Fined in LA for being too old

oops, repeat

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 15 2006, 08:19 PM) [snapback]240309[/snapback]</div>

Dammit Daniel...you left off my second line. OK, RETRACTED....I'll still lie to people com,mitting crimes if I think I can fool them into confesing.

Yes, you can always refuse to talk to the police. But you are NOT invokling your 5th amendment. You are just not talking. There is a difference.

 

Some of my friends are policemen (Los Angeles); a neighbor is a CHP. Usually, these people will do their best to be civil as well as honest. I also would like to know the specifics of the situation. Indeed she may have technically broken the law, but unless there was also some awful good reason to give her a ticket, the cop should simply have held traffic up until she was safely completed crossing.

 

In all the hoopla and hubbub of this episode, not one person has commented on the magnitude of the fine.

$114 for jaywalking?

Jaywalking may be a crime, but charging $114 for the infraction ought to be a felony!

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(finally_got_one @ Apr 17 2006, 04:47 PM) [snapback]241065[/snapback]</div>

I AGREE!!!!!!!

Kinda like, if I see a car in a handicapped spot with no placard, if the registration retuns to a person over 65...I just keep on movin'. It isn't worth it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Apr 17 2006, 08:45 AM) [snapback]240909[/snapback]</div>

Thanks, John.

FWIW, I have never been abused by either police or the Air Force guards who arrested me. In some respects, it's almost spooky how polite they've been towards me. Of course, I am always scrupulously polite and respectful towards them. I've also never been abused by jailers, and the only abuse I've had from prison guards has been verbal (but I had a lot of that. In my personal experience, jailers and prison guards are 180 degrees apart. The jailers have been just cops doing their job, ordinary members of the community. The prison guards I have experienced (with two notable exceptions) have been psychopaths, well below average intelligence, spewing constant verbal abuse, even on those of us who never uttered an impolite word (and I was always, as above, scrupulously polite and respectful, even in the face of their abuse). The two exceptions were, a very friendly moron, and a man who behaved like the jailers described above.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 17 2006, 12:50 PM) [snapback]241037[/snapback]</div>

Retraction noted. Thank you.

I never mentioned the 5th Amendment. I related the account of my friends being detained, and being told by the police that they did not have the right to remain silent!!!

They had committed no crime. They were standing at the side of a public road, watching me. (I was sitting on top of a missile silo, as a protest.) The cops needed no information from them. All they had to do was take a picture of me to prove that I was trespassing on the lid of the silo. Yet, the cops lied to my friends, telling them they had no right to remain silent.

Cops lie. They don't just lie to criminals. They lie to anyone they personally dislike, and they lie to people they imagine to have committed a crime, and sometimes they even lie on their official reports.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 17 2006, 03:50 PM) [snapback]241037[/snapback]</div>

:lol:

This is partly why I really don't feel bad when I beat certain tickets. Right there, that right there, shows precisely what I've said all along: don't feel bad, the State would most certainly not hold you to the same standard.




<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 18 2006, 10:18 AM) [snapback]241448[/snapback]</div>

Yup. I've come across that too. They take the chance knowing fully well MOST people are too "sheepish"/intimidated to try and fight the system, so to speak.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 18 2006, 10:18 AM) [snapback]241448[/snapback]</div>

Obviously, the caliber of people they usually deal with are not such as yourself. In many ways, they HAVE to be doing that crap, nice guy prison guards don't last long, nor are personalities as such appropriate in that line of work.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Apr 12 2006, 12:15 PM) [snapback]238601[/snapback]</div>

Sounds like a South Park episode in the making. Cartman could be the cop. :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Apr 17 2006, 12:13 PM) [snapback]240926[/snapback]</div>

I just wanted to point out: Well what do you expect? 5 star accomodations? It's PRISON, a place you DON'T want to be comfortable going to, a BAD place to be avoided at all cost, a place where you learn your lesson so to speak.

Why do you really expect to be treated differently just because you're a pacifist (I am assuming here, reasonably so)? They don't know you from any other criminal they drag in, you're assumed to be all equally scum and dangerous regardless of what you say, or what the offense was... They don't know what you're capable of, standing there on that missle silo... For all they know, you're a "radical" one just waiting for the cop to get close enough before spitting some sort of poison in their eyes...

 

Out of interest, how do pedestrian signals work in the US? Was this just a pedestrian crossing, or part of a junction?

In the UK, we have a sequence on pedestrian-only crossings that allows a variable hold-up for traffic:

1: Traffic green, peds red.
2: Traffic yellow (stop if safe), peds red. [3 seconds?]
3: Traffic red, peds red [1-2 seconds?]
4: Traffic red, peds green. [5 seconds?]
5: Traffic flashing yellow (proceed if crossing clear), peds flashing green (don't start to cross) [5 seconds?]
6: Traffic green, peds red.

[timings typical for a normal road with 1 lane each direction]

Phase 5 is probably the same length as phase 4, giving slower folks or larger crowds extra time to cross, without holding up traffic unnecessarily.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 15 2006, 07:19 PM) [snapback]240309[/snapback]</div>

Holy shit ... that is profoundly disturbing.

Another good reason to avoid The Buckeye State at all costs.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman @ Apr 18 2006, 01:29 PM) [snapback]241557[/snapback]</div>

Then again, would you actually assume otherwise?



In any event, what is it in Canada jayman, just so we can have something to compare this to...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman @ Apr 18 2006, 10:29 AM) [snapback]241557[/snapback]</div>

In most states police officers are permitted to use a ruse in order to induce admissions and confessions.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(KMO @ Apr 18 2006, 08:55 AM) [snapback]241508[/snapback]</div>

This crime was allegedly committed at the intersection of Foothill Blvd. and Woodward Ave. in Sunland, CA. You can view a bird's eye photo of that intersection at this Google web page.

For a description of the timing sequence of the traffic signals at that intersection please refer to the Los Angeles Times article, Guilty of `Crossing While Elderly' by Steve Lopez, which I have posted above.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Apr 18 2006, 01:05 PM) [snapback]241581[/snapback]</div>

There was a MAJOR overhaul of the Canadian Justice System in the early 1990's after many wrongful convictions came to light. In that regard I do NOT support the Death Penalty due to the possibility of the State killing an innocent person.

The most famous example of wrongful conviction in Canada is the David Milgaard case:

http://www.injusticebusters.com/04/Milgaard_inquiry.htm

RCMP officers lied and threatened the then-16 year old Milgaard into a confession, which went along with the popular folk saying "the RCMP always get their man, even if he's the wrong one." It created quite a stir when the public found out that cops ROUTINELY lie, falsify and/or make up evidence, and threaten people.

In the late 1990's there was a large trial here in Winnipeg of suspected gang members. It was revealed that the Winnipeg City Police, and the RCMP, had made up some evidence and distorted/tainted other evidence, forcing the Crown Prosecutor to drop all charges.

The police here are under a MUCH tighter rein now, and even a hint of intimidation, lying, etc, can result in very severe fines, being fired, and even jail time. Which is ironic, the cop becomes the prisoner.

Yes, a lot of cops here long for the return of the "good 'ole days," which makes me strongly suspect they are Stalinists and Fascists at heart.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman @ Apr 18 2006, 01:29 PM) [snapback]241557[/snapback]</div>

That is a US Supreme court ruling....so stay out of the US. But again, if this would affect you (a la committing a crime) then DO stay out.

Get off it......if criminals can lie, cheat, steal, and murder....I hope SOMEONE knows how to fool 'em and catch 'em.

Oh, Isr...thanks for being less blunt and calling it a 'ruse".

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Apr 18 2006, 07:11 PM) [snapback]241804[/snapback]</div>

I understand a little more creativity on the part of the police may be necessary to reduce criminal activity. 'Bait cars', I would suggest, are fair game. But if the ends always justify the means, it's a slippery slope. If the police feel free to "lie, cheat, steal, and murder" in order to catch the liars, cheaters, thieves, and murderers, then we risk losing our ability to tell the good guys from the bad.

 

The real problem with police intimidation, is that all too frequently, innocent people are intimidated into confessing to crimes they did not commit when they are threatened with even harsher punishment if they are taken to court and (wrongfully) convicted. People of color and people who have grown up "on the wrong side of the tracks" know, from the experience of all those around them, that the outcome of a trial depends more on the skill of your lawyer than on your actual guilt or innocence, and skillful lawyers are expensive. They know that being innocent will do them no good. So they confess when the cops lie to them. The cop gets brownie points for making a bust, the prison-industrial complex gets money for housing one more poor slob, the politicians get to brag that they've gotten another "criminal" off the street, but it's really just one more poor person wrongfully jailed.

A separate, but related issue is the really surprising number of drug dealers (we're talking about actual criminals now) who get busted with a kilo of pot, or an ounce of cocaine, and are pleasantly surprised to find that in court they're only charged with half that much. They keep quiet because it means a shorter prison sentence, but I think I can guess where the other half of that stash went. Once safely behind bars they'll talk about it with their fellow inmates. It's educational to spend some time on the wrong side of those locked doors.