How safe are your children while they are in school?

How safe are your children while at school? I do not feel that my local school is safe enough. I will be contacting the principal to see if I can do something to make it safer. The following was written by A firearms trainer and police officer who I have a ton of respect for. It all makes sense and should get you thinking more about your local school's safety and emergency management.

The Prevention, Response and Mitigation of School Shootings
by Greg Ellifritz on Friday, September 16, 2011 at 5:44am


These are my notes from a class was taught by Kenneth Hughes, a retired police chief from Forest Park, Ohio and an expert in school shootings. It was a 3-day class hosted by the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy and was very well done. Most of the learning points below are from this class, but have been supplemented by my personal experiences and knowledge from other resources when appropriate.



- School shooters are influenced by past events. They study and learn from the successes and failures of past shooters. Parents, teachers, and students should also be familiar with past shooting events so that they can better prepare for future incidents.



- School shooters generally choose times when people are moving to start shooting. They shoot at the beginning of the day, during open lunch periods, at the end of the day and between classes. Most schools don’t practice lockdown or evacuation drills between classes or during lunch periods because they are difficult to coordinate. Schools should challenge themselves by conducting lockdown drills during these chaotic times.



- Infamy has become a prime motivator for school shooters. Many shooters recognize that they will be captured or killed and want to “live on” through their body count. They will create written “manifestos” and YouTube “training videos”. Occasionally those publications and videos will be released before the shooting actually happens and should be something that police, parents, and school officials must be aware of.



- School shooters are mostly white, non-urban, and victims of bullying, assault, or intimidation. There is no other useful physical “profile”. Most school shooters were known to have difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures. Most also had easy access to weapons.



- Children are not taught about how to use cover and concealment. In school shootings, children will often run to the police in search of assistance. Unfortunately, the police are the ones drawing gunfire from the shooter(s). There have also been shootings (Norway is one example) where the shooters have impersonated police officers.

Police need to learn techniques to distance themselves from students and draw fire away from them. Students need to learn what materials can stop bullets and how to seek cover. They also need to be trained to stay away from the police in a shooting situation.



Let your children know that a backpack loaded with school books is likely to stop handgun bullets. If your child has a backpack loaded with a couple of books, instruct him to put it on (in front of the body if necessary) between himself and the shooter as improvised body armor. Better yet, outfit your child’s backpack with armor panels from old bullet resistant vests purchased cheaply on EBay. Even if the vest panel is expired, I’ve never had one fail to stop a bullet that it’s rated to stop despite the panel’s age. I’ve shot vest panels as old as 25 years and they still work. As long as the panel has not been submerged in water or left out in the sun for extensive time periods, it will still work.



- People who haven’t thought about safe areas run AWAY from danger during shootings. They end up in sub-optimal positions like hiding under beds or locking themselves in bathroom stalls. In the event of gunfire, people should run TOWARD safety, preferably pre-identified hard cover.



- Precursor homicides are not unusual with school shootings. The shooters will occasionally kill a family member before going to the school for the attack. The shootings in Bethel, AK and Thurston, OR; and Red Lake, MN are some of the more famous examples. If homicides are discovered by police and teenage family members are not accounted for, the school that the teenager attends should be secured.



- Many school shooters use rifles to commit their crimes. The general public doesn’t understand the range of an average rifle and won’t understand how far they need to evacuate. The instructor suggests that when training the non-shooting public, we should inform them that a scope sighted rifle is dangerous out to 1000 yards and a non-scoped rifle is dangerous out to 300 yards. The information may not be 100% accurate but is a good guideline to start with. Do you know how far away 1000 yards is from any side of your child's school?



- Kip Kinkel had over 1100 rounds on his person during his shooting at Thurston High School. Cho had over 800 unfired rounds on his person when he died at Virginia Tech. Thomas Hamilton had 743 rounds on his person when he shot up a school in Dunblane Scotland. School shooters are researching past shootings and planning to exceed the body counts of their predecessors. They are doing better jobs planning their assaults than schools and police are doing planning their responses.



- One opportunity for school shootings (that hasn’t occurred yet) is during a planned fire drill. Every school has fire drills once a month and they are often pre-planned. Does your child’s school have a plan to deal with a shooter who is shooting at students who have amassed outside waiting for the “all clear” signal during a fire drill?



- Several shootings have been stopped when the shooter has been calmly confronted by another student or teacher telling him to stop shooting. While it probably shouldn’t be a person’s first choice of tactics (escaping or fighting will generally have better results), it can work when potential victims have no other options. Some teachers and students don’t have the temperament to fight back or lack the physical ability to escape. Train those people to talk. Telling the shooter: “Stop shooting. That’s enough for today. Put the gun down” may work and is a better strategy than hiding under a desk.



- Many school shooters are physically stopped by their potential victims while the shooter has a gun malfunction or is in the act of reloading. Students and teachers should be trained in basic firearms operation specifically how to recognize when a shooter has a malfunction or is in the act of reloading.



- With the increase in numbers of School Resource Officers (police officers assigned to a school, also called SROs), most recent school shooters are taking their presence into account. School shooters are wearing body armor and helmets (anticipating armed resistance), scheduling their attacks when the officers are on a lunch break, or targeting the officer as their first act. School resource officers do not operate in a “safe” environment when they are forced to respond to killers armed with long guns, body armor and explosives. SROs must be armed, trained, and have access to rifles.



- The recent school shootings at the Platte Canyon High School, the West Nickel Mine Amish School, and Virginia Tech all involved the shooter using some method to barricade doors. This both slows law enforcement response and limits the victims’ opportunities for escape. This should be a warning sign that teachers, students and cops should look for. If you see a student carrying chains, locks, zip ties, handcuffs or any type of lumber at school, you should immediately call the police and trigger a lockdown or evacuation procedure. Patrol officers should be trained to breech barricades and have the equipment needed to do that.



- In most active shooter events, the paramedics and EMS will not make entry, even after the incident is over. Police and uninjured victims will need to carry the victims to a casualty collection point outside of the building. Most gunshot injuries will not be aggravated by moving the victim. The leading cause of preventable death in a battlefield environment is uncontrolled bleeding. BE PREPARED TO CARRY THE VICTIMS OUT! Don’t allow victims to bleed to death waiting for the paramedics to respond.



- In Virginia Tech, the student victims of the shooting used vastly different survival strategies. Students in room 206 were quiet and played dead. This initially (after the first wave of shooting) worked, until Cho figured out that people were still alive and went back and shot all the people laying on the floor. He made two additional trips back into the room to shoot the students laying on the floor. Everyone was shot. All but three died.

In room 204, a professor (a former Israeli soldier) held the door closed and ordered the students to jump out of the second story window. All of the students who jumped survived (although 6 out of the 10 were injured). The professor was eventually killed and all the students who didn’t jump were shot.



In room 205, the students barricaded the door securely with tables (the doors opened inward). Cho could not get in. Even though Cho shot through the door, no one was hit. Not a single person was injured in that room.

Two students were shot, fled downstairs and entered an empty classroom. They wrote the word “Wounded” on a piece of paper and taped it up over the classroom window, waiting for help. Even though it was the first floor and they could have escaped out a door or window, they didn’t. They hid and waited for help. Luckily they weren’t shot again. Two other students hid in an unlocked bathroom stall. If the police hadn’t arrived as soon as they did (forcing Cho to kill himself), both of these groups of students would have likely been killed. Unless one has preplanned a response, irrational actions like this are common.



- Hiding under desks does not keep people safe. It didn’t work in Columbine and it didn’t work at Virginia Tech. Desks generally don’t stop bullets. If your active shooter plan involves hiding under desks for protection, you need to reconsider your options.



- In Virginia Tech, students rationalized the sounds of gunfire as construction noises. Students in Columbine initially thought the gunfire was caused by firecrackers being lit as a student prank. The students at Beslan thought balloons were popping. Students and teachers in shooting events universally express the thought that “I couldn’t believe it was happening”. This denial and rationalization leads to a paralysis. The waiting for verification of actual gunfire takes time that can better be used doing other things.



If you are in a school and think you hear gunfire, don’t wait. Don’t delay while trying to figure out what’s happening. If you think it’s gunfire, ACT! Immediately barricade the doors or escape. The people in active shooter events who wait around to be sure that the noises they are hearing are actually gunfire typically delay so long that they no longer have any viable options.



- “Playing dead is not an option unless there are NO other options.”



- 99.5% of school shooters told at least on other student about their plans for the attack before they acted. Harvard University did a study to determine why the students who knew about the shooting plans didn’t tell the authorities. The students reported that they didn’t believe that the shooter would actually follow through with the plan. Teach your children to report anyone who talks about planning a school shooting.



- Communication is one key to successful resolution of a school shooting event. It has been a serious problem in the past. The instructor suggested giving select school officials a police radio and teaching them how to use it so that they can have direct communication with the police in an emergency. He also suggested that police and fire dispatchers be given a direct call number to school officials so that the dispatcher doesn’t have to go through secretaries or “phone trees” in an emergency.



Another important communication technique is the police/fire “Reverse 911” system. During a school shooting, reverse 911 calls should be made to the community instructing parents how and where to respond. Parents will want to do something and if they aren’t given logical alternatives, they will respond to the scene and complicate emergency response. Schools should create an alternate emergency release plan that involves transporting unaffected students to a safe location for release. The parents need to know where this location is and how to pick up their children.



- Check on your school’s utility access. Make sure students don’t have access to power controls. There have been several averted school shootings where shooters had planned to initiate the attack by cutting off power and phones to the school. This would limit communication, deactivate alarms, and alter the function of electrically controlled doors. In addition it will cause great confusion among the shooters victims and make emergency response much more difficult.



- Many school doors cannot be locked from the inside. If they have commercial door handles that are move downward on both the inside and outside simultaneously, they can be blocked on the inside which prevents someone outside from opening the door. A 2x4 with one end cut into a “u-shape” and wedged under the inside door latch can cheaply and easily secure the door from the inside.



- Schools should have better door and window numbering systems. Numbers should be on the outside AND INSIDE of every classroom door and window. All exterior doors should also be numbered. If students are locked down in a certain room, they need to be able to easily see the room number (from the inside), so they can better direct emergency responders to help them. Cops and firemen can also use room numbers written outside of windows to identify alternate entry/exit points.



- Every school classroom should have a survival kit. The kit needs to have different supplies depending on the age and needs of the students. All kits should contain resources to barricade doors (wedges, ropes, etc), paper and writing instruments to communicate silently both within the classroom and with emergency responders outside, medical supplies suitable for treating gunshot wounds (bandages and tourniquets), and alternate communication devices (cell phones or radios). Having food, water, and entertainment options (for younger children) are also useful. A strong flashlight and dust masks are also useful items to have in the kit in case of a power outage or if the shooter is also using explosives. Smoke, dust and darkness are very common in more extended school shootings.



If the classroom has a drywall wall separating it from another classroom or hallway, consider adding a razor knife, hammer, or small hatchet to the emergency kit. These items will allow you to cut through the drywall to create an alternate escape route. Have a method to break window glass to facilitate escape as well. Glass breaking window punches are available for sale online for around $5.



If the classroom is on the second or third floor and has a window, adding ropes, rope ladders or some alternate method of safely lowering students from the window to the survival kit is essential.



- On lockdowns, students and teachers should place desks, chairs and furniture in the pathway of the potential shooter to slow his entry into the room



- The idea that school shooters are always trying to “get even” with people that have bullied them is not accurate. Killers have initiated shooting events by targeting certain individuals, but generally they generally soon move on to the school’s population as a whole. In Columbine, one of the first victims was a student with Down’s syndrome who had never bullied anyone.



- The Beslan school massacres ended with over 700 injured people (not counting the 331 dead). What American police or fire department has the ability to handle a mass casualty event of this size? If terrorists conduct a similar takeover here, we likely wouldn’t be any better able to respond than the Russians were.



- Lockdowns are generally helpful if the school is located in an area with a rapidly responding police force. It provides temporary marginal protection and denies some areas to potential shooters. Lockdown, however, is not the only answer. Some shooters will exploit lockdowns to facilitate their aims. The shooter in Red Lake MN killed a security guard purposely to trigger a lockdown. He wanted the lockdown so that he could easily find and target the victims he wanted to kill. After the lockdown was triggered, he went to the classroom where he knew his victim would be hiding, shot a hole in the glass window of the door and entered the locked down room. He then killed the teacher and 5 students before he was shot by police.



The lockdown does have a deterrent and area denial effect, but it will not stop a determined shooter.



- Upon review of many school shooting events, I noticed that the majority of school shooters carry extra firearms, ammunition, or explosives in backpacks or duffle bags. This seems to happen over and over again. Although backpacks are a common sight in schools, people should pay attention to students or other people carrying backpacks that don’t fit the environment. If the packs seem larger than normal, much heavier than average, or carried in a manner inconsistent with the way other students are carrying them, it might be a valuable early warning sign. A school policy that limits the carrying of backpacks between classes would help to more easily identify students who are carrying weapons and ammunition.



- In longer term school shooter events (lasting several hours like Case Western or Beslan), the closed circuit TV cameras in the schools will be incredibly valuable in terms of locating the shooter. Oftentimes police don’t think about utilizing this resource. It is a good idea to pre- identify the location where the video monitors are located and who can show officers how to monitor the cameras in any school and have that information available to responding officers.



If teachers or administrators can see the shooter via closed circuit TV before police arrival, they can use the school PA system to direct police to the shooter’s location. They can also yell verbal commands to the shooter using the same PA system. Imagine the impact a voice over the PA system could have on a shooter if the voice is saying “We know where you are. We can see you in front of room 242. It’s over. Set the gun down. The police are here, etc.” The use of the building PA system is an underutilized resource in school shootings.



- In early school shootings, the shooter would kill himself after shooting a number of people. More recent shootings haven’t followed this trend. The most recent trend is that shooters plan to engage police or citizens in gunfights and continue to kill people until they are wounded. It is only after they are wounded that they kill themselves.



- Active shooter events in schools are not isolated to the United States. In fact, Canadian police were the first worldwide to develop an active shooter response strategy. In addition to Canada, school shooting incidents have been reported in Israel, Germany, Finland, Scotland, and Brazil. Even Chinese schools have experienced school violence with multiple knife homicides.



- With few exceptions, the shooters don’t have an escape plan. They will continue to kill until they encounter effective resistance.



- The latest trends of active shooters worldwide involve the use of explosives, both as distractions and as methods to enhance body counts. Cops, students, and educators need to be better prepared to recognize and deal with bombs.



- Technology will be an increasing factor in future active shooter events. Besides the increasing use of the internet as a training tool to research past events and weapon construction, terrorists are employing cell phones and media outlets to stay one step ahead of the police while the shooting incidents are taking place.



- Resources the instructor suggests you should study in order to better understand the phenomenon of school shootings:



- “Shooter Down”- a book about the Virginia Tech shootings by John Giduck

- “Terror at Beslan”- a book about the Beslan Russia school terrorist massacre by John Giduck

-“The Children of Beslan”- a BBC news documentary of the Beslan event

- “Elephant”- a fictional movie about the planning of a school shooting

- “I Choose to be Happy”- a book about the Paducah Kentucky shooting written by Missy Jenkins

- “Nineteen Minutes”- a fictional account of the planning of a school shooting by Jodi Picoult

- “Zero Day”- a fictional movie based on the details of several actual school shootings

- “A Columbine Survivor’s Story” by Marjorie and Peggy Lindholm





If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them here or via email at Greg1095@yahoo.com

Now we can carry in LA

Your Ohio License to Carry a Concealed Handgun is now recognized in the State of Louisiana, thanks to an agreement signed between the two states. Ohioans now have reciprocity with twenty one states. We need to get PA next.

The agreement is effective immediately. You should remember that the laws of the state you are in is the law that you must follow when armed or you must use deadly force. You must know the law and obey the law of the jurisdiction that you're in.

You can read the signed agreement on the Ohio Attorney General's Website

Something just doesn't seem right.

The following is an e-mail that I will not name the place, other than it happened in East Cleveland.

Security has notified us of the following information:

At approximately 8:45 AM this morning, two REMOVED employees were robbed at gunpoint. The employees left the REMOVED campus on their break and were sitting in an SUV, which was parked off-campus along a side street, approximately two blocks away. While on their break, a young man in his twenties approached the car, robbed them at gunpoint and then fled. The employees returned to campus and reported the incident. No one was physically injured. The REMOVED Police and REMOVED Police Departments are investigating the crime.


The Department of Protective Services would like to remind all employees to always observe the following safety practices:

*
Be aware of your surroundings at all times.
*
If for some reason you find that you need to park/stop off-campus, always try to stop in a busy, well-lit area with clear lines of sight.
*
Take advantage of the secure and convenient parking provided at all REMOVED locations.
*
If you see something that seems suspicious or out of place, immediately move to a safe area and report it, whether it is on or off-campus.

The REMOVED Police Department is available to help 24 x 7

Had the employees that were robbed been armed and stopped the robbery or ended the robbers career early, would have been fired. They would have been fired for having a firearm in the vehicle while on the employers property. See related story here.

Aside from the facts stated above, something just doesn't seem right. I think these employees may have been up to no good. Why would you drive 2 blocks away from work and park on the side of the road during your break?? This facility has free parking so it's not that. Hmmmm... maybe they were looking for narcotics? East Cleveland Aint the safest place to park and take a break.

I am now an NRA Certified Instructor

I passed all the exams on Sunday August, 28th 2011. I will soon be able to teach the requirement for you to get your Concealed Handgun License in Ohio. I just need to wait until my certification arrives in the mail from the NRA. I will be offering other classes at that time as well. The exams were 50 questions each. I scored 100% and 95%. I am very excited. Thank you Dan, your course was fun and informative and I look forward to being able to pass proper knowledge,skill,and attitude for safely handling and shooting firearms on to others.

If you are looking to get your CHL or just some basic training let me know, I'll get you trained.

Stay Safe, Stay Alert, Stay Armed

xpd54's guide to traffic stop legal issues

PUBLISHED HERE WITH AUTHOR PERMISSION

Original Forum Post HERE

by xpd54 » Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:50 am
Ok, so when I first talked about a flow chart (in this thread: http://www.ohioccwforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54723) I didn’t realize the magnitude of what I was going to do. So the flow chart is out. What I am going to do is break down the legalities of traffic stops and what cops can legally do into sections and post each section.

But first, I AM NOT A LAWYER. I am a cop. I have a BA in Criminal Justice, 15 years on the job and 10 years of experience training cops in traffic stops, use of force, firearms and other topics. I will try to give as much case law as possible so you can read for yourself what the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has to say about what law enforcement is allowed to do. I am going to write this assuming the reader has absolutely no idea about the legalities of traffic stops, so if you know a bunch of this already, I apologize. We are dealing specifically with traffic stops, but many of the legal principles pertain to other encounters as well. Most of the court cases I am going to reference are SCOTUS cases, since they pertain to the whole country. I tried to be as accurate as possible, so if I made any mistakes, I will apologize up front.

So let’s get started.

Before we go too far, let me explain binding precedent. Court decisions are only binding within the jurisdiction of the court. Obviously, SCOTUS decisions are binding throughout the US and its territories. However, if the SCOTUS has not ruled on a particular case or topic, the legalities of a particular set of circumstances may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, in Ohio we have the following court jurisdictions (dealing with criminal matters, there are other civil courts) which may affect the legality of a particular action performed by a police officer:
- local municipal courts (misdemeanor courts)
- Courts of Common Pleas (the number in each county depends on the population of the county in question)
- 12 different District Courts of Appeals (each covers roughly 4-8 counties)
- Supreme Court of Ohio (SCO)
- Several different US District Courts
- 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals
- Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)

Where I work, my actions are going to be judged by the Xenia Municipal Court or one of the Greene County Courts of Common Pleas, the Second District Court of Appeals, SCO, possibly the US District Court – Southern District of Ohio (Dayton), the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals and the SCOTUS. In that order. A ruling from a court that is not one of those courts does not have a DIRECT bearing on what I can or cannot do. One of those courts that judge my actions may use another courts decision as part of their own decision, but that other decision does not affect me directly. So what is legal for me to do may not be allowed in Cleveland, or Georgia, or California or vice versa.

LEGAL JUSTIFICATION FOR A STOP:

First let’s talk about the LEGAL reasons for which a police officer may stop you while you are driving a car. There are 2 main reasons (there are others, but these are the main two): reasonable articulable suspicion (RAS) and probable cause (PC). The MINIMUM legal requirement necessary to stop a car is RAS, NOT PC. U.S. v. Cortez, 1981. http://supreme.justia.com/us/449/411/case.html Many people (including many cops) are confused by this.
So what is RAS? In the Cortez decision, the court said this:
“In determining what cause is sufficient to authorize police to stop a person, the totality of the circumstances -- the whole picture -- must be taken into account. Based upon that whole picture, the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity. The process of assessing all of the circumstances does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities, and the evidence collected must be weighed as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement. Also, the process must raise suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing.”

What can be confusing about RAS is that it is not always an exact science, for lack of a better term, like an obvious traffic violation. RAS can take many forms. I’ll list a few.
- a radio “be on the look out” (BOLO) concerning a suspect vehicle in which the vehicle stopped matches the suspect vehicle. Usually this would be a partial description – approximate year, color, type, etc.
- a caller who calls the police about a suspicious vehicle or a vehicle being operated recklessly. The caller MAY give enough information to justify a stop. Otherwise, the LEO who responds may need to develop their own RAS. An anonymous call, BY ITSELF, does not justify a stop based on RAS. Alabama v. White, (1990) http://supreme.justia.com/us/496/325/case.html If the Officer corroborates the information, it may be good enough for a stop.
- Officers can develop RAS based on their observations of specific articulable facts and circumstances that they observe. Their training and experience may make the difference between being legally justified or not. For example, I spent four years working narcotics. During that time, I videotaped, witnessed or participated in thousands of drug deals. Based on that experience, the courts will look at my education and experience when it comes to drug dealing in a different light than they would a rookie office 2 weeks out of the academy. So if I’m driving down the street and I witness what I recognize from my training and experience as a hand to hand drug deal, I may be justified in making a stop based on RAS. A rookie who saw the same thing could not draw on that same experience to articulate the facts necessary to make the stop justified.

Other than RAS, PC is the most common legal justification for a traffic stop. PC in its most common form would probably be the traffic law violation.
So what is PC? In the landmark case Carroll v. United States (1925), SCOTUS defined PC as: "If the facts and circumstances before the officer are such as to warrant a man of prudence and caution in believing that the offense has been committed, it is sufficient." http://supreme.justia.com/us/267/132/case.html Clear as mud, huh?

Other types of PC could be:
- a radio “be on the look out” (BOLO) concerning a suspect vehicle in which the vehicle stopped matches the suspect vehicle. This description would have more detail that the RAS version. A license plate, or an Officer may be familiar with the vehicle because he’s dealt with the person/vehicle before.
- After an officer watches an obvious crime in progress

LEGAL ORDERS DURING THE STOP:

Once the Officer has stopped the vehicle, the SCOTUS has said that certain actions on the part of the police are permissible under the 4th Amendment.

- Pennsylvania v. Mimms (1977) – SCOTUS said that an Officer can order a driver out of the vehicle without any other justification other than the concern for the Officer’s safety: “The order to get out of the car, issued after the respondent was lawfully detained, was reasonable, and thus permissible under the Fourth Amendment. The State's proffered justification for such order -- the officer's safety -- is both legitimate and weighty, and the intrusion into respondent's personal liberty occasioned by the order, being, at most, a mere inconvenience, cannot prevail when balanced against legitimate concerns for the officer's safety.” http://supreme.justia.com/us/434/106/case.html Now, you may wonder why I would want to order someone out of a vehicle that I stopped for a license plate light being out or some other simple violation. Well, there are a couple of reasons. I’ve almost been hit while I was standing at somebody’s drivers’ window. If I can’t get to the passenger side window, I may very well order the driver to come back to someplace that’s safer for me. OR, if I stop a vehicle that has seriously darkened window tint, I may order the driver to come back and talk to me.

- Maryland v. Wilson (1997) – the SCOTUS extended Mimms to the passengers of the vehicle as well. They said: “On the public interest side, the same weighty interest in officer safety is present regardless of whether the occupant of the stopped car is a driver, as in Mimms, or a passenger, as here. Indeed, the danger to an officer from a traffic stop is likely to be greater when there are passengers in addition to the driver in the stopped car. On the personal liberty side, the case for passengers is stronger than that for the driver in the sense that there is probable cause to believe that the driver has committed a minor vehicular offense, but there is no such reason to stop or detain passengers. But as a practical matter, passengers are already stopped by virtue of the stop of the vehicle, so that the additional intrusion upon them is minimal.” http://supreme.justia.com/us/519/408/


SEARCHES AND “FRISKS” OF THE VEHICLE:

Now, this is the area which most people want to know about and have the most questions and concerns. The SCOTUS over the course of the last 2+ centuries has determined that there are 13 exceptions to the search warrant requirement afforded by the 4th Amendment. Several apply to traffic stops. They are:
- Stop and frisk
- Vehicle searched based on probable cause
- Consent
- Administrative
- Probation/Parole
- Incident to arrest

FRISK:

Many people are under the misconception that a “search” of a vehicle requires PC. That not exactly correct. A limited search or “frisk” is permissible without PC under certain circumstances. In the case Michigan v. Long (1983) http://supreme.justia.com/us/463/1032/case.html, the SCOTUS stated that an officer could search the lunge area of the vehicle (passenger compartment) for weapons if there is RAS that there is a weapon readily accessible in it. This decision goes hand in hand with the landmark Terry v. Ohio (1968) http://supreme.justia.com/us/392/1/case.html decision which allows the frisk of a person for weapons based on RAS. The requirements set forth in Terry apply to the Long decision. The Officer must:
- Have articulable facts that the person could be armed
- Limit the search to areas in the vehicle which could readily conceal a weapon (i.e., they couldn’t search a film canister – which is commonly used to carry narcotics)

The Long decision also went on to say that if an Officer finds contraband during a legal “frisk” of the vehicle, they are not required to ignore the contraband (drugs in that case) and that the “frisk” then evolved into a search based on probable cause.


PROBABLE CAUSE:

A warrantless search of the vehicle based on probable cause is permissible under the Carroll decision referenced earlier. It is considered an exigent circumstance. In it’s US v. Ross decision http://supreme.justia.com/us/456/798/case.html, the SCOTUS said that a search of a vehicle based on PC can be as thorough as a search conducted with a search warrant. Probable cause can be established by numerous means. Items observed in plain sight, odors sniffed by “plain smell”, the list goes on and on. PC for a stop does not automatically mean there is PC for a search. Like RAS, it can be extremely situation dependent on what equals PC.

CONSENT:

A driver who is stopped for a valid reason can give consent to search the vehicle. Consent can be revoked at any time, which means that the person granting consent needs to be in a position to revoke that consent. For example, if the driver of a vehicle grants consent to search the vehicle, then is placed in the back of a patrol car with no Officers staying with him and is not in a position to tell any of the officers that he is withdrawing consent and the officers find something after he tries to revoke the consent, the evidence located should be excluded as “fruit from the poisonous tree”. However, if consent is granted and the Officer finds something that develops probable cause of his own, he no longer needs the consent to search the vehicle. The search has evolved from a consent search to a search based on probable cause.

ADMINISTRATIVE:

In it’s decision in the case South Dakota v. Opperman, the SCOTUS said that the administrative inventory of a vehicle prior to towing is not unreasonable: “When vehicles are impounded, police routinely follow caretaking procedures by securing and inventorying the cars' contents. These procedures have been widely sustained as reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Most agencies have policies in place regarding the inventorying of a towed vehicle because of this decision. Items found during this inventory can be used against the owner. http://supreme.justia.com/us/428/364/case.html Also see it’s Michigan v. Thomas decision. http://supreme.justia.com/us/458/259/case.html

PROBATION/PAROLE:

People on probation or parole give up their 4th Amendment rights most of the time. Probation/parole Officers can search the residence or vehicle of their probationer anytime they wish. Be careful if you have a family member in that situation that wants to live with you. Probation/Parole Officers can search the common areas of a house along with the living quarters of their parolee/probationer. Police Officers do not automatically have permission to search a probationer’s vehicle. We can assist a probation or parole Officer with their search, but we cannot do so of our own accord.

SEARCHES INCIDENT TO ARREST:

In a 2009 decision the SCOTUS drastically changed the rules when it comes to the search of a vehicle incident to the arrest of the driver or occupant. The decision is Arizona v. Gant http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-542.ZO.html. Prior to Gant, Officers could search a vehicle incident to the arrest of the driver or passenger, regardless of what the arrest was for (arrested for driving under suspension, search car, find marijuana, charge driver for marijuana). After Gant (I’m making this as simplistic as I can and not going into all the nitty gritty details), an Officer can really only search the vehicle if they can articulate that the vehicle may contain evidence of the crime for which the driver/occupant was arrested. There are some other issues at stake, but they are less important.

I have obviously condensed this topic to its most basic form. I had to, otherwise I’d have to write a whole book on the subject.

So there you go, xpd54’s guide to traffic stop legalities. I’m sure I’ve created as many questions and I have given answers.

About the Author:
Username: xpd54
Location: Dayton Area
Occupation: LEO, firearms instructor
Interests: 3 gun

Packing Heat: More Women Shooting And Buying Guns

More women are packing heat these days. I think this is great. ALL WOMEN, should pack heat as far as I'm concerned. The rapists / thugs will have a harder time picking victims. Plus, to me there's almost nothing hotter than a woman with a gun on her hip, well, I can think of a few things. If you have not taken your wife/girlfriend/fiance to the range you better do it now. You protect yourself she should learn to protect you both.

Watch this video of a young lady teaching you how to field strip your Glock.

PEOPLE ASK WHY?

PEOPLE ASK WHY?

Why Carry a Gun?

My old grandpa said to me ‘Son, there comes a time in every man’s life when
he stops bustin’ knuckles and starts bustin’ caps and
usually it’s when he becomes too old or smart enough not to take an ass whoopin.’

I don’t carry a gun to kill people.
I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don’t carry a gun to scare people.
I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m paranoid.
I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m evil.
I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the
world.

I don’t carry a gun because I hate the government.
I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m angry.
I carry a gun so that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life hating
myself for failing to be prepared.

I don’t carry a gun because I want to shoot someone.
I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on
a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m a cowboy.
I carry a gun because, when I die and go to heaven, I want to be a cowboy.

I don’t carry a gun to make me feel like a man.
I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones
they love.

I don’t carry a gun because I feel inadequate.
I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.

I don’t carry a gun because I love it.
I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to
me.

Police protection is an oxymoron.
Free citizens must protect themselves.
Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the
crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.

Personally, I carry a gun because I’m too young to die and too old to take
an ass whoopin’…..author unknown (but obviously brilliant)

**********************************************
A LITTLE HISTORY

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about
20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
——————————

In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million
Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
——————————

Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of
13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded
up and exterminated.
——————————

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million
political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
——————————

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan
Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
—- ————- ————-

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000
Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
——————————

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million
educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
—————————–

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because
of gun control: 56 million.
——————————

You won’t see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians
disseminating this information.

Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes,
gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens.

Take note my fellow Americans, before it’s too late!

The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind them of
this history lesson.

With guns, we are ‘citizens’. Without them, we are ‘subjects’.

During WW II the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew
most Americans were ARMED!

If you value your freedom, please spread this anti gun-control message to
all of your friends.

SWITZERLAND ISSUES EVERY HOUSEHOLD A GUN!
SWITZERLAND’S GOVERNMENT TRAINS EVERY ADULT THEY ISSUE A RIFLE.
SWITZERLAND HAS THE LOWEST GUN RELATED CRIME RATE OF ANY CIVILIZED COUNTRY
IN THE WORLD!!!

DON’T LET OUR GOVERNMENT WASTE MILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS IN AN EFFORT TO
MAKE ALL LAW ABIDING CITIZENS AN EASY TARGET.