Fresh out of Baltimore police academy and on the attack

Beaudreaux said:

You can yell at a cop all you want, but if you touch them or spit on them or bump them or push them, including pushing their hand away, that's assault.

Read the definition of assault. I'm not saying it was battery, but it was damned sure assault. No one has the right to assault another person. And in NC, there is a law called communicating threats, that can get you arrested as well so you need to be careful what you say when yelling at that cop.

Click to expand...

Then the cop should be charged with assault unless he had a justified reason to try and grab the guy to begin with.
Sorry cops are just as much held accountable to the law as everyone else.

So unless he had a reason to grab the guy other than the guy yelling at him then he should be charged with assault and actually assault and battery.
pushing someones hand away from you is not assault per your own definition.

more so when someone is grabbing at you for no reason.

gulfman said:

If the guy had behaved himself this wouldn't have happened.The cop was right.

Click to expand...

No the cop was 100% wrong.

First this guy can yell at the cops all he wants to. that is protected by the 1st amendment and there is nothing they can do about it.
They just have to suck it up and go on about their business.

Next they asked for identification even though they already knew who this guy was.
The part that hurts them is this.

https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/there-is-no--stop-and-identify--law-in-maryland--s-1912377.html

you have no obligation to show ID and cannot be arrested only for failing to identify yourself.

You do not have to identify or show identification to a police officer in maryland.
So this cop had 0 reason to stop and ask anything of this guy.

He should be arrested and convicted of assault and battery. He put this guy into the hospital for no reason
and his partner should be arrested as an accomplice as he could have stopped it and didn't.

It is an assault to push a hand away if it's intentionally done, but that's completely beside the point in this situation.






They should take a look at how this guy ended up getting a badge. You don't do something like the cop did without having a record of flying off the handle before, generally speaking.

gulfman said:

The next time a cop pulls me over for speeding and asks to see my drivers license I'm going to get mouthy with him and slap his hand away.Do you think he will let me off with just a warning?

Click to expand...

Nope. You should get arrested for assault. Not beat up though.

ludin said:

Then the cop should be charged with assault unless he had a justified reason to try and grab the guy to begin with.
Sorry cops are just as much held accountable to the law as everyone else.

So unless he had a reason to grab the guy other than the guy yelling at him then he should be charged with assault and actually assault and battery.
pushing someones hand away from you is not assault per your own definition.

more so when someone is grabbing at you for no reason.

Click to expand...

True, the police have to have a reason to detain a person against their will, and that has been defined by the SCOTUS - probable cause, which includes suspecting that you may have committed, are committing, or are about to commit a crime, so that they can investigate the possibility. Walking down the street is not probable cause. Being in a neighborhood that is not your own, is not probable cause. The smell of marijuana or alcoholic spirits, is. Running from the police, is. A report to the police that a person matching your description has committed a crime, is. And so on.

The police can detain you by touching you, a civilian cannot.

To be clear, I'm not defending the actions of this officer. I'm just discussing the law and what happened in those terms only.

Beaudreaux said:

True, the police have to have a reason to detain a person against their will, and that has been defined by the SCOTUS - probable cause, which includes suspecting that you may have committed, are committing, or are about to commit a crime, so that they can investigate the possibility. Walking down the street is not probable cause. Being in a neighborhood that is not your own, is not probable cause. The smell of marijuana or alcoholic spirits, is. Running from the police, is. A report to the police that a person matching your description has committed a crime, is. And so on.

The police can detain you by touching you, a civilian cannot.

To be clear, I'm not defending the actions of this officer. I'm just discussing the law and what happened in those terms only.

Click to expand...

the can only detain you if they have probable cause.
yelling at a cop is not probable cause but a protected 1st amendment right.


this cop put the guy in the hospital with sever injuries. his partner should have arrested him right there for assault and battery.

ludin said:

the can only detain you if they have probable cause.

Click to expand...

Which my post you quoted specifically mentioned and then went on to elaborate upon.

ludin said:

yelling at a cop is not probable cause but a protected 1st amendment right.

Click to expand...

Correct. Doesn't make it proper, but it is very much a protected form of speech, and even though I disagree with it, I will defend anyone's right to do so.

ludin said:

this cop put the guy in the hospital with sever injuries. his partner should have arrested him right there for assault and battery.

Click to expand...

As I said in numerous posts in this thread, I am not in any way trying to defend what the cop did, other than to say that when the civilian put his hands on the cop (pushing the cop's hand away) was assault on an officer. I did not and have not tried to defend or determine whether that action by assault by the civilian was justified or not.