Unlawful Orders From Police
Bob Mionske is a former Olympian and cycling attorney/advocate out of Portland. Among other things, Bob now writes a column for Bicycling Magazine relating to bicycling and the law. Bob's most recent column involves a story about a cyclist who was ordered to, "Get off the f#@%*$! road!" by a police officer in Ohio. The cyclist was later violently arrested for failure to comply with an officer's order among other things.
This article addresses an interesting point. What do you do when an officer, out of ignorance or intention, orders or stops you, referring to laws that simply don't exist?
Bob addresses the legal issues involved in an officer giving an order that is based on a misconception of traffic laws:
"...if the cyclist hasn't broken a traffic law, then the cyclist can't be lawfully arrested, and the order to pull over is itself unlawful. Therefore, if the order is unlawful, the cyclist is not required to obey the order, and can't be arrested for failure to comply.... For most of us, I suspect it's easier to just quietly comply with a law enforcement officer's misguided attempts to enforce laws that don't exist. Sure, we know the officer is wrong, but do we really want to go to jail to make that point, instead of wherever it is we happen to be going at that moment?"
While Bob recognizes some of the practical problems of disobeying an officer, I would point out that once you disobey the officer you can probably expect the situation to escalate exponentially. It is important in your dealings with police that you always act respectfully. Further, if it's just your word against the officer's you may have a hard time convincing a judge of your version of the facts. While, as Bob points out, you may have a technical legal basis to disobey an unlawful order, that probably doesn't mean much to someone who is willing to beat you down or send you to jail over a matter of ego.
If you are deprived of your civil rights by a police officer there may be a civil cause of action against the police officer and/or the governmental entity of which he/she is an agent. This isn't something to bring up at the scene. It will probably only make things worse. Few things will throw someone into a rage better than a well-founded announcement that they are going to be sued. If you find yourself in such a situation you should do your best to keep from escalating things.
What you see is a man disobeying the police with his hands in his pockets
