And by RIGHT I mean CORRECT, which strangely enough is actually not right but LEFT.

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A Navasota man was arrested on multiple charges early Saturday after refusing to stop for police while walking on the wrong side of the road, authorities said.

College Station police said officers tried to stop Shelton Bernard Lewis early Saturday as he was walking with the flow of traffic on Longmire Court. State law requires pedestrians to walk on the side of the road facing traffic, an officer wrote in his arrest report.

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http://www.theeagle.com/police/Police--Pedestrian-found-with-drugs

Are they suggesting walking on the wrong side of the road is a gateway crime to other crimes such as resisting arrest and doing drugs?

Is there seriously nothing better for our police to do? If not I think it's time for some reductions.

On a side note, does anyone know the TX statute referenced here?

[This message has been edited by Stucco (edited 6/15/2009 12:04p).]

walk against traffic, ride with traffic. That's what I've always heard.

He was also arrested for: Evading Arrest, Resisting Arrest, and possession of marijuana.

quote:

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Sec. 552.006. USE OF SIDEWALK. (a) A pedestrian may not walk along and on a roadway if an adjacent sidewalk is provided and is accessible to the pedestrian.
(b) If a sidewalk is not provided, a pedestrian walking along and on a highway shall if possible walk on:
(1) the left side of the roadway; or
(2) the shoulder of the highway facing oncoming traffic.
(c) The operator of a vehicle emerging from or entering an alley, building, or private road or driveway shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian approaching on a sidewalk extending across the alley, building entrance or exit, road, or driveway.

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Google street view makes it look like there are sidewalks the distance, meaning paragraph b doesn't apply, but of course if he wasn't on the sidewalk then paragraph a does.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Longmire+Ct,+College+Station,+TX+77840&sll=30.69284,-96.37207&sspn=0.49126,0.892639&ie=UTF8&ll=30.599646,-96.305707&spn=0.003842,0.006974&z=18&layer=c&cbll=30.600104,-96.306983&panoid=KJSy-RdUkG9_m86QK4Op7g&cbp=12,94.06,,0,11.37

"Are they suggesting walking on the wrong side of the road is a gateway crime to other crimes such as resisting arrest and doing drugs?"

Apparently so in this case.

God's Peace,
Chuck

quote:

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Are they suggesting walking on the wrong side of the road is a gateway crime to other crimes such as resisting arrest and doing drugs?

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I read the article and didn't find anyone making this suggestion except for you. The police on this board have said that often times minor infractions such as minor traffic violations lead to the arrest of people committing much worse crimes. Pulling someone over for speeding results in arresting a person with an outstanding warrant or someone illegaly carrying weapons or drugs. We have that case here. Enforcing a minor infraction led to a discovery of a much worse infraction, drug possession. In addition, the article indicated that the suspect refused to comply with the officers request. Had he complied, he wouldn't have been taken into custody.

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Is there seriously nothing better for our police to do? If not I think it's time for some reductions.

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Why do we even bother to have laws if you are just going to complain when they are enforced?

Hes walking around minding his own business and they decide to arrest him for walking on the wrong side of the street?

Resisting arrest? Evading arrest? Arrest for what, walking on the wrong side of the street? (They didn't even know about the marijuana at this point.)

How to do away with privacy...Take it away from criminals and then make everything illegal! Sounds like a plan.

Yea....we all know the cops should be at northgate "early Saturday morning" preventing crime instead of patrolling the rest of town.

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Why do we even bother to have laws if you are just going to complain when they are enforced?

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You like this law? Please tell me how this law is virtuous.

That area of the city is well known for drug activity and more importantly, burglary. As a police officer we're tasked with stopping these crimes. While I'm not a big "drug hound" I think everyone can agree that burglary is not acceptable.

This guy is walking in a high crime area late at night. I see nothing wrong with the police stopping and talking to him.

How the law works with defense attorneys and the ACLU is in short its better you have some type of crime committed by the person to stop them.

Was the crime the guy initially committed lame? Yes, I would say it is. But it is a law and it gives us grounds to stop someone who in all likely hood was up to no good (and later found out to be carrying narcotics).

Basically I get the impression some people don't like what's called a "pretext stop". I.e. stopping someone on a small unrelated crime to investigate if some other larger crime is occurring. I also understand that citizens not understanding the pretext stop can lead to resentment and confusion. At this point "pretext stops" are completely legal and upheld by the court. I will tell you as a police officer they're a very important tool which we use with some frequency.

Are you calling a pretext stop for a personal use marijuana bust a law enforcement victory?

Sounds to me like a reason to talk to the man, which then turned into an arrest for other things.

I bet most officers aren't really pulling you over for only a failure to use your turn signal, they are probably thinking/looking for something more, like an arrest warrant, drugs, DWI, etc. The turn signal was just the "in" to the rest.

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Why do we even bother to have laws if you are just going to complain when they are enforced?

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that is a VERY interesting point...

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You like this law? Please tell me how this law is virtuous.

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Where have we said anything about liking the law? You said that the police should be doing something besides enforcing the law. If you don't like the law, fight to have the law changed. Complaining about the enforcement of the law does nothing because that is what should happen. If you do not want the law to be enforced, have the law removed.

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Where have we said anything about liking the law?...If you do not want the law to be enforced, have the law removed.

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I will, but the first step in that is gaining public opinion and momentum. It makes it harder when people defend the law by just stating that it is the law. Various jurisdictions elect not to enforce certain laws (usually bad or antiquated laws). With momentum we could get a order from the mayor/chief that this law should not be enforced in COCS. That's potentially a lot easier than lobbying the part time legislature of Texas.

You advocating for non-enforcement of the law raises the question, why even bother to have laws if we aren't going to enforce them?

Why I like this law is it protects me as a runner or walker when I am some place without sidewalks. I have the right and obligation to walk/run facing traffic.

The direction is for safety. I am not an automobile or treated like one (as bikes are) and cannot see a car coming behind me. Because I am much smaller than a bike or car, it is harder for a driver to see me. Therefore, I can move out of the way if necessary.

The law also requires drivers to yield to me. Without the law, I have no protection when on a road without sidewalks.

The protection it gives me is why I support this law instead of just practicing safety without the law requiring me to.

Stucco,

I wouldn't really call anything a "law enforcement victory" because I don't consider myself as a police officer at odds against society.

I do think that the end result of that stop was a good thing and did benefit society. Why? Because experience on the job has shown me that people walking around at 3 am in the morning with drugs in their pocket are generally up to no good (as in stealing things from hard working people).

I doubt the officer on this call stopped the guy explicitly looking for marijuana, but once he found it he addressed it. Like I stated before that area is a high burglary area and we've been tasked recently with focusing on that area to clean it up.

At the very least, a "personal use" of marijuana is still against the law (and I guess his "personal use" bag of cocaine as well). And of course as a police officer and citizen of this country I believe in rule of law. Basically you follow the rules or you accept the consequences if you're caught. I'm not going to turn this into a marijuana debate (and I suspect my personal beliefs might not be what you expect) but I think you're either not looking at the big picture or you're intentionally ignoring it. On a moral level I could care less if someone smokes marijuana in their home but I know that as a society if we have laws we need to enforce them otherwise at the extreme end of the scale you create a state of anarchy as everyone does what they want to do and ignores laws they don't believe in.

Finally, this particular person could have probably avoided arrest entirely if he didn't evade in the first place. Stop, talk to the officer, assure him you're not a burgler, get the obligatory "don't walk on the wrong side of the road" speech, and go on your way. Unless you reek of dope (which this guy probably did) the officer's probably not going to find your "personal use" bag of marijuana. Of course when you run, then resist arrest on top of it, you kind of lose any kind of sympathy.

As I've stated many times on this board, I've got big libertarian leanings which can sometimes put me at odds with my job. That being said there's not a conspiracy to erode decent people's rights, we're just out there trying to keep the criminal element down so it will prey on good people less.

[This message has been edited by Regulus (edited 6/15/2009 1:51p).]

Re: Pro Sandy

I understand the purpose of the law, but there is a difference between purpose and virtue. The virtue is none. Law can not grant you a right. It can only restrict them. If you read this law carefully you will see this in the phrases "A pedestrian may not..." and "a pedestrian walking along and on a highway shall". Nowhere does it say "A pedestrian may walk on a highway." That part is inherent because we are free.

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Without the law, I have no protection when on a road without sidewalks.

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That law provides you no protection by the granting of rights. The only way to protect you legally is to put a restriction on the DRIVER, not on you. And here is how that looks...

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Sec. 552.008. DRIVERS TO EXERCISE DUE CARE. Notwithstanding another provision of this chapter, the operator of a vehicle shall:
(1) exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian on a roadway;

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Also see (c) in the first law.

Point given.

With that in mind, if the law is removed, then I will still continue to run/walk facing traffic. However, my point still stands that we are a country of law and order and the proper way of correcting this is not through non-enforcement but by changing the law.

Re: Regulus

I operate under no delusions that we would be better off without law enforcement. And it is good to hear that you do not view yourself at odds with society.

With the innumerable laws we have today (such as this one) it is virtually impossible not to be breaking one. Combining this with pretext stops and selective enforcement is, while probably not some huge scheme, a loophole around our rights of privacy.

I, for one, would like to see police officers be more careful when using pretext situations. For example in this case the officer said he stopped him for walking on the wrong side of the street, but that only applies when the street has no sidewalks. The officer could have stopped him for not using the sidewalk, but he didn't. If this guy knew his rights he could defeat this and all related charges and file charges against the officer for official oppression under color of law.

While technicalities allow innumerable laws and pretext stops that result in no privacy, those technicalities must still be followed. There's no such thing as "within the spirit of the technicality." when you're already outside the spirit of the law.

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the proper way of correcting this is not through non-enforcement but by changing the law.

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Agreed!

I agree completely that there are way too many laws. However, the courts have affirmed time and time again that pretext stops are NOT a violation of your right to privacy.

Mind you the subject in question was walking down a public roadway, in a public place, at a very late time of night in a high drug / crime area. You talk about selective enforcement... but I suspect you'd be equally unhappy if the police stopped everyone walking the wrong way on the street. We use selective enforcement because it is an effective tool for reducing crime and thus protecting the innocent.

In fact, selective enforcement or officer discretion are an integral part of law enforcement. You would not want a situation where we couldn't be selective or use discretion.

For society to function it needs a balance between individual rights and the protection of the whole. While I love my individual freedoms I recognize that there are times that they may need to be limited (i.e. I shouldn't be able to shoot my guns in my backyard in a residential area). I shouldn't be able to break the law openly and then expect not to get stopped.

I'm certainly not advocating a totalitarian state but you have no "right to privacy" when breaking the law in a public place. You have very little right to privacy in general when walking down a public street.

If you take the right to privacy to the extreme you have an equally untenable situation. If the police can never detain anyone, if they can never search anyone, then you have basically given criminals free reign to operate. I don't think I need to demonstrate how that would be equally as horrible a situation as totalitarianism.

I can't speak for all police officers since you have good ones and bad ones, you've got officers of differing law enforcement philosophies etc... but I can assure you most of the officers I work with are careful in our use of pretext stops. I recognize the seriousness of detaining a citizen. That being said, it needs to be done at times to effectively do our job.

It would be fruitless to argue different variations of the scenario. In this case a sidewalk is not present at that location. If there was, then perhaps the charges could get dismissed. Good luck on official oppression charges when an officer stops someone in good faith. Its just not going to happen and I'd have to wonder then what would be in someone's heart that would want them to pursue that line (considering an officer really was acting in good faith). Just to expound upon this a little more, look up the official oppression statute. An offense requires the officer to know that his acts are illegal and then act anyways (i.e. an officer who knows you didn't run the red light and who stops you anyways, or knows that there's a sidewalk present but says you weren't on it). If the officer is ignorant of the law or mistakenly applies it, the case will get dropped, but the officer isn't going to get official oppression charges filed against him.


[This message has been edited by Regulus (edited 6/15/2009 6:16p).]

I understand your position and it is not that far from mine. This is the main difference.

I am against selective enforcement. Allowing selective enforcement is why this law still exists. If the TX PDs handed out tickets for this routinely then the law would have been repealed ages ago.

I am in agreement with you that discharging a weapon within the city limits is something that should probably be illegal, because it's dangerous. If I do that I suspect that's what you're arresting me for, not using it as pretext.

I will admit that while in our current system I could not get official oppression charges to stick or even be brought, that does not mean that they are not accurate. Most would consider them an overreaction, but the officer is using the letter of the law inaccurately against the individual to deny him basic rights, and the individual has every right to use the same back at that officer. The reason I, personally, would bring the charges is because the officer learned these little known laws in order to use them as a pretext against me, not for what the law was intended for. Furthermore he didn't bother to learn the whole law, which he is obviously responsible to know, especially if he is attempting to enforce it.

I know Eric Rudoulph and Timothy McVeigh would agree that stopping people for minor enfractions of the law is stupid!