Michael Porschien wrote:The raw audio from the dispatch call is up, along with the transcription following along in the video. I really do not think that it needs any introduction, so i will let it speak for itself. take a look, and tell me what you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d9nkddL ... e=youtu.be" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
OK. You did a very good job. But there are still some things you have not considered.
It is explicitly clear from the discussions between the sergeant and the captain that they were "reaching." They both appear to have come to the conclusion that your act of openly carrying a handgun was sufficient grounds for a
Terry stop. In this forum, we all know that is not the case. Sure, the officer could approach you and ask questions, but detaining you, then having you put your hands on the car and removing the handgun from the holster, that's a full
Terry stop, and the justification simply does not exist. It would appear that somehow, before the officer's narrative supplement was written, they decided to charge you with "jaywalking," just to have another basis for the stop. The interesting thing there is that you were
not charged with jaywalking: you were charged with Walking in the Roadway, R.C. 4511.50(A). Therein lies an important point which you are missing, and which you may want to ignore because it involves "vehicle codes." I strongly recommend that you pay attention.
Despite the conversation between the sergeant and the captain, somebody caught onto the fact that the open carry of a handgun might not be enough to justify a
Terry stop. Something else was need, some sort of violation of law. The original officer plainly stated:
Officer Menichini pulled into a driveway on Michigan Ave to turn around, at this time he observed Michael proceed into the middle of Michigan Ave from the sidewalk, then stand on the cement median, and then proceed to the corner of Madison Ave and Michigan Ave where he stood on the sidewalk watching officer Menichini pull up toward his location.
It is clear that you were crossing the street between intersections, so the officer immediately thought, "Oh. Jaywalking." Wikipedia defines
"jaywalking" as "a term commonly used in North America to refer to illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway." What you may not realize is that there
is state "jaywalking" statute:
R.C. 4511.48, Right-of-Way Yielded by Pedestrian. You obviously were not crossing at a crosswalk, but if your crossing did nothing to impede or slow motor vehicle traffic, there was not violation of R.C. 4511.48(A). There are a couple of other ways you could be charged with "jaywalking" under that statute, and if you read them, maybe you will understand why I said in
this post that you should take some photographs of the area where this occurred. I assume that
none of those scenarios applied, and that is why they charged Walking in the Roadway under R.C. 4511.50(A): it was the closest thing they could think of which
might apply to what you did. However, the original officer admits, in his own words, that you were crossing the street, not walking on the roadway, and if that act of crossing the street did not constitute "jaywalking" under R.C. 4511.48, they are back to being stuck with what the captain said was the justification for the stop and detention: "The probable cause is you saw him carrying a gun in a holster[.]" We all know that one is going to be a loser.
I didn't write all this to show that I know the law; I did it for your benefit. Whether or not you choose to pay attention is up to you.
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon
"Remember that protecting our gun rights still boils down to keeping a majority in the electorate, and that our daily activities can have the impact of being ambassadors for the gun culture ..."
-- BobK
Open carry is a First Amendment exercise.