Texas Officers Don't Know Their Own Laws

[Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what in the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers failure to identify 9-1-1 calls and reasonable suspicion and is brought to us by love everyone's channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve this episode was also brought to us in cooperation with the asd docs channel be sure to head over to his channel after watching this episode and check out his video covering the story line of this interaction in depth on july 26 2019 officers from the lufkin police department responded to a lufkin texas 911 christy davis reporting that 37-year-old joshua frazier was parked in her driveway in a manufactured home community at whipperwill drive when the first officer arrived and approached mr frazier he was standing outside of his vehicle with the driver's side door open how's it going man all right oh you stay out here okay no i'm oh i think it came loose i'm waiting to come to put it in reverse all right so the guy that uh yeah i just got off the phone where'd he stay at oh oh he's coming up why i'm eating here oh cause i can't put it in reverse dude what brought you here though you say you don't stay here what brought you over here i came to pick up my little cube and then when i went to try to put it in reverse it won't go in reverse okay little cousin was it her yeah okay where'd she stay at oh she was in front she was in the front okay you have your weapons or anything like that on it do you keep your hands up over here put your hand up there hold on hold on hold on don't just let's let's just yeah just hurt and show us you don't have anybody all right i can see something bulging over there making sure don't reach in your pockets or anything like that what's your name what's your name no this is a call foot no we get a call on you we gotta id so what's your name i'm not doing nothing wrong is this your property although the officers allege that they need to identify mr frazier because they received a 9-1-1 call about him texas law did not require mr frazier to provide his name in this situation section 38.02 of the texas penal code states the quote a person commits an offense if he intentionally refuses to give his name residence address or date of birth to a peace officer who has lawfully arrested the person and requested the information because mr frazier was not under arrest he could not be charged with failure to identify the officers also seem to imply that mr frazier is trespassing asking him quote is this your property section 30.05 of the texas penal code states that an individual commits the offense of criminal trespass if the individual quote enters or remains on or in property of another including residential land agricultural land a recreational vehicle park a building or an aircraft or other vehicle without effective consent and the person had noticed that the entry was forbidden or received notice to depart but failed to do so the statute defines notices as quote oral or written communication by the owner or someone with apparent authority to act for the owner fencing or other enclosure obviously designed to exclude intruders or to contain livestock a sign or signs posted on the property or at the entrance to the building the placement of identifying purple paint marks on trees or posts on the property or the visible presence on the property of a crop grown for human consumption here it does not appear that mr frazier was on notice that entry was forbidden so any trespassing charge would have to stem from remaining on the property after receiving notice to depart in the 1988 case of reed versus state the sixth district court of appeals of texas defined the culpable mental state required for a criminal trespassing conviction as quote a volitional refusal to leave when requested and several other courts in texas have adopted this standard while there is no readily available case law on this specific issue if mr frazier were charged with trespassing he could defend himself by arguing that he did not volitionally refuse to leave since his vehicle was not operational why don't you want to give me give us your name because i'm not doing tickets or something i'm not doing nothing wrong we're just responding to a call from citizens that once said there was some problems over here oh no problem as you can see this is not a problem i'm not causing any problems i'm not doing nothing i'm not pooping and hollering i'm not causing any problems i'm not doing nothing tonight is there a problem with that are you wanted for something or are you a fugitive from justice she's not really young you have a child in the car with you they're to check welfare on the child why don't you want to give your name man i have not committed a crime sir it's not a crime it's not an offense there's nothing going on we had a call concerning you being in this vehicle and possibly being intoxicated the officers inform mr frazier that he is being detained on suspicion of intoxication based on the information provided in the 9-1-1 call as we've discussed many times on ata a police officer cannot legally detain an individual unless they have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity however this reasonable suspicion does not have to be based on the officer's personal observations in the 2014 case of navarette versus california the u.s supreme court held that a provide the 911 suspicion necessary to justify an investigatory stop if the tip demonstrates quote sufficient indicia of reliability and quote creates reasonable suspicion that criminal activity may be afoot based on the 9-1-1 call the police likely had reasonable suspicion to initially detain mr frazier on suspicion of public intoxication and driving while intoxicated section 49.02 of the texas penal code states the quote a person commits an offense if the person appears in a public place while intoxicated to the degree that the person may endanger the person or another while the driveway was not public property section 1.07 of the texas penal code defines the term public place as quote any place to which the public or a substantial group of the public has access in the 2000 case of loera versus state the fifth district court of appeals of texas determined the quote if the public has any access to the place in question it is public the key to determining the sufficiency of the evidence in this case turns on the meaning and application of the term access not on the common understanding of the term public the court concluded that the walkway between a driveway and the front door of a home could be considered a public place when it could be reached by a public road or street based on this reasoning it seems likely that a court would conclude that ms davis driveway was also a public place as for driving while intoxicated section 49.04 of the texas penal code states that quote a person commits an offense if the person is intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle in a public place in the 1995 case of denton versus state the court of criminal appeals of texas clarified that to operate a vehicle in violation of the dwi statute does not require that the defendant caused the vehicle to move instead the court concluded that quote the totality of the circumstances must demonstrate that the defendant took action to affect the functioning of his vehicle in a manner that would enable the vehicle's use based on this definition a court would likely find that mr frazier's alleged actions of starting the car and taking the vehicle in and out of park and reverse constituted operation for the purposes of the dwi statute however while the officers probably had a reasonable suspicion to detain mr frazier based on the 911 call he did not appear to show any indications of intoxication during the altercation and the officers did not conduct any further investigation to determine if he was intoxicated making it possible that a court would find that the officers could not legally continue to detain mr frazier after seeing that he did not appear to be intoxicated so right now you're detained you're being detained come on no no no no sir as far as they know you have to give us your name or you go to jail for failed id that's where we're at right now okay if you were walking on the sidewalk or something okay class c tickets traffic stuff yeah we're not worried about that no big deal man what's your name a few class c tickets that cost you 30 40 minutes in the jail is a whole lot different than the failed id fugitive charge which is a misdemeanor a i'm not doing the wrong so if you're coming on a misdemeanor a charge or you want some traffic ticket charges because we're not worried about traffic tickets we just need to identify you so we can do this investigation and get out of here mr frazier tells the officers that he does not want to identify himself because he has traffic warrants which courts have generally found to be sufficient grounds for an investigatory detention based on reasonable suspicion for example in the 2014 case of state versus johnson division 5 of the eastern district of the missouri court of appeals determined that the fact that the defendant stated quote i think i've got some traffic warrants gave the officers reasonable suspicion to detain him similarly in the 2017 case of state vs bateman division 1 of the arizona court of appeals found that after the defendant volunteered that there might be an outstanding warrant for his arrest the detectives had reasonable suspicion to detain him by directing him to sit on the curb even though mr frazier's admission about his warrants likely gave the officers reasonable suspicion for a terry stop as we discussed earlier texas's failure to identify statute does not require an individual to identify themselves unless they are arrested while the statute does allow for a harsher penalty if the individual was a fugitive from justice at the time of the offense it does not modify the requirement of an arrest for fugitives when a warrant is issued for an individual's arrest article 15.06 of the texas code of criminal procedure states that any peace officer is authorized to execute it in any county in texas however the law is less clear on whether police officers are obligated to conduct an arrest on an outstanding warrant article 2-13 of the texas code of criminal procedure which explains a police officer's legal duties states that quote the officer shall execute all lawful process issued to the officer by any magistrate or court while an arrest warrant would be considered lawful process the law limits the duty to execute the process to the officers to whom the warrant is issued unfortunately there is no case law that investigates this issue and while there is certainly an argument that officers have the discretion to choose not to arrest someone with an existing warrant officers are always authorized to make an arrest based on an outstanding warrant what are you investigating a investigation for a service that has got four officers you already admitted that you don't have any reason being here other than your car is not working i mean somebody else now we're looking at the piano no no no no no sir no sir how can i communicate what is the big deal about not saying your name one of the officers approached mr frazier from behind to pat him down for a weapon and mr frazier turned around to protest the officers then grabbed mr frazier's arms pressed him against the vehicle and informed him he was being arrested for resisting a search while mr frazier was pushed up against the vehicle one of the officers pepper sprayed him after placing mr frazier in the back of the police vehicle the officers interviewed the woman who was in the vehicle with mr frazier who provided the officers with mr frazier's name and confirmed mr frazier's statements that he was in the neighborhood to pick her up and that his vehicle would not go into reverse according to the lufkin daily news's arrest reports for july 28 2019 mr frazier was arrested for resisting arrest search or transport and on two warrants for no driver's license two warrants for driving while license invalid two warrants for no insurance a warrant for parking facing traffic and a warrant for no license plate light on august 6 2019 mr frazier was charged in the angelina county court at law number one with a class a misdemeanor for resisting arrest search or transport in violation of section 38.03 of the texas penal code as of the date of this episode the criminal charges against mr frazier are still pending overall the lufkin police department officers get a c-minus because although they were likely within their authority to detain pat down and investigate mr frazier the officers demanded to see his identification without a lawful basis for doing so failed to conduct a proper investigation into the original complaint and misrepresented the statutes for trespassing and failure to identify as mentioned before the lufkin officers had acquired reasonable suspicion to investigate mr frazier by both corroborating the evidence provided by the 911 caller and through mr frazier's verbal admission to being a fugitive and when the officer approached mr frazier to conduct a terry frisk he was well within his authority to do so mr frazier's physical resistance to the pat-down search was the catalyst to this stop's escalation and it is difficult to fault the officers for deciding to physically restrain mr frazier that said the officers focused a majority of their investigation on forcing mr frazier to identify himself when he was not lawfully required to do so and at no point did any of the officers attempt to question the 911 caller or the woman who was in the back of mr frazier's truck before demanding to see his id if the officers had taken the time to make contact with the 911 caller and questioned mr frazier's passenger then the officers may have realized that he was stranded there and no crimes were being committed the officers also inaccurately accused mr frazier of trespassing and used accusatory language to gain control of the situation rather than expressing a desire to help and attempting to understand exactly what was occurring while much of the lufkin officer's conduct was legal it was also ethically and professionally questionable and there was likely a path to a peaceful resolution to this encounter had the officers not attempted to force mr frazier to identify himself mr frazier also gets a c-minus because although he was within his rights to withhold his identity he provided the officers with reasonable suspicion by admitting to being a fugitive refused to obey the lawful commands of the officers and physically resisted the officers when they attempted to conduct a lawful terry frisk it is easy to understand why mr frazier was so hesitant to engage with the officers but i struggle to understand why mr frazier would resist a pat down frisk when no drugs or weapons were found on his person it is clear that mr frazier was doing nothing illegal when he was initially contacted but the moment he admitted to having warrants he granted the officers the authority to detain him and conduct a terry frisk although the officers likely had acquired reasonable suspicion without this admission his reluctance to remain silent only further motivated the officers to ascertain his identity and the officers would have been within their authority to detain mr frazier until they were able to identify and arrest him at the end of the day mr frazier did physically resist the officers and did have warrants for his arrest and he likely would have been apprehended at some point regardless of the circumstances it would have been within his best interest to comply with the officers and clear up any outstanding warrants within the courtroom rather than stacking up additional charges by resisting an inevitable arrest thanks again to asd docs for contributing to this episode and if you'd like to learn more about mr frazier's story including an exclusive interview documents relating to the arrest and the original 911 call then be sure to check out asd doc's video covering this interaction you can find a link in the description below let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to check out the ata patreon page for more police interaction [Music] content you

Channel: Audit the Audit

Views: 459,730

Keywords: amagansett press, first amendment audit, 1st amendment audit, auditing america, news now california, sgv news first, high desert community watch, anselmo morales, photography is not a crime, san joaquin valley transparency, first amendment audit fail, walk of shame, news now houston, police fail, 1st amendment audit fail, public photography, auditor arrested, police brutality, highdesert community watch, pinac news, cops triggered, news now patrick, east hampton

Id: ngzJulHTUIQ

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/br0bi]

In this video we see Audit the Audit bend over backwards yet again to not give the officers an F in an attempt to seem "neutral" and "objective".

In the original video we see 60 seconds into the interaction the civilian lifts up his shirt to demonstrate he has no weapons. The officers spend about 4 minutes surrounding and inching closer to the man while trying to illegally identify him. Once they realize that this man will not be intimidated into giving up his rights they become frustrated and employ the classic police tactic of escalating the situation to illicit a contempt of cop charge.

Suddenly, after already seeing under the man's shirt it becomes very important to physically molest this man with no warning under the guise of searching for weapons. The cop is already screaming "don't resist" before anyone has time to react. It's obvious the cop is doing this as an excuse to hit him with a resisting arrest charge.

What ever the original reason for the call doesn't matter. As long as the get to drag someone off to jail. If the cops are looking for a crime and can't find one, they'll create one.

[u/horseradishking]

You can't admit you broke the law to a police officer and then resist the arrest.