1. CONTACT INFORMATION
- Full Name: Solomon Cobb
Phone Number: 42
E-Mail Address: [email protected]
Position in Agency: Journalist
2. REQUEST INFORMATION
- Detailed information of your request:
- A recent bill has been suggested by Hugh Allgood to the LRC regarding "Failure to Identify" and the requirement for law enforcement to communicate the basis of a stop before demanding identification.
I believe it is probably quite clear what your position is likely to be on the legislation itself, given the comments already made by the LSPD representative Deputy Chief Steel. To be clear, I actually also disagree with the bill as written. I do not believe roadside encounters should become debates over legal standards, nor do I believe officers should be required to litigate the constitutionality of their actions in the middle of an active stop.
However, I do understand the motivation behind the proposal.
While I don't think that a citizen should be entitled to withhold identification until an officer provides justification, I can understand why some members of the public become frustrated when they are stopped, detained, searched, or subjected to investigative actions without any explanation being provided beyond "comply first, questions later." or "take it to court." (especially given the average wait times).
This leads to my question for PD leadership and officers:
Even if the law does not require officers to explain the justification for a stop, request for identification, search, deployment of a K9, or other investigative action before compliance is expected, should officers be encouraged to do so whenever circumstances reasonably permit? And would the LSPD be willing to give the general PD staff a nudge in that direction to ease this issue a little.
To be clear, I am not referring to situations where doing so would compromise officer safety, reveal confidential investigative information, jeopardize an ongoing operation, create an immediate threat, or otherwise interfere with legitimate law enforcement objectives.
I am more referring to the generic encounters where an explanation could be provided without any practical downside. For example:
- Advising a driver why they were stopped before requesting identification.
- Explaining the basis for a search once it is legally established.
- Clarifying the purpose of a K9 deployment when operationally appropriate.
- Providing a brief explanation of the officer's reasoning when a citizen asks respectful questions about what is occurring.
I imagine many people would be willing to cooperate when they understand what is happening and why. Many complaints and accusations of misconduct generally seem to stem not from the underlying enforcement action itself, but from a lack of communication during the encounter in the many many traffic stops and arrests I have seen. Ranging from someone feeling unfairly targeted, to feeling a charge has been incorrectly placed.
All in all, officers I have seen first hand can range from being willing to explain where they can and answer questions, to appearing difficult for the sake of being difficult seemingly to frustrate the target in question and everything in between.
Does PD currently train or encourage officers to provide these explanations when circumstances allow? If not, would the department support promoting that practice internally as a matter of good policing, because I believe encouraging this practice would be incredibly beneficial to the general public and also be a great image booster for the LSPD.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
- A recent bill has been suggested by Hugh Allgood to the LRC regarding "Failure to Identify" and the requirement for law enforcement to communicate the basis of a stop before demanding identification.
