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Originally posted by Carney ^^^^ i work in public parks and with the city. If we see people taking pictures of kids we are suppose to stop it or call the po.

sure so that the polie can escort them off the property. Not so that they can get arrested for it. There's a huge difference

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Originally posted by StereoPrincess who is the enforcing body?

city by-law dept...

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Originally posted by Jayx1 city by-law dept...

who enforces the criminal offences tho, not by-laws?

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Originally posted by Form&Funktion I fail to see the consistency here.......what then is this HURT you speak of in the first statement if you do not advocate physical force?

Geez it was a figure of speech. You know, "beat it before I knock your block off." It's an empty threat, but very few people will take it lightly and intentionally escalate things to a potential fistfight. I think this applies ESPECIALLY to dirty old men who *probably* aren't overly confident in their ability to hold their own in hand-to-hand combat.

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The fact that you concede that the laws regarding Pedaphilia are gray at best confirms my point that both the police and the courts are forced to make these borderline decisions on activity that suggests such offences and yet there is no shade of grey in your opposition to their actions towards this man. That is an inbalance in scope my friend.

No Aaron, I'm not drifting into the realm of subjectivism here. I called the laws gray-area because despite being popular and morally easy to digest, they restrict freedom of expression in order to prevent an activity - an activity which does not necessarily cause harm to anyone or violate their own rights. It is in effect codifying morals, which is *precisely* the kind of action that our charter of rights was designed to prevent.

The certainty of my opposition, however, has little to do with whether or not the law is grey. Even if we accept the legitimacy of that law at face value, what this man did was not breaking it in any way or form. The police do not have authority to investigate every single instance of odd behaviour - not unless there is probable cause to believe that a law has been broken, which in this case, there was certainly not!

People have called this a "suspicious activity." Well think about what the word means. One dictionary definition of "suspicion" is The act of suspecting something, especially something wrong, on little evidence or without proof. Most definitions of suspicion hinge on the principle of doubt or uncertainty. Suspicion alone is not enough to warrant a police investigation - there has to be probable cause. Has nobody here heard this phrase before??

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I not once claimed he was guilty of anything...that is the rightful duty of the courts and "due process" to discern, not you or I. But it is clear his actions and subsequant non-cooperation after being confronted forced them to arrest him and in this environment of grey law interpretation...as you admit....it was their right to consider the situation and feel compelled to charge him.

Guilty or not guilty is not the issue here, the police had no right to arrest him or even investigate. Again, how many times must I bring up the words "probable cause?" That is supposed to be the cornerstone of good policing. What probable cause was there here? What criminal act could they have legitimately believed he might have been up to? Nobody has answered this question yet!


Edit: man, this concept should be easy to understand just by watching gritty detective shows. The police are glorified in these shows, but they'll never show the police actually making an arrest before there is a substantial body of evidence on which to do so.

The courts are only there to determine whether or not the evidence is valid and proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That doesn't mean that the police can make arrests without any evidence to begin with.

why was he not charged with resisting arrest if he ran away?

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Originally posted by Flec why was he not charged with resisting arrest if he ran away?

How can you charge someone with resisting arrest when there's no grounds to arrest them in the first place!?

Argh, does nobody understand the concept of a criminal justice system? Even when a crime has ALREADY been committed, the police can't just run around arresting every suspect, they have to have evidence first! In this case, a crime hasn't even been committed!

You know, even if they had found out by ransacking his house that he was a child molester (which I'm sure was what they were hoping to find), I still would stand by my assessment of this. It is absolutely ridiculous that they would make an arrest. Maybe, MAYBE it would justify the police keeping an eye on him for a few days, making sure he doesn't do anything more serious, but that is as far as it should go.

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Originally posted by Jayx1 So these kids were naked in public? If so its the parents that need to be charged.

haven't you ever heard of a program like photoshop?

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Originally posted by Form&Funktion I fail to see the consistency here.......what then is this HURT you speak of in the first statement if you do not advocate physical force? The fact that you concede that the laws regarding Pedaphilia are gray at best confirms my point that both the police and the courts are forced to make these borderline decisions on activity that suggests such offences and yet there is no shade of grey in your opposition to their actions towards this man. That is an inbalance in scope my friend. I not once claimed he was guilty of anything...that is the rightful duty of the courts and "due process" to discern, not you or I. But it is clear his actions and subsequant non-cooperation after being confronted forced them to arrest him and in this environment of grey law interpretation...as you admit....it was their right to consider the situation and feel compelled to charge him.

well said!!!!!

I think we are all forgetting that the police searched his home using a LEGAL search warrant. Therefore, it is irrefutable that clearly they presented enough "just cause" through evidence to convince a judge (who would understand law better than any of us any day of the year) to sign the warrant as legal and valid. So therefore, either both the police force AND the preciding judiciary, both are ignorant and/or brazenly ignoring standard law.......OR.....there WAS just cause!!!!

Diginut: these guys are a lost cause. Let them feel good that theyve busted some wierdo taking pics and lets just hope they never get wrongly arrested.

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Originally posted by Form&Funktion I think we are all forgetting that the police searched his home using a LEGAL search warrant. Therefore, it is irrefutable that clearly they presented enough "just cause" through evidence to convince a judge (who would understand law better than any of us any day of the year) to sign the warrant as legal and valid. So therefore, either both the police force AND the preciding judiciary, both are ignorant and/or brazenly ignoring standard law.......OR.....there WAS just cause!!!!

I could be wrong, but I believe search warrants don't have to be signed by a judge, just a court clerk. The issue often comes into question in many trials whether or not the warrant was lawfully obtained, and often the results of searches are thrown out because the clerk signs off on it without so much as even glancing over the details.

Come now, are you surprised that courts and police departments ignore our established legal principles? Just look at photo radar!

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Diginut: these guys are a lost cause. Let them feel good that theyve busted some wierdo taking pics and lets just hope they never get wrongly arrested.

I was respecting your points and thoughts up until this point. Rather than become unglued with fustration that many intellegent people like yourself may sometimes disagree with your freedom-at-all-cost mentality....let's just see how it plays out shall we? Maybe I'm completely out in space...perhaps I'm right, but either way both sides may learn something here. If they throw it out of court...I'll buy you all a beer and you can dress me up strangely...give me a camera, and I'll take pics of kids myself until I see the point

i see ur point in the fact that this may result in the law going overboard again....

but hey, if i saw someone taking pix of MY kid(s), i'd DEFINITELY have a problem with that person.

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Originally posted by TheVrk but hey, if i saw someone taking pix of MY kid(s), i'd DEFINITELY have a problem with that person.

as would i.... and id have all the raw emotion in the world going through me. But isnt the law supposed to protect one from raw emotion of society and temper it with justice?

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Originally posted by Form&Funktion If they throw it out of court...I'll buy you all a beer and you can dress me up strangely..

Id say its a deal but theyd probably arrest both of us for acting strange and possibly being perverts.

LOL

...and in your case they just might be right LOL j/k

Good talk lads...let's see how it plays out. I see there is a publication ban on the case so info might be tough for a bit.

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Originally posted by Form&Funktion . I see there is a publication ban on the case so info might be tough for a bit.

you gotta wonder why this is eh? Hmmmmm do i smell a setup/photo op?

No...standard procedure for cases like this. Generally, publication bans are for the protection of the accused and/or victims.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Argh, does nobody understand the concept of a criminal justice system? Even when a crime has ALREADY been committed, the police can't just run around arresting every suspect,

Arrest is different from CHARGE!

Capiche? Ok.

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Originally posted by starsearcher Jay - ask yourself this - if you were a father and a strange man would randomly be taking pictures of your kid - would you like that? Now I don't want to say that he should be arrested, but he was resisting arrest and had to be taken down which means he might have been hiding something. Would you like your kid to end up on someone's porn website?

umm the guy was most likely a phoographer and how would u react if someone came up to you while taking pictures and accused u of take pictures to jerk off too?

Imagine how much time would have been saved, had some of the dad's just drag this camera guy out back and beat the shit out him?

I think that's what we need; More shit kickings. Hell, I wanted to hand out a few lately... especially when the bastard driving in front of me was going so slow, that I could have gotten out of my car, caught up to him while walking, and grab him GTA style.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Can somebody explain to me why police needed to be involved? And no, "taking pictures of kids without their parents' permission" is not an illegal act, nor should it be. The law is not here to protect people's paranoia or their enjoyment of the moment. The court system, as far as I know, is present to protect the rights of the accused to a fair trial. Police should only be arresting people who are "suspected" of ACTUALLY committing a crime - it is then the courts which determine if that suspicion is in fact accurate. One might argue that laws against carrying a concealed weapon are unconstitutional, and that is indeed the case down south is it not? Regardless, the difference between concealed weapons and concealed cameras are twofold: 1. Guns are regulated by the government. Cameras are not. 2. Guns can pose an immediate danger to others; cameras cannot. This event should have been left to be handled by Ex personnel. There is no excuse for police arresting someone who was acting weird. Just exactly what was he under suspicion for? I mean hell, you have dirty old men on the streets slobbering after teenage women and sure, it's disturbing, but unless he actually tries to rape one of them it isn't a crime (although in this day and age, I fear it's only a matter of time before it becomes one). On the other hand, it WAS making patrons feel uncomfortable and the Ex should have taken care of it - if they didn't take care of it, they would lose business. That's how things work in the real world when you're not living in a nanny state.

I don't think anyone phoned the police. They just saw officers walking around and it was convenient to get them to see what the guy was up to. My opinion is that his arrest had nothing to do with taking pictures. MarkT has already said it, what got him in trouble was not cooperating with police. Apparently the guy got violent and "A second officer was slightly injured during the arrest."

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Originally posted by Superstar I don't think anyone phoned the police. They just saw officers walking around and it was convenient to get them to see what the guy was up to. My opinion is that his arrest had nothing to do with taking pictures. MarkT has already said it, what got him in trouble was not cooperating with police. Apparently the guy got violent and "A second officer was slightly injured during the arrest."

The point is there was no reason he should have had to cooperate with the police in the first place. The Law does not function as a substitute for premise security. I'm making two simple points:

1) The police should never have been brought into it, whether they were called or tapped on the shoulder.
2) Whichever officers actually made the arrest would not have been out of their league to say to the management, "Hey great, call us when there's a real crime."

What's more, being uncooperative with police when there's no suspicion of actual crime is absolutely not a valid reason for an arrest. If they start to get violent then yes, that will lead to trouble, but as I understand it, he only got violent after they were already trying to arrest him. Our code of civil rights says that we can be as confrontational as we want with police and not have to worry about them using force unless we use force ourselves or we're believed to have committed an actual crime. We don't have to answer questions, or allow unreasonable searches. Sadly, this is no longer the truth in most cases; the police can be as belligerent and abusive as they want and there is nothing ordinary citizens can do about it.

Side note, it was the drug campaigns that truly eroded our civil rights to this extent with respect to police. But I guess that's another discussion entirely.

quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Our code of civil rights says that we can be as confrontational as we want with police and not have to worry about them using force unless we use force ourselves or we're believed to have committed an actual crime. We don't have to answer questions, or allow unreasonable searches.

Unfortunately most people are too ignorant to realize the above point. Once when i was walking home from a bar the cops stopped me and started asking me where i was going etc etc. When they threatened to arrest me i said "for what? walking on the sidewalk at 2am?" And they left...

Go harass criminals!!

quote:

Sadly, this is no longer the truth in most cases; the police can be as belligerent and abusive as they want and there is nothing ordinary citizens can do about it. Side note, it was the drug campaigns that truly eroded our civil rights to this extent with respect to police. But I guess that's another discussion entirely.

Not necissarily. If cops realize that you are well educated on your rights they will usually back off. You just have to be quick and well spoken.

Unfortunately guys, the cops are part preventative/proactive, part reactionary/after the fact. (i'm sure we all have our stories of harassment, myself included)

This is a case where they were proactive in doing their jobs (investigating a public complaint) and if the man hadn't run @ the sight of the police and struggled with them(illegal btw to disobey a command from a police officer) there wouldn't have been a struggle and arrest. He took the wrong course of action when confronted, and payed the consequences. Imagine if any of us were to refuse to pullover when ordered for example, what are the likely outcomes there?

Due to growing up in the small town that became the provincial headquarters for the O.P.P as soon as I turned 16, I've been through the wringer a few times, simply for the way I dressed or car I drove (we can get into the profiling by race/class discussions another time) but I always came out clean by obeying nice commands like stop, exit your vehicle, etc, and then politefully and honestly dealing with the officers and giving them the proper answers and defending my rights when I felt I was being treated unfairly.

This wasn't a paranoid mob-hunt, this was an investigation in progress, and the subject is the one who reacted improperly here, not the police.

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