Innocent Persons Resisting Arrest

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1305594077' post='2242595']
Why didn't you pick the one with Wesley Snipes?
[/quote]

because that one is not nearly as good? and isnt it called "US air marshalls" not "the fugitive" ?

[MithLuin]

How does your right to liberty trump the police officer's right to life? The use of deadly force is meant to be reserved for emergency situations where lives are at stake. I do not see how being arrested fits into this category.


(Unless, of course, being arrested by someone trying to kill you, ie, a 'police' force run by the mob or something.)


The focus of this thread was not on escape attempts from jail or execution, but merely on the initial arrest.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1305614060' post='2242699']
because that one is not nearly as good? and isnt it called "US air marshalls" not "the fugitive" ?
[/quote]
"White Man Can't Jump." Don't try to run, you can't get away from Wesley Snipes.

Edited May 17, 2011 by Era Might

[Winchester]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1305640643' post='2242758']
How does your right to liberty trump the police officer's right to life? The use of deadly force is meant to be reserved for emergency situations where lives are at stake. I do not see how being arrested fits into this category.


(Unless, of course, being arrested by someone trying to kill you, ie, a 'police' force run by the mob or something.)


The focus of this thread was not on escape attempts from jail or execution, but merely on the initial arrest.
[/quote]
The reason the arrest is significant is because of the many results of arrest, including the immediate helplessness.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1305640643' post='2242758']
How does your right to liberty trump the police officer's right to life? The use of deadly force is meant to be reserved for emergency situations where lives are at stake. I do not see how being arrested fits into this category.


(Unless, of course, being arrested by someone trying to kill you, ie, a 'police' force run by the mob or something.)


The focus of this thread was not on escape attempts from jail or execution, but merely on the initial arrest.
[/quote]


Once one is placed into handcuffs or into a prison cell one's ability to defend his life is highly curtailed, if not eliminated outright. Thus by being arrested ones right to life is being directly threatened. Further,the Right of Liberty alone is alone is sufficent to justify the use of force.

If it is not then no slave has the right to rebel, no citizen in a totalitarian state has the right to rebel, kidnap the victims do not havethe right to resist, rape victims (as the right to refuse sex is a subset of Liberty) too would be obligated to not resist using force.
If defense of liberty is not sufficent cause to use force then one is required to submit to virtually every act an unjust agressor might desire to do.


I know what the focus of the thread is, but those issues had been brought up by others in their post..

[Groo the Wanderer]

halp halp i'm being repressed!


[img]http://roblorinov.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/keystone-cops.jpg[/img]

[MithLuin]

*oppressed.


A guilty person has forfeited the right to liberty, though, and if you are being placed under arrest, there is a reasonable suspicion that you are a guilty person. So, the police officer doing the arresting is not unjustly depriving you of your liberty, even if you are in fact innocent and your arrest is a mistake.

I agree that helplessness is a very scary thing, so that there would be a desire to resist arrest. I just don't see people as having a right to use [i]deadly force[/i] against police officers who are attempting to arrest them when they have been charged with a crime and have warrants out for their arrest.

Generally, a person successfully resisting a rapist does not kill the attacker. They resist enough to get away, and then run for it. But yeah, I wouldn't feel too badly for the perpetrator if he were killed during that. I really have trouble viewing an arresting officer as a would-be kidnapper, rapist or slave-owner, though. Doesn't seem to fit.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote]
A guilty person has forfeited the right to liberty, though, and if you are being placed under arrest, there is a reasonable suspicion that you are a guilty person. So, the police officer doing the arresting is not unjustly depriving you of your liberty, even if you are in fact innocent and your arrest is a mistake. [/quote]

This is not correct, a guilty person has indeed forfeited the right to liberty, but the innocent man has not.The officer trying to arrest the innocent man is acting as an instrument of injustice.That he is unaware of, or not culpable for his role in this injustice ( assuming he is acting in good faith), does not mean he is not exactly that.The innocent man is not obliged to surrender his basic human rights becuase the police officer is unaware of his unjust actions.
[quote]I agree that helplessness is a very scary thing, so that there would be a desire to resist arrest. I just don't see people as having a right to use [i]deadly force[/i] against police officers who are attempting to arrest them when they have been charged with a crime and have warrants out for their arrest. [/quote]
Deadly force is force that might reasonably result in death, if an innocent man has to shoot his way out, he is morally justified in doing so, he would not be morally justifed in executing the wounded police, or in killing those that were subdued. THat would violate th moral law, and he woud cease to be innocent.


[quote]Generally, a person successfully resisting a rapist does not kill the attacker. They resist enough to get away, and then run for it. But yeah, I wouldn't feel too badly for the perpetrator if he were killed during that.[/quote] Generally a person who successfully resist a rapist does not restrain themselves in thier resistance, they often use deadly force, it maynot result in death, but it is still deadly force.


[quote]I really have trouble viewing an arresting officer as a would-be kidnapper, rapist or slave-owner, though. Doesn't seem to fit.[/quote]
But isn't this exactly what he is,even while believeing he is doing good? Does he not seek to seize and confine the innocent man (like a kidnapper), seek to violate his liberty (as a rapist), and hold the victim in bondage ( like a slave owner)?



Ithink your problem is you are viewing it from the officers point of view, which is irrelevent. I am not making any contention about the officers culpability or even saying he is wrong for defending his life and well being agianst the just action of the innocent man he is attempting to violate. He wouldcertianly not be morally culpable for that, but it doesn't change the right of the innocent man to defend himself.

[CatherineM]

I was pulled over once while I was in college by two police cars. The cops approached with their guns drawn. My roommate and I were on our way home from working in the lab all afternoon. We were polite, immediately responded to their request to exit the vehicle. We were searched, gave our identification, and answered all their questions like where we had been, where we were going, etc. Turns out that someone driving the same make and model of pickup that I was driving had been involved in a hit and run where a small child had been killed. They called the lab and confirmed that we had been there, inspected the truck to look for damage, and when they were sure we weren't the culprit they were looking for, let us go. They did not apologize, and I didn't expect them to. They were doing their job. They did thank us for our cooperation. Only time in my life I had handcuffs on. What did it cost me to be a good citizen and act in a respectful manner? About 15 minutes. Considering what the parents of that small child were going through at the time, our inconvenience was nothing.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1305650068' post='2242819']
I was pulled over once while I was in college by two police cars. The cops approached with their guns drawn. My roommate and I were on our way home from working in the lab all afternoon. We were polite, immediately responded to their request to exit the vehicle. We were searched, gave our identification, and answered all their questions like where we had been, where we were going, etc. Turns out that someone driving the same make and model of pickup that I was driving had been involved in a hit and run where a small child had been killed. They called the lab and confirmed that we had been there, inspected the truck to look for damage, and when they were sure we weren't the culprit they were looking for, let us go. They did not apologize, and I didn't expect them to. They were doing their job. They did thank us for our cooperation. Only time in my life I had handcuffs on. What did it cost me to be a good citizen and act in a respectful manner? About 15 minutes. Considering what the parents of that small child were going through at the time, our inconvenience was nothing.
[/quote]

And if they had taken youto jail and charged you with hit and run, vehicular homicide and the like? how would you feel about it then?

Frankly the fact that they cuffed you while they checked you out is unconscionable

Edited May 17, 2011 by Don John of Austria

[Winchester]

The question is not whether it's wise to fight, whether one will usually be released, or anything else. It's a question of whether an innocent man may morally resist arrest and to what degree. I myself have chosen to not fight the time I was placed in the back of a police car while walking through my neighborhood. That's an anecdote, not a philosophical statement, not a judgment on whether I would have been within my rights to refuse. I would have. I had done nothing. It did not further justice or safety for me to be placed in the back of a police car. It did not help the search for the person who the cops were called to find. In fact, it delayed it. Could the cop have possibly surely known this? No. But I surely knew that and that is enough for me. If an officer mistakenly believed I was armed and started shooting, would I be obliged to stand and be shot because of his faulty knowledge? I admit that's a more extreme example, but it illustrates that we are not bound to submit to injustice because an authority believes himself to be executing justice.

The question of the level of resistance is more difficult to answer. Objectively, if my life is threatened I may defend it with enough force to take the fight out of the man. It's nebulous, but includes deadly force. Specific to the United States (in general) one would not "need" to do this, but there are incidences enough to warrant innocent men to fear incarceration even unto the possibility of death.

In using Christ as an example, we prove nothing but that it is moral to give over one's life rather than take another. The Church is clear that we may defend our lives. We may also choose to give them up rather than take another life. No one has argued that an innocent man [i]must[/i] fight the police, merely it has been asked [i]may[/i] he?

[MithLuin]

I agree with [b]Catherine[/b]. Responding politely and cooperating willingly is likely to have the better result and lead to the recovery of your liberty. Pulling a gun on the cops who were looking for a person who [i]was[/i] guilty of vehicular manslaughter could have resulted in a terrible tragedy. How are they going to find the guilty party if they don't search?


Comparing rape to things that aren't rape is generally unwise in an argument. I imagine that most people who have experienced both rape and being put in handcuffs wouldn't compare the two events or put them in the same category.


[b]Don John[/b], I am not looking at this through the views of the police officer. I am not myself a cop, nor do I have any friends or family members who are, either. What I am doing is recognizing that cops are a legitimate authority (which can be abused) and therefore are not acting as criminals who have [i]no[/i] authority to do what they are doing. An arresting officer is not a kidnapper, and not just because they don't want to lock you in their basement and right ransom notes to your family while threatening to dump your body in a landfill.

I am a teacher, and I understand that you are, as well. You are the authority figure in your classroom, are you not? Certainly, teachers make mistakes, and occasionally accuse an innocent party of doing something that another student did. The student can be upset about it, but if you assign the detention, they have to go. If they choose not to because they think it was dumb or unwarranted, that's their call...but they will be facing the consequences.

If you as a teacher can assign detentions without 100% absolute certainty that the child is guilty (or rather, in the absence of a confession)...how is that any different from police officers being allowed to arrest citizens who they [i]think[/i] are guilty...even if it is a mistake? Obviously, if a mistake is made, you have to do your best to rectify it. I'm not letting the teacher off the hook. I'm merely pointing out that as fallible human beings...teachers (and any authority figures) can make mistakes.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1305655566' post='2242861']
I agree with [b]Catherine[/b]. Responding politely and cooperating willingly is likely to have the better result and lead to the recovery of your liberty. Pulling a gun on the cops who were looking for a person who [i]was[/i] guilty of vehicular manslaughter could have resulted in a terrible tragedy. How are they going to find the guilty party if they don't search?


Comparing rape to things that aren't rape is generally unwise in an argument. I imagine that most people who have experienced both rape and being put in handcuffs wouldn't compare the two events or put them in the same category.


[b]Don John[/b], I am not looking at this through the views of the police officer. I am not myself a cop, nor do I have any friends or family members who are, either. What I am doing is recognizing that cops are a legitimate authority (which can be abused) and therefore are not acting as criminals who have [i]no[/i] authority to do what they are doing. An arresting officer is not a kidnapper, and not just because they don't want to lock you in their basement and right ransom notes to your family while threatening to dump your body in a landfill.

I am a teacher, and I understand that you are, as well. You are the authority figure in your classroom, are you not? Certainly, teachers make mistakes, and occasionally accuse an innocent party of doing something that another student did. The student can be upset about it, but if you assign the detention, they have to go. If they choose not to because they think it was dumb or unwarranted, that's their call...but they will be facing the consequences.

If you as a teacher can assign detentions without 100% absolute certainty that the child is guilty (or rather, in the absence of a confession)...how is that any different from police officers being allowed to arrest citizens who they [i]think[/i] are guilty...even if it is a mistake? Obviously, if a mistake is made, you have to do your best to rectify it. I'm not letting the teacher off the hook. I'm merely pointing out that as fallible human beings...teachers (and any authority figures) can make mistakes.
[/quote]
IF a student refuses to accept an unjust punishment, they must accept the consequences, that does not mean the punishment was just,or that they were morally wrong for resisting. When I was in the 6th grade ihad an unjust teacher, she was truely hte worst teacher I had in my life, sshe was blatantly unjust. She assigned me a detention. After school I told my mother that I would probably be suspended. shocked, she asked why. I told her that I was given detention for something I did not do, and that I was not going. I did not go. I do not believe I acted in an immoral way.

Similarly if an innocent man resist unjust punishment, and yes, n aresst is punishment, not severe but punishment regardless, your rights aretaken from you. he must be prepared to accept the consequinces, these may include severe punishment,that does not make his resistance immoral.

And I will stan with my comparisons, I have seen a lot of violence in my life, I have seen the effects of rape, I have also seen innocent men put in jail for more than a year awaiting trial, Ihave seen them loose everything, I have seen them fail to support thier family, for nothing. Ithink being in jail for a year for a crime you didn't commit, even though he was aquitted ( and that only becuase of the shear stubbornness of a single juror) is quite comparable to rape. Had that juror not been an immovable object,(the other 11 decided to find himnot guilty rather than stay for another day) that man would have gone to prision... for nothing.

Edited May 17, 2011 by Don John of Austria

[Groo the Wanderer]

[img]http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/11/22/128718505142597538.jpg[/img]

[MithLuin]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI[/media]