First encounter with police since permit issue

[Rifleman1776]

File a complaint. You were wronged.
Even though I support law enforcement, I treat individual officers like strange dogs.
One dog will just want to be petted. Another will bite you without warning. Problem is you can't tell one from the other just by lookings.
There is a reason why police units are structured in a military fashion, they need the control and disipline.
File the complaint. You are an honest citizen that was treated in a criminal fashion by those charged with protecting you.

 

[mete]

Next time tell them two guns is what is called a "NY reload" !!

 

[Buzzcook]

Luckily you weren't taserd.

Unfortunately the more power we give to police to go after "bad guys" the more frequently it is used on non-bad guys.

What the cops did was probably technically legal.

 

[kx592]

The officer could have had a prior incident that went south that you are not aware of and you having two weapons on you may have triggered something weird in his mind and that's why he reacted the way he did, or he is plain out a jack a...Either way file a complaint and see where it leads you.

 

[Dave P]

"In Florida, you are required to present your CCW with your DL if and when the DL is requested."

DJ, this is false. Unless you can provide the FS 790 section number??

 

[Edward429451]

What the cops did was probably technically under color of law, and in no way legal.

This is one example of why it is not a good idea to get a CCW permit. I can see that you tried and tried to do the correct thing, even before ever meeting these officers, and what do you get for it? How much longer before we can expect to not be so lucky and when we cooperate, we will have our property seized and we will be jailed..."for our own protection".

I've never gotten the CCW permit. I have had less trouble with cops than you have, and you did the right thing (sic). Either you have the right to bear arms or you don't! Either you are dangerous, or you're not!
File a complaint

 

[Pbearperry]

The way some cops act now upsets me a lot.However,why should cops be different from everyone else in this country who has no common sense.From the White House to the clerk at Walmart,all I see is idiots now.

 

[YARDDOG(1)]

FL. No Tell/No show when ID is run ; )
Y/D

 

[SadistAssassin]

About 5 years ago I was stopped by the police. I immediately declared that I had a weapon in the car. I told the cop exactly where the gun was in my pov. Instead of me being "detained" I was simply told to stand by the hood of his patrolcar while the cop retrieved my gun from the car. He did not search my car. He went right to the spot where the weapon was and grabbed it. He unloaded it and carried it back to his car with him to run my ID. I never actually thought about how this situation was handled, until I read this thread. Now, I feel that in no way was I violated, and that this should be the SOP when stopping a CITIZEN in America.

 

[SwampYankee]

This is one example of why it is not a good idea to get a CCW permit

What? That's just nonsense.

Anyways, some cops are jerks, some cops are not. And most cops are bored out of their skulls doing a crappy job. You did everything you should have. If you chose to carry, you will occasionally be harassed. You can file a complaint for free and when you get some cash in the bank, you can start suing cops and the municipality they work for. But once you get some cash in the bank, you're likely to be bald, overweight and look "legitimate". In which case, the cops will stop harassing you. That's part of life in America. It just is. If you look like a kid, you are a target for cops. They assume you don't have money, power or brains. That is what profiling is all about.

Frankly, any fool can be a cop and the United States is full of cops that should be working at McDonalds. Not all of them, but more than there should be.

My brother is a cop. I think he's a pretty good one but he can be a jerk if he's bored or had a bad day or his wife is giving him a hard time. His catch phrases is ,"everyone is a liar". And he's right. And if you go into the job with that mentality, everyone is also a suspect.

My advice, just avoid cops and be a polite as you can when you are forced to interact with them. Oh, and to hell with loading your mags when you are out of town. Load your gun as soon as you pick up the mag. Having a loaded gun is not illegal and an unloaded gun defeats the whole purpose of the CCW. A cops directive is not the law, no matter what they think. Cops like to be the only ones with guns, they are scared of anyone else that has one.

 

[Pbearperry]

When I came on the Police Force in 1969,you almost never heard of a Cop being killed by someone in the line of duty.Jump fast forward to now and hundreds of Cops are being killed and millions assaulted.
Call me crazy, but I think if this trend stopped,before long,cops would calm down and what they would be trained in the Academy would reflect the new trend.Sorry folks you can't have millions of Sheriff Andy Taylors roaming around the way things are today.

 

[C Philip]

In West Virginia, you are not legally required to inform an officer that you are carrying. Check handgunlaw.us for state laws, and they have links to double check with your state authorities. I would not inform an officer unless required to by law, precisely to avoid the situation you were in. That said, they did go overboard and you should file a complaint. Aguila Blanca is right, the police did not have probable cause to detain you. I believe several courts have ruled that carrying a handgun, where legal, is not probable cause for a stop-and-check, or especially detainment.

Edit:

Not sure how they can walk up to a vehicle parked, with no suspicious activity,at a bus station and ask everyone for ID but its all good.

They can only ask for it; unless they have reasonable belief that you are engaged in the commission of a crime, they can not require you to present ID. West Virginia isn't even a state with a "stop and identify" statute, but even if it was "police can never compel you to identify yourself without reasonable suspicion to believe you're involved in criminal activity." (http://flexyourrights.org/faq/When_do_I_have_to_show_ID)

Now, your being in a motor vehicle may change this and require you to present driver's license, but since you were parked I'm not sure how that works out.

 

[AH.74]

This is one example of why it is not a good idea to get a CCW permit.

I've never gotten the CCW permit.

This is complete hogwash. If you don't want to get yours, fine. If you don't want to be able to protect yourself in all legal areas you can carry, fine. If you want to open carry where legal, fine.

But recommending that people not get their permit just on the off chance they may have a bad encounter with police is just plain terrible advice.

 

[SwampYankee]

Call me crazy, but I think if this trend stopped,before long,cops would calm down and what they would be trained in the Academy would reflect the new trend.Sorry folks you can't have millions of Sheriff Andy Taylors roaming around the way things are today.

Ok. You are crazy. The guy is licensed to carry a firearm. That means he went through a background check and had some rudimentary training in most states. The cop should expect that this is the last guy who is going to commit a crime and possibly the first guy to jump in and give the cop a hand if he does actually get shot or run over by a car or is somehow otherwise compromised. The last thing he is going to do is shoot the cop in the back. It's just insane and/or stupid to think otherwise.

If the cops don't respect the laws and law abiding citizens, how can they expect us to give them any respect? We are following the laws, we are doing what is required as good citizens. Yet we get treated like all the other trash they deal with?

 

[Dave P]

"and that this should be the SOP when stopping a CITIZEN in America. "

Why should the cop mess with any of your things when he is not being threatened, and you can't reach them??? This is acceptable to you? :barf:

Would you care if he downloads all the call records from your cell phone, just in case you called any drug dealers??

Would you care if he downloads the info from your car's computer to verify that have never been over the speed limit??

What nonsense.

 

[Al Norris]

DiscoRacing, file the dang complaint.

Once you were handcuffed, you were (in legal terms) "detained."

The introduction of handcuffs, elevates this from a non-custodial detention to full custodial detention. A warrantless custodial detention requires Probable Cause (PC), which is more demanding than mere Articulable Reasonable Suspicion (ARS).

Jump fast forward to now and hundreds of Cops are being killed and millions assaulted.

Normally, I would ask you to back that up with some facts (cite?). In this case, I already have the info in my files.

This, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Note the columns. First is the year, next is the number of officers killed by a BG. Third column is the number of officers accidentally killed at the scene. Last column are the number of reported assaults that resulted in injuries.

2009 = 48 -- 47 --- 57,268
2008 = 41 -- 68 --- 61,087
2007 = 58 -- 83 --- 61,257
2006 = 48 -- 66 --- 59,396
2005 = 55 -- 67 --- 57,820
2004 = 57 -- 82 --- 59,692
2003 = 52 -- 81 --- 58,600
2002 = 56 -- 75 --- 59,526
2001 = 70 -- 76 --- 57,463
2000 = 51 -- 83 --- 58,398
1999 = 42 -- 65 --- 55,971
1998 = 61 -- 81 --- 60,673
1997 = 71 -- 63 --- 52,149
1996 = 61 -- 52 --- 46,608
1995 = 74 -- 59 --- 57,762

As you can see, at a glance, there are not "hundreds" of officers being killed each year. And... Not anywhere close to "millions" being injuriously assaulted.

Now add in the fact (search the UCR, that data is also there) that concealed permit holders are more law-abiding than the general population (and there is some data to suggest, more law-abiding than cops)... I see no reason for such treatment, other than a general dislike of armed citizens.

 

[BILLtheDJguy]

DAVE P said DJ, this is false. Unless you can provide the FS 790 section number??

Florida SS 790.06
License to carry concealed weapon or firearm.—

(1)The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is authorized to issue licenses to carry concealed weapons or concealed firearms to persons qualified as provided in this section. Each such license must bear a color photograph of the licensee. For the purposes of this section, concealed weapons or concealed firearms are defined as a handgun, electronic weapon or device, tear gas gun, knife, or billie, but the term does not include a machine gun as defined in s. 790.001(9). Such licenses shall be valid throughout the state for a period of 7 years from the date of issuance. Any person in compliance with the terms of such license may carry a concealed weapon or concealed firearm notwithstanding the provisions of s. 790.01. The licensee must carry the license, together with valid identification, at all times in which the licensee is in actual possession of a concealed weapon or firearm and must display both the license and proper identification upon demand by a law enforcement officer. Violations of the provisions of this subsection shall constitute a noncriminal violation with a penalty of $25, payable to the clerk of the court.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Ive called the chief of police for that area...and of course they have not called back. From what I have learned there are extensive arrests there for drug and handgun trafficing from Detroit...

Do yourself a favor and google up "Terry Stop." Then Google up "Hiibel." These two cases went to the Supreme Court and, together, they set the rules for what police may AND MAY NOT do.

First, as I noted before, in order for the officer to do anything more than wish you a good evening he had to have a "reasonable suspicion based on clearly articulable facts" that a crime was being committed, had been committed, or was about to be committed. MAYBE the fact that drug deals have been known to go down in that location might provide him some "clearly articulable facts" on which to suspect something, but once he asked what you were doing and you gave him a reasonable answer (and there was no overt evidence of a drug transaction), he was out of gas.

If we accept that he had grounds for a terry stop, you need to understand that a Terry stop allows an officer to conduct a LIMITED frisk of your person to check for weapons. But ... you had already told him you had a firearm, and a license to carry it, so no frisk was necessary. And there's NOTHING in terry that allows the officer to handcuff and detain you for 20 minutes once it has been determined that you are NOT committing a crime. There is also nothing that allows him to search the entire vehicle -- he can only search the area around the driver (and I guess the passengers) to check for weapons. But, again ... you declared the weapons up front, and have a license. He had no right to look in the trunk of your car unless he asked for and obtained your permission.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Bill the DJ --

"Produce on demand" means exactly what it says. It means that IF a police officer asks if you have a permit, you THEN have to produce it ... if you are carrying. It does NOT say (and thus does not mean) that any time an officer says 'Hello, Citizen" your automatic response has to be "I have a permit and I'm packing iron."

Some states actually do require you to inform an officer up front when you are carrying, even if he doesn't ask. I vaguely recall a case a year or three ago in which a member of another forum was arrested because even though the first thing he said when the officer asked for his drivers license was "I have a permit and I'm carrying," apparently the officer felt the guy should have sent an e-mail to the cop's on-board computer or something so the cop would have know the guy had a gun BEFORE the cop got to the car window.

But there aren't all that many states that actually require you to notify without being asked. And Florida isn't one of them.

 

[Sefner]

Luckily you weren't taserd.

Unfortunately the more power we give to police to go after "bad guys" the more frequently it is used on non-bad guys.

What the cops did was probably technically legal.

Taking the OP's story as fact, what the police did was absolutely not legal. They detained OP without reasonable suspicion. That is a federal crime. There are tons of things wrong with this. They never articulated to OP why he was being detained and searched, never articulated reasonable cause, possibly performed a search without permission and cause, and also harassed a legally abiding citizen. I would be livid, especially if my car was searched without my permission (and remember, there is no crime being committed and no reasonable cause, making the search illegal).

What the cops did was probably technically under color of law, and in no way legal.

This is one example of why it is not a good idea to get a CCW permit. I can see that you tried and tried to do the correct thing, even before ever meeting these officers, and what do you get for it? How much longer before we can expect to not be so lucky and when we cooperate, we will have our property seized and we will be jailed..."for our own protection".

I've never gotten the CCW permit. I have had less trouble with cops than you have, and you did the right thing (sic). Either you have the right to bear arms or you don't! Either you are dangerous, or you're not!
File a complaint

This post started off great and then took a very quick nosedive. OP's case is an isolated but telling incident. 99% of police offers would have handled OP's stop very differently (even OP said that there were 7 cops and only one was giving him crap). One can't willingly break the law by not getting a CCW permit and then complain when the police treat them wrong. Also the thinly veiled talk of violence does not speak for me (or many others here I would imagine). So just for the record, those statements do not represent my way of thinking.

And +1 to Al Norris, excellent post.

MI is a state in which you must provide ID at the first "reasonable opportunity" to do so. Most of stories I hear of people getting pulled over and carrying involve them telling the officer they have a permit and are armed and the officer either says "ok, license and registration please" or asks them where it is (because they may carry near their wallet, which would result in awkward moments) and nothing further is made of the issue.

Interestingly MI law allows for the LEO to disarm the civilian for the officer's safety during the stop after which the gun must be returned to the civilian. It is interesting because MI case law expressly forbids the officer to "run the numbers" on the gun while it is in their possession because it is not an object of reasonable suspicion (ie: it's not why the driver was stopped). Much like if a police officer pulled you over for speeding and then decided that he should search the laptop in your car because you might have kiddy **** on it. That is illegal under Terry. This happens every once in a while and many officers have experienced "Vehicular flow management" assignments after pulling these shenanigans.