this means just arresting or charging a person as well.

Which can help, but you then told me that you can be arrested for "disturbing the peace" and any other crime, which limits the effectiveness of this part of the bill.

7 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

That is a really easy standard for the police to meet. You can be arrested if a police officer sees you jaywalking, for example. In this example, there would be reason to believe that the guy was disturbing the peace or some other crime that would justify an arrest.

Right, a very low bar for something a white dude would just be told to shut up and go away, and maybe could get a citation mailed to him if it was really bad.

[ChetlovesMer]

On 6/8/2020 at 4:00 PM, ChetlovesMer said:

I like to think society as a whole is getting better. ... 

And then John Gruden happens. This story has been bothering me for a couple of days. Up until recently I always thought we were getting somewhere as a society. 

I'm starting to think I was way off. I used to think that only a very few ... very few ... folks used certain language. But if John Gruden sent literally hundreds of emails to dozens of people and nobody said "Hey John, please leave out the color (race, gender, sexual orientation) commentary." 

Man, are we really getting anywhere? 

Maybe somebody did reply to John and said "Cut it out". But so far I haven't heard that reported. 

[Double Mocha Man]

1 minute ago, ChetlovesMer said:

And then John Gruden happens. This story has been bothering me for a couple of days. Up until recently I always thought we were getting somewhere as a society. 

I'm starting to think I was way off. I used to think that only a very few ... very few ... folks used certain language. But if John Gruden sent literally hundreds of emails to dozens of people and nobody said "Hey John, please leave out the color (race, gender, sexual orientation) commentary." 

Man, are we really getting anywhere? 

Maybe somebody did reply to John and said "Cut it out". But so far I haven't heard that reported. 

My personal thoughts are that upfront, in public, we are better.  But under the radar (emails, texts, personal conversations) some of us are still holding onto old prejudices.  

[saevel25]

2 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

And then John Gruden happens. This story has been bothering me for a couple of days. Up until recently I always thought we were getting somewhere as a society. 

It's not close to were we thought it was. I believe there was bad narrative to say things are OK now, instead of where can we continue to improve. 

There was a lot of progress from the civil rights movement. 

One person doesn't mean its the majority. 258 million adults in the united state. If 5% are like Gruden, that means there are 12.9 million people. 

5 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

I'm starting to think I was way off. I used to think that only a very few ... very few ... folks used certain language. But if John Gruden sent literally hundreds of emails to dozens of people and nobody said "Hey John, please leave out the color (race, gender, sexual orientation) commentary." 

I can say, that in my lifetime, I never ran into coworkers, friends, family that said such things. The only time I ever heard the use of the N-Word was in media, comedy, and literature. 

I am not sure 2011 and before was a time were people would speak out much. IDK why no one spoke up earlier, maybe someone did and he ignored them. It took 10 years or so for someone to finally release these. I think there are many people who just don't want to speak out. 

 

[imsys0042]

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

 

I can say, that in my lifetime, I never ran into coworkers, friends, family that said such things. The only time I ever heard the use of the N-Word was in media, comedy, and literature. 

I am not sure 2011 and before was a time were people would speak out much. IDK why no one spoke up earlier, maybe someone did and he ignored them. It took 10 years or so for someone to finally release these. I think there are many people who just don't want to speak out. 

 

I wish I knew people like you!   My brother, until he cleaned up his act, used to throw racial stuff around all the time.  N-word could be a comma for him when he was younger.   My mother had a thing against LGBTQ people, to her they were "those people".   My wife's cousins throw the N word around a lot, at least they used to.   My MIL butchered everything with the rest of the family.   My cousins from NY also had a "you just don't understand what they are really like" mentality about a lot of minorities.   I went to private school when I was a kid and you'd think that every Catholic, Unitarian and certain Protestant sects were in Satan's back pocket.   And don't get me started on what they taught about the Crusades.   Still makes my skin crawl.

Even my Dad was so derogatory towards women.  Treated them like objects and they had to fit his perception of what women should be like, or he was really cruel with what he said about them.   And he was a pizza faced loser.

Heck, three weeks ago after the normal morning golf game, someone started a conversation with "now you might think I'm racist, but ...." that was (surprise!) racist.  

It's not that I think that things are getting worse, I do think that things are getting somewhat better.  I've always personally thought that the more exposure people have to each other, the more that people understand other people better.  But man, there are some ignorant people out there.   Ever since I left NYC, I've either been so massively out-numbered that I keep my mouth shut, or have found people that I can commiserate with about some of the people I've run into.