CCW Run in with LEO

[rhino]

It's amusing that because I don't agree with your position that you presume that I don't "understand."

Your comments below support my point. If the police officer knows a person does not have a valid driver's license or has a good reason to suspect not (like obviously underage), then they can and probably should stop them and check. This is the opposite of stopping someone solely because you see a gun in a holster with not other evidence suggesting any kind of crime or irregularity.

What is allowed for police to do and what is "legal" does not always correspond with "right" or even acceptable.

I don't think you folks understand, courts have already covered the above. My guess is they covered it many, many decades ago. Courts weight the facts and make decisions. Given the fact that 90% (maybe even more) of the driving age population of Indiana has a driver's license, then the courts are likely going to say that just random stops are not allowed. My guess is they said this decades ago (like back in the 50s, maybe even earlier than that). Indiana law does say that if an officer knows a person to have a suspended license, they can actually stop that person for that reason alone. Why? Because the officer can show specific facts (previous dealings, record checks) that they were aware John Doe didn't have a license. Outside of additional facts, an officer can't just stop anyone to check for a license. This doesn't mean that if an officer sees what appears to be a 12 year old kid driving, they can't do anything, as we are dealing with additional facts that give rise to a reasonable suspicion.

 

[rhino]

I think that all people who appear to be male should be detained and forced to submit to sampling for DNA testing. They all have the equipment typically necessary to rape a woman, so if someone appears to be male, they need to prove they're not a rapist.*

* Yeah, it's sarcasm and yet another example of reductio ad absurdum, but it should illustrate the point.

 

[Paco Bedejo]

I have never had anything but good experiances with LEO as far as me carrying .
I keep my LTCH permit were anyone can see it when i open my wallet ,
they few run ins i have had with LEO's have always been smooth .

Last time i was pulled over the officer seen my LTCH when he asked for my DL , he asked if i had a gun in my truck i said no sir i have 2 . he kinda giggled a bit and ask were they were ,I told him one was in my pocket (the LCP) the other was in the glove box , he aked what they were i told him . he responded Nice guns never asked to see them .
never gave me even a warning , he asked me to slow down a bit and have a nice day . I was clearly speeding about 15 mph over ....

I guess it just shows you let the officer do his job and be honest he can tell you are OK ..

You scream you know your rights and tell him how to do his job he may just think your hiding something ...

While I agree with you on the fact that being open and cordial with respectful & cordial LEOs is a good idea... I do not agree that this LEO should have asked to see his LTCH, unless the method of carry was unsafe or looked suspicious (waistband carry). If it was holstered, the only ethical assumption is that it's safe & legal carry, whether open, partial concealment, or total concealment.

If I'm driving a car, the assumption is that I'm licensed & insured to do so. It's not ethical to pull me over to check. If I'm driving recklessly or in an obviously illegal manner, that's different.

If I'm boarding an airplane, the assumption should be that I'm not a terrorist. This is not the case anymore. And this is why some of us have an issue with being asked for LTCH without reasonable suspicion. Our rights are being eroded & it's another step toward needing your passport to buy bread...just in case you're illegal. Heil Hitler /s

 

[Denny347]

I'll jump in here. The encounter was consensual so how about this. I see a guy in the gas station with a gun poking out of his waistband. I can engage him in a conversation. How about if I just asked him if he had a permit. His reply could determine if this consensual encounter turns into something else. If he smiles and says yes...question answered. If he hesitates, or otherwise acts like he is trying to think of something to say, maybe I need to see the LTCH. Same with a vehicle. I am sitting somewhere doing paperwork and a driver pulls up to me. We engage in a consensual conversation about whatever. I can ask him if he has a drivers license and if he responds "yes" then question answered. However if he hesitates or says "no" or similar, then I have met the burden for an investigatory stop. Asking the right questions and measuring the responses will probably go farther in finding bad guys as well as minimize possible complaints.

 

[Dogman]

JMO, if someone in general has a problem showing an officer their LTCH when requested to do so, then don't. You tell them your rights, explain the law to them, tell them you don't see the need to comply with their request because you have committed no crime, then walk away.

Let us know how that works out for you.

 

[Paco Bedejo]

I think that all people who appear to be male should be detained and forced to submit to sampling for DNA testing. They all have the equipment typically necessary to rape a woman, so if someone appears to be male, they need to prove they're not a rapist.*

* Yeah, it's sarcasm and yet another example of reductio ad absurdum, but it should illustrate the point.

Don't joke about that...there are groups who might think it's a good idea and start lobbying for it.

 

[rhino]

That sounds a lot better to me, sir!

I'll jump in here. The encounter was consensual so how about this. I see a guy in the gas station with a gun poking out of his waistband. I can engage him in a conversation. How about if I just asked him if he had a permit. His reply could determine if this consensual encounter turns into something else. If he smiles and says yes...question answered. If he hesitates, or otherwise acts like he is trying to think of something to say, maybe I need to see the LTCH. Same with a vehicle. I am sitting somewhere doing paperwork and a driver pulls up to me. We engage in a consensual conversation about whatever. I can ask him if he has a drivers license and if he responds "yes" then question answered. However if he hesitates or says "no" or similar, then I have met the burden for an investigatory stop. Asking the right questions and measuring the responses will probably go farther in finding bad guys as well as minimize possible complaints.

 

[Uralguy]

I don't think we have enough information to even have this discussion. If you put yourself in the LEO role for a moment, you have a person with the sleeves ripped off his plaid shirt a Mullet, Bama plates and a pistol. Lucky he wasn't wearing Daisy Duke cut offs. Was the LEO white? Lots of variables here.
Puts a little different picture in your head. At the end of the day this went off as good as is humanly possible.
This is also a learning tool for those of us who prefer to discretely carry. Check your look in the mirror.
I assume there were no Black Helicopters involved. I am sure I have pissed off someone. Sorry about that.

 

[kingnereli]

Ok, I certainly see both sides of this. The cop was polite and respectful. The is good. He didn't step outside the bounds of the law. Therefore, no rights were violated. It is idealism to say that he should have assumed that the guy was legal. Idealism is fine. The point has been made that if he had been OCing he probably wouldn't have to present his LTCH. This has been my experience with OC.

As for me. I would very much just like the cops (and the government in general) to leave me alone. Though I have no problems showing my license when asked. I have, on occasion, when talking with a polite officer like this asked about his motives. It's just the usual "I just needed to check" type of answer.

I do like the driving a car analogy. While there are differences in the scenarios the point is the same. If there is no reason to think I am doing anything illegal then don't bother me. This is another case of the way things are versus the way things should be. A LEO can legally ask for your license if he wants. He should presume that you are innocent unless some other factor shows otherwise.

 

[public servant]

I think that all people who appear to be male should be detained and forced to submit to sampling for DNA testing. They all have the equipment typically necessary to rape a woman, so if someone appears to be male, they need to prove they're not a rapist.*

If you're walking around with your penis hanging out...perhaps you should. That's why I prefer to CC...the element of suprise.

 

[Indy317]

The premise of your post is that probability leads to reasonable suspicion. Though probability would be a factor in reasonable suspicion, it must be objectively reasonable. Without the officers knowing the facts as you stated them and the probabilities, they are guessing and basing their actions on those guestimates. This is not objectively reasonable. Probability alone does not make suspicion reasonable. In general, one would need additional facts to support the probability.

I am not sure I agree with probability making reasonable suspicion. The only reason I say this is that I have read plenty of course cases where if an officer testifies that they do a certain action all the time, the courts have weighed that against cases where an officer has testified that only in one or two cases they may take an action.

Again, I couldn't find any ruling, and I do think that the courts would rule in the favor of LEOs. Carrying a handgun in Indiana is a crime. An officer seeing someone carrying a handgun would likely be enough for the officer to have reasonable suspicion to stop the person and question them. I really wish I could find a case where someone argues this, but so far I haven't.

It's amusing that because I don't agree with your position that you presume that I don't "understand."

Your comments below support my point. If the police officer knows a person does not have a valid driver's license or has a good reason to suspect not (like obviously underage), then they can and probably should stop them and check. This is the opposite of stopping someone solely because you see a gun in a holster with not other evidence suggesting any kind of crime or irregularity.

What is allowed for police to do and what is "legal" does not always correspond with "right" or even acceptable.

The problem with the driving example is what I have read today in various rulings. Something about issuing a driver's license is the state's way to watch over people and control their driving _habits_. The cases cited couldn't be found on-line, as they were from the 90s themselves. I am sure they cited cases from way back. All I know is that it has been standard procedure that police need something more to stop someone, not just them driving. I have a strong feeling this came from a court ruling, as I know that some cop somewhere in the past tried to argue that merely driving was enough reasonable suspicion to stop someone and check for there license.

The carrying of a weapon may or may not be treated the same. I don't think it will, but it could depend on each individual case. For example, if an officer continues to stop people carrying, and 100% of them are legal, then in a case where a person carrying legally gets stopped for carrying, and that stop turns into something else, I could see the courts ruling that given the officer's testimony that all the people he ever stopped carrying a handgun were legal, he needed something more than just seeing the person carrying a gun. On the flip side, if an officer stopped ten people in his career, and all ten were carrying illegally, then maybe the courts would say that the officer had reasonable suspicion to stop the permit holder.

My main focus right now is the % of people that carry and how many are legal vs. illegal. The numbers alone make carrying a gun totally different from driving on the street. Like I said, if you see a person walking down the road with a handgun in their waistband, there is somewhere between a 10%-20% chance they are legal vs. someone just randomly driving down a public street, that chance bumps up to at least 90%, if not more.

Trust me, I totally get the driver's license argument, but I believe that has come about from a decades old court case. In the Virgin Islands case, the court only sided with the guy with the gun because they had no law against carrying a weapon. We have a law, but not a general 'no one is allowed to carry law.' Our law gives exceptions, so I wonder how a court would deal with our law in a similar case.

While I agree with you on the fact that being open and cordial with respectful & cordial LEOs is a good idea... I do not agree that this LEO should have asked to see his LTCH, unless the method of carry was unsafe or looked suspicious (waistband carry). If it was holstered, the only ethical assumption is that it's safe & legal carry, whether open, partial concealment, or total concealment.

This opens up a whole new slew of problems. I used to waistband carry my HK USP all the time, with the safety _on_. Not only that, there are people out there who just refuse to carry with one in the trigger. Why, I dunno, but they do. So obviously it would be safe to carry a weapon without one in the pipe. Where do you draw the line? What if I see the top of your holster is frayed, does that mean you obviously are using poor equipment? What if you waistband carry a Glock vs XD?

What this issue really comes down to is: Should officers even be able to stop people without probable cause? Do we flush reasonable suspicion down the drain? Only when LEOs pretty much have proof of a law violation can they act?

 

[1032JBT]

If you're walking around with your penis hanging out...perhaps you should. That's why I prefer to CC...the element of suprise.

 

[1032JBT]

Somehow I knew this was too good to be true...

See??? You are an a**hole afterall.

And somehow I am not surprised.......at either the fact that I am really and a**hole or the way this thread turned out.

Everybody bitches and bitches about how they want LEO's to act this way or that way and when someone posts something that went weel and a good encounter with LEO, we still get flamed. After reding the OP and the few after it, I had actually put the boots away for a little while hoping I could wear something a little more comfortable tonight, guess I better bust 'em out and knock the dust off for tonight. That suscks because water spots are a bitch to get off.

 

[eatsnopaste]

And had he walked out the door and not checked and it ended up the guy robbed the place and shot the clerk and 2 customers people would complain about that. "He should have done his job". So at what point does he win?

if you're going to use logic and common sense i'm going to have to use the ignore button!

 

[public servant]

if you're going to use logic and common sense i'm going to have to use the ignore button!

My wife has for years.

 

[Joe Williams]

Carrying without a permit is indeed a crime. Perhaps the officer was suspicious that this was the crime being committed. He investigated, and when he found no crime to have been committed, the interaction was over.

Federal courts have said carrying a gun is not, in and of itself, reasonable suspicion to believe a crime has occurred, or is about to occur. An officer has no more legal reason to demand your LTCH simply because you are carrying a gun than they do to stop you and demand your driver's license because they see you driving a car.

However, an officer can ask to see your LTCH, driver's license, or to search your car or house all they want. Nothing wrong, illegal, or unprofessional about that. A polite, professional officer will have your permit in his hands and back in yours before you can think of a good reason to refuse, because you'll want to help him out and appreciate him asking.

 

[Joe Williams]

Sporter, I am as 2nd Amendment as they come, and the above analogy is close, but doesn't really hold water, because the car is designed as a mode of transportation and the firearm is designed intentionally as a weapon. In the general public eye, they will always be seen differently.

Cars kill far more people in this country than guns do, and there is no Constitutional right to drive. Yet, some insist that somehow we should be more willing to compromise a Constitutional right because.... why is it that we are supposed to be willing to roll over and stick our butts in the air for a good government reaming, exactly? Oh, yeah.. because we choose to carry guns and exercise our 2A rights.

I'm not much concerned about what the sheeple in the "general public" think, or luke warm 2A supporters. Both of those groups would have had us disarmed 20 years ago. But this isn't merely a question of 2A rights, we DO have other rights, and they are equally as important. We maintain our rights only by exercising them, and insisting they be obeyed. I'm sorry some pooooor wittle police officers feel that obeying the law and respecting rights make their job too difficult. These are bad cops, and they are the kind of people the Constitution and Bill of Rights are designed to protect us against.

 

[Paco Bedejo]

This opens up a whole new slew of problems. I used to waistband carry my HK USP all the time, with the safety _on_. Not only that, there are people out there who just refuse to carry with one in the trigger. Why, I dunno, but they do. So obviously it would be safe to carry a weapon without one in the pipe. Where do you draw the line? What if I see the top of your holster is frayed, does that mean you obviously are using poor equipment? What if you waistband carry a Glock vs XD?

What this issue really comes down to is: Should officers even be able to stop people without probable cause? Do we flush reasonable suspicion down the drain? Only when LEOs pretty much have proof of a law violation can they act?

My point, when I said "unsafe or suspicious carry (waistband carry)", was that waistband carry is both slightly unsafe & slightly suspicious. The combination of the two factors could be construed to be the equivalent of a slightly hanging exhaust or swerving between the lines. This could be considered probable cause.

If someone has a proper holster for their firearm, it's unethical to presume any wrong doing, in my opinion. Its an indicator that the person owns the firearm & is being responsible with it.

*Edit*
Please notice that I use the term "unethical" instead of "illegal".

As Joe Williams pointed out, driving a car is a privilege, carrying a firearm is a right. Yet, some LEOs want to see our LTCHs if they smell gunpowder residue on us.

 

[SC_Shooter]

I for one don't see a problem with how the LEO handled the situation and hope he's the guy that I run into if I'm ever in a CC-LEO interaction. He saw a gun and walked outside to ask the CC guy if he had a permit and to check the permit.

Before anyone gets too angry at me for praising the situation, keep in mind that I personally don't think there should be a need for a permit to exercise a right like the 2A. That said, I'm also of the belief that I need to try hard to follow the laws that ARE on the books and work to get the ones changed that are silly. Right now, the law says that it is illegal to carry without having a valid LTCH on our person (which is why we all have them...right???). I don't think it should be that way, but it is and we all know it.

Most people don't carry (ok, outside of all of US of course!), so I think that a LEO seeing a gun will typically catch his attention (not exactly like seeing someone drive). Would one LEO on the scene have approached the guy? Who knows. With three on the scene, I would think it unlikely that all of them would blow it off and assume he had a permit.

According to the OP, the LEO was polite and asked to see the permit, checked it out and told the CC guy to have a good day. In fact, the CC guy and the OP felt good enough about it to post it as good news. We've had so many posts lately about VERY negative LEO encounters that I was very happy to see this one on INGO. In this case, the whole encounter lasted a few minutes, was polite (not accusatory or hostile per the OP) and both parties walked away happy with the outcome. In most situations, that would be pretty much ideal.

I guess the LEO could have yelled "gun" when it flashed and tackled the guy to the floor while the other two drew on him, but thankfully these guys didn't overreact.

Again, I'm a huge believer that the LTCH should be unnecessary in the first place. I just recognize that it IS the law for now and I think the OP report was about as positive of an encounter as could be expected...unless the LEOs (all three of them) blew it off and didn't check at all. Keep in mind that it IS a crime to carry without a valid LTCH on your person. With that as a given, I have a hard time faulting the LEO for politely asking to see it. He didn't disarm the guy, unload his weapon or read him the riot act for no good reason. He just asked to see the license and walked away after finding out the guy had a valid permit.

I'd rather not be checked at all (rather it not even be necessary to have permits), but if I have to get checked...I want this LEO doing the checking! to him and also the the CC guy for keeping it from turning into an argument over what the LEO can and can't do. Those never end well.

 

[theweakerbrother]

Papers, comrade! Give them quick or I'll shoot.

Which kills more people per year? Tools (you girls can call them firearms, or killing death machines) or vehicles?

Nice to see the cop was a gentleman about the whole ordeal, but asking for a license was a bit over the line.