[mjfletcher]

Originally Posted by LittleRedToyota

that's my issue with these types of cases. of course police officers are going to make mistakes...they are human. (although it is fairly inexcusable, imho, for any officer to not know something as basic as when ID is and is not required.)

my problem is that i rarely hear of cases where the officers or the department admit and take responsibility for it after the fact.

to me, a simple statement like:

"our officers misunderstood the laws regarding open carry in PA and, as a result, took inappropriate action against law abiding citizens. we apologize profusely for this mistake. although we cannot undo what happened, we are going to:

1. send an officer to immediately return mr. banks' unlawfully confiscated pistol to him.

2. train our officers regarding the legality of open carry,

3. train our dispatchers to prompt for further information on "man with a gun" calls and, if the caller does not allege any actual crime is taking place, to inform the caller that OC is not illegal.

4. ask the various media outlets that have covered the issue to publish a letter from us explaining what happened in this situation, how we erred, and that open carry is legal.

5. do everything we can to get MPOETC to include training regarding the legality of open carry as well as to better train officers in regards to the limits of terry stops and ID requirements.

while we cannot undo the past, we sincerely hope these actions will prohibit such injustices in the future as we strive to uphold and defend the rights of law abiding citizens."

if they had issued such a statement and actually followed through on it, i would personally not file a lawsuit or ask for any other punitive issues if it were my rights that had been violated.

but, of course, that is not at all how they reacted. instead, in what seems to me to be an all too typical reaction, they tried to defend and rationalize their illegal behavior while attempting to place the blame on the law abiding citizens.

man up, admit their mistake, take responsibility, and try to prevent it from happening in the future, and i will be more than happy to forgive them. try to justify their mistake and deflect blame, and i say nail them to the wall.

just my take on it.

Only one point I have a small issue with. After informing the caller that OC is legal, they should still send an officer to check it out and inform the caller that they are doing so. S/He can walk in, look around, take in the scene, and then leave when s/he sees nothing is wrong. "They called, we came, nothing to see, we left." They did their job, the caller saw them doing their job, the caller had it reaffirmed that nothing illegal was going in. No harm, no foul, and someone got a little education.