'Not Going to Do This Anymore': Fed-Up Prosecutor Is Done With BS Traffic Stops

[MissMillie]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/not-going-to-do-this-anymore-fed-up-prosecutor-is-done-with-bs-traffic-stops/ar-AAOeFpC?ocid=U483DHP&li=BBnbfcL

When asked for his license and registration, Castile told officer Jeronimo Yanez he had a licensed gun. Yanez, fearful Castile might reach for it, told him not to. But despite Castile’s insistence that he was not reaching for the gun, Yanez fired seven shots from close range, killing him. Later it was revealed Yanez and another officer in the car believed Castile resembled a robbery suspect before they pulled him over.

*snip*

In honor of Castile, Choi announced Wednesday his office will no longer prosecute felony cases resulting from minor traffic stops for violations like an expired registration, overly tinted windows or broken lights. The change, Choi said, is a deliberate attempt to cut down on what he said are unnecessary stops by police of people of color that too often spiral into fatal incidents.

“I'm not going to do this anymore,” Choi told The Daily Beast. “I am not going to perpetuate these unjust practices that disproportionately impact my community.”

**************************************

Outstanding!

[gratuitous]

1. If the cops in Ramsey County are like Portland's cops, they'll just quit working

Pulling over minority drivers for penny ante violations and hassling them into felonies is one of the perks of being a cop, from what I can tell. After the Multnomah County D.A. said he wasn't going to prosecute downtown demonstrators for jay walking and the like, Portland's cops have just given up on enforcing the law.

[LiberalFighter]

4. If they won't do their job properly. Fire them.

[Mosby]

6. They can't because of the police unions.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Not Sure About That

Unless somebody in the city administration is a complete moron, the CBA would include language about refusal to work.
I worked for a company with many unionized plants. Because I worked in nearly all of them, I used to get booklet copies of the contacts.
They always included provisions for dismissal for refusing to do the job.
Complete refusal to carry out one's duties, for any reason other than safety, was something the union couldn't help with, because they already agreed on paper, that it was a cause for summary termination.
I can't say for sure, but I'd find it shocking that any CBA didn't include such language.
I understand, and agree with, your displeasure with the actions of cop unions. And, they're not to be trusted. But, failure to perform the duties seems pretty clear cut.

[quakerboy]

10. They are smart enough to not actually say thats what they are doing.

Instead they show up VEERRRY late, and then seek out anyone scared or traumatized to explain to them that its all because those terrible politicians defunded them, they just dont have the funding to respond to crime anymore.

They are not doing their jobs.. but they still want to get paid for doing their jobs.

[Demovictory9]

2. Good

[SallyHemmings]

3. I hope this stance spreads across the country

[KS Toronado]

5. I'm with you.......

minor problem? they have tag number and can send a notice in the mail

[ProfessorGAC]

8. They Could Do That With Nearly Everything

Absent reckless driving or DUI, which is immediately dangerous to other motorists, they can & should just send tickets in the mail.
Toll roads & bridges do that for people using transponder lanes without the device routinely. Red light cameras are used for right turns without a full stop.
There's no escalation possible & the computer likely isn't programmed to profile.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. This.

[sop]

25. They installed red light cameras in the busiest Miami intersections a few years ago,

Last edited Thu Sep 9, 2021, 04:34 PM - Edit history (1)

hoping to end the epidemic of serious accidents caused by red light-running scofflaws. After a few influential, well-connected people complained after receiving tickets in the mail, many of the devices were taken down. Apparently, laws are unjust when equally enforced. Only minorities being profiled by cops deserve to be punished.

[MissMillie]

11. I got screwed by that once.

I had a rental car because my car was in the body shop. Never left the state.

Somehow when the New Jersey Turnpike tried was looking to collect on an unpaid toll, the rental car company gave them my name. It turned out that the date of the turnpike infraction was a full year (to the day) of when I had a rental.

Took me MONTHS to straighten it out.

[dsc]

12. I can't think of any other tax in which

armed agents come and arrest you for non payment unless it is for years and years. If you don't pay income taxes, the IRS sends letters and eventually garnishes your wages. Why can't this be done with expired tags?

[yardwork]

19. This is an excellent point.

Everything is digital now. The county knows the minute our tags expire. Why is enforcement left up to random police stops? Other property taxes aren't handled this way.

I suspect it's because communities WANT to give police this excuse to pull some people over.

[MichMan]

13. So if they stop someone for expired tags that ends up fleeing and kills someone..

in a high speed crash, the prosecutor won't prosecute them for it?

[MissMillie]

14. No, I don't think that's the deal

Although, the article doesn't specify exactly what this prosecutor means.

[MichMan]

15. Said no prosecutions of felonies resulting from routine traffic stops.

The example I gave would surely fit that definition.

[MissMillie]

16. Yes it would

but I still don't think that your scenario is what he means.

[plimsoll]

21. Excellent use of reductio ad absurdum.

So are you proposing that the police just shoot people who have expired tabs to prevent your scenario?

[yardwork]

17. May his policy be replicated nationwide.

[Ford_Prefect]

18. Someone needs to arrest the MSN Editor of this piece. You don't know this is in Minnesota

until the 3rd paragraph.

The original piece from Daily Beast has it up front under the headline.

John Choi, the Minnesota prosecutor who charged the cop who killed Philando Castile, is already earning enemies for his groundbreaking new policy.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fed-up-ramsay-county-prosecutor-john-choi-is-done-with-minor-traffic-stops-after-philando-castile-death?ref=home

I guess MSN doesn't give a fuck about that kind of fact.

[KS Toronado]

20. Many years ago someone running for President was going to solve crime in our time

Or had some catchy phrase like that, and I don't remember who it was on the campaign trail promoting
the idea. But they kept repeating about putting more officers on the streets and all I could think of was
if they truly wanted to solve crime......they should hire and train detectives to go after the really bad
lawbreakers, not go looking for traffic infractions.

Anyone remember who ran on that?

[OneCrazyDiamond]

22. LBJ?

In March 1965, Johnson reacted to public alarm by essentially declaring a War on Crime in a Special Message on Law Enforcement to Congress. “No right is more elemental to our society than the right to personal security and no right needs more urgent protection,” he stated in language reminiscent of Goldwater. “Crime will not wait while we pull it up by the roots,” Johnson added. “We must arrest and reverse the trend toward lawlessness.

[KS Toronado]

28. I was in grade school in '65 so it wasn't LBJ

I'm thinking of G W Bush, maybe even Clinton.

[liberalla]

24. K&R! WOW - That's so great. Thank you Judge!

Now we need some more to follow his lead.

[llashram]

26. America has always

been full of authorities like this since the Knight Rider days. Trump unleashed them again. Amerikkka will NEVER stop being overtly racist and bigoted against all not proven to be Caucasian of European lineage.

[DVRacer]

27. So this prosecutor would have let Tim McVeigh walk?

In the aftermath of the OKC bombing he was stopped by an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer for no tag displayed/expired tag. That led to his arrest and while being held it was discovered the car he was driving left the scene of the bombing. This will be thrown in this prosecutor’s face.

I do agree most of the fishing expeditions need to stop. Limited contact for the actual probable cause and no further. For the love of everything holy a basic understanding of Bill of Rights taught in all high schools. Preferably by a civil rights attorney to go over 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th amendments. (I would love when a police officer asks what law school you went to they would say, “just my basic high school civil rights class”)

When you are stopped ask what are you stopping me for? Am I detained? If yes then simply “I do not wish to talk to you without my lawyer present” only on a traffic stop should you offer an ID as required by your state. Then shut up it’s hard to have silence but do not talk.

[OldBaldy1701E]

29. He said he was not going to prosecute.

No one said anything about detaining anyone, and the McVeigh scenario would have played out the same way. As we all here can see, this is what a person of good conscience does when the system forces him to do what is legal, not what is right. (Because the two do not share the same definition, despite what the police and certain politicians want you to believe.) As to his being there to do what is legal, not what is right... good conscience had better freaking well win out in that argument, or our laws are nothing more than authoritarian devices to keep the masses under the heel of the supposed 'ruling' class. (Read: rethugs.)

[OneCrazyDiamond]

30. Too often in our country

White supremacist get different outcome them people of color from the LEO community. The scenario you describe is plausable.