quote:If not to either or both, why did the Bartow officer contact the Sipples?
I think you are applying too rigorous a standard here. I suspect that when a complaint is issued, it is standard procedure for the police to talk to both parties as part of a routine follow up. In fact I would expect them to do this in most cases.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have a hypothetical question. Imagine someone set up speed checking equipment in front of their home and a system that would send out e-mails to recognized individuals when they were observed speeding and perhaps an e-mail to the local police as well. Imagine that a person drove past the home twice a day speeding on both occasions so that they were getting two e-mails a day sent to them to inform them that they had been observed speeding along with 2 e-mails a day going to the police. If the e-mails simply said "Your car was observed at 7:46 am going at 9 mph over the posted speed limit at 555 MyHouse Road. A notice of this has been sent to the local police." Would/should this be considered legitimate grounds for a harassment complaint?
What if 2 e-mails were sent for each violation? What if 10 e-mails were sent for each violation? What if 1000 e-mails were sent for each violation?
I can see that at some point this could indeed become harassment but its not really clear to me where that point is.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
So this couple contacted a police officer's boss to report him breaking the law. On the one hand, I can understand that his boss had no jurisdiction to do anything about this as a crime. But his job is to uphold and enforce the law, and they are his "customers", so to speak. So whom do they contact when they have a "customer complaint" about how he conducts himself in doing his job? If he worked at Starbucks and gave them bad coffee, they'd call his boss, and not be accused of harrassment or stalking.
Of course someone posted that it depended on whether or not he was in his police vehicle at the time. I don't know; I thought police were always supposed to uphold the law, whether they're technically on duty or not.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Did the complaints-against-employee-perfomance case that you witnessed also include that lack of a restraining order?
I'm not sure what you're asking here. The police investigated. There was no restraining order. This is common.
quote:Did the Bartow police investigate the grounds for Perrone's complaint before a Bartow officer contacted the Sipples? eg Were the numbers of Sipples' complaints enough to appear to be harassing? Or were they separate complaints about separate incidents, along with a natural number of follow-up inquiries?
There's no level of proof WRT initiating contact with the subject of a complaint. Many times, the next step after interviewing the complainant will be interviewing the subject of the complaint, before additional investigative resources are spent.
quote:Was Perrone's complaint treated in the same manner as an average citizen's complaint about the same type/level of irritating behaviour?
Don't know. I would think you would want to know this before throwing around the accusations you have.
quote:If the answer is no to either or both questions, why did the Bartow officer contact the Sipples?
If the answer is "no" to the first question, then the reason for the contact is "because a complaint was made." If the answer to the second question is "no" then there's a possibility of misconduct.
quote:And as I said, the two news articles linked above don't provide any answers in areas which would provide a usefully clear picture of what occurred.
I said this in my very first post in the thread.
quote:I have a hypothetical question. Imagine someone set up speed checking equipment in front of their home and a system that would send out e-mails to recognized individuals when they were observed speeding and perhaps an e-mail to the local police as well. Imagine that a person drove past the home twice a day speeding on both occasions so that they were getting two e-mails a day sent to them to inform them that they had been observed speeding along with 2 e-mails a day going to the police. If the e-mails simply said "Your car was observed at 7:46 am going at 9 mph over the posted speed limit at 555 MyHouse Road. A notice of this has been sent to the local police." Would/should this be considered legitimate grounds for a harassment complaint?
It would depend on a lot of things, including if he was asked to stop sending the emails to the complainant and on the specific state law.
quote:What if 2 e-mails were sent for each violation? What if 10 e-mails were sent for each violation? What if 1000 e-mails were sent for each violation?
Each email beyond 1 per violation weakens any contention that the emails are informational only. Once there's a purpose beyond communication, there's a greater chance of finding harassment.
Clearly, at a 1000, they'd likely find harassment (assuming there's a non-threat-based version of the law). I think even 2 might be enough, assuming they intended to send two and hadn't made an error setting up the system.
quote:o whom do they contact when they have a "customer complaint" about how he conducts himself in doing his job? If he worked at Starbucks and gave them bad coffee, they'd call his boss, and not be accused of harrassment or stalking.
The officer wasn't on duty at the time of the alleged incidents, so this isn't a very imperfect analogy.
quote:I don't know; I thought police were always supposed to uphold the law, whether they're technically on duty or not.
Technically all of us are supposed to uphold the law. I'm pretty sure officers don't get fired for speeding unless there's an ongoing issue. One citizen with a grudge and very possibly inaccurate equipment isn't likely to be enough to take formal action.
Regardless, nothing in this story suggests that the couple's actions are grounds for a harassment charge.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
First, Rabbit, I added: "...if the Sipples had contacted the Kennesaw police to report the officer speeding in his private car then they were clearly out of line." Most/?all? police officers do not go "off the job" in the same manner as civilians. eg A civilian doesn't have to be a GoodSamaritan, an off-duty police officer does. A civilian doesn't have to carry a weapon, an off-duty police officer does. etc... The right to exercise police powers do not end when an officer punches out on a clock.
And made some other (minor but clarifying) changes to the phrasing of my answers&questions beginning at post39. The responses come too quick&furious for me to properly edit what I meant to say in a sufficiently timely fashion.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[Editing my 3) back in: the answers to the preceding two questions being preconditions to my third question.] 3) If not to either or both, why did the Bartow officer contact the Sipples?
"I think you are applying too rigorous a standard here."
Considering the power&responsibility that we grant police officers, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", who guards the guardians? Under most circumstances, ie without clear evidence otherwise of greater expertise/etc: A police officer's testimony is granted more credibility than any testimony which contradicts it. A police officer is granted the extraordinary power to temporarily suspend laws which normally apply; eg a police officer can legally run a red light in what s/he judges to be an emergency.
When there is no emergency, eg investigating a letter-writing campaign or a speeding complaint, I think it is quite reasonable to apply the most rigorous standards.
"I suspect that when a complaint is issued, it is standard procedure for the police to talk to both parties as part of a routine follow up."
Which was my 1)st question: Was Officer Perrone's complaint investigated? Was Officer Perrone "talked to" in the same manner as the Sipples.
"In fact I would expect them to do this in most cases."
In most serious cases. There is no indication that the Sipples' speeding complaints were seriously investigated by the Bartow police. And there appears to be at least one Bartow police officer who accepted officer Parrone's harassment complaint at face value, without any report of a Bartow investigation as to its validity. So as far as the linked-to news articles are concerned, there is no indication that both parties were talked to equally.
I regard an excessively speeding vehicle to be a FAR more of an immediate menace to the public than a letter writing campaign. And a police officer flouting the law to be a FAR more serious offense than a civilian writing a harassment letter. So in keeping with my 2) precondition, questions arising from the Sipples' complaints should have been given a MUCH higher priority, should have been investigated well before Perrone's charge that the Sipples' letters constituted written harassment.
posted
I am not talking about whether contact with the Sipples was legal, Dagonee. Anyone* can knock on your door and make darn**near any statement they want, ask darn near any question they want. I am specificly asking whether there was any Bartow investigation into the validity of Parrone's complaint before the Bartow officer contacted the Sipples. If not, why not? For that matter, has there been any Bartow or Kinnesaw investigation into the validity of Parrone's complaint after the Bartow officer contacted the Sipples? And if not, why not?
* Excluding in gated communities; and in some areas, commercial salespeople. ** Obviously, obscenities directed at children and making open threats of physical harm would be treated differently.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
"I have a hypothetical question. Imagine someone set up speed checking equipment in front of their home and a system that would send out e-mails to recognized individuals when they were observed speeding and perhaps an e-mail to the local police as well. Imagine that a person drove past the home twice a day speeding on both occasions so that they were getting two e-mails a day sent to them to inform them that they had been observed speeding along with 2 e-mails a day going to the police. If the e-mails simply said "Your car was observed at 7:46 am going at 9 mph over the posted speed limit at 555 MyHouse Road. A notice of this has been sent to the local police." Would/should this be considered legitimate grounds for a harassment complaint?"
Welcome to DavidBrin's TransparentSociety. What an individual can't make transparent, SergeyBrin's Google can...or at least can find you the commercial information brokers who can. So why make it hypothetical? A perv decided to flash* a young woman on a NewYork subway. The woman had a cellphone, snapped a picture, reported the incident to the police, and posted the picture of the miscreant on the Internet. The flasher was caught, charged, found guilty, and sentenced. Would the world have been better off if the woman hadn't used her cellphone, hadn't posted the picture on the Internet? Then the flasher tried to sue the woman for "harassment and public humiliation". He lost. Fortunately in the US, truth is a shield against slander and libel charges. And truth caught in a public venue is a shield against invasion of privacy charges.
There have been many incidents in which private citizens have used the new video technology to capture crime scenes. Would we be better off if people who caused car accidents or robbers who shot convenience store clerks could more easily avoid capture?
The Sipple's radar gun and videocam evidence is fairly reliable -- eveything is timestamped, with video frames cross-checking what the radar registers -- and difficult to tamper with in a manner that can't be detected by low hobbyist-level expertise.
The saving loophole for Parrone is that most state laws have very strict definitions of who is allowed gather traffic-court-usable evidence of speeding and who can issue speeding tickets -- mostly, police officers only -- as well as what technology can be used to provide traffic-court-usable evidence of speeding.**
Which doesn't prevent police officers from using evidence collected by private citizens to reprioritize which roads need to be officially surveilled for speeders, or highway planners from using privately-gathered data to prioritize which roads need to be officially surveilled to decide which roads probably need 4way stoplights / 4way stopsigns / etc.
I'm sure the Sipples would be quite happy to give up their crusade in exchange for police or governmental action to reduce the absurdly high speeds at which cars travel along their stretch of road. Probably wouldn't have started their little "hobby" if the police and/or the local government had paid attention to their original complaints.
* Refusing to turn this into yet another onanism thread.
** Including which, where, when, and how the relatively few-and-far-between automatic radar&camera speedtraps can be used.
quote:I am specificly asking whether there was any Bartow investigation into the validity of Parrone's complaint before the Bartow officer contacted the Sipples. If not, why not?
Because there almost never is. You have yet to adequately explain why there should be. It is COMMON procedure to go tot he subject of a complaint before proceeding with an investigation.
You are basing your questions on mistaken assumptions (for example, that talking to the subject of a complaint is only done in "serious" instances). You're wrong about this, and all your vague conspiracy suggestions rely on this assumption.
quote:Airing the obvious questions raised by the available reporting is hardly the same as throwing around accusations.
No. This is throwing around accusations:
quote:Bartow County...deputy...'trying to figure out if she’s going to arrest me...' " seems overly close to engaging in witness tampering/intimidation under the color of authority: which is a very serious felony.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
