XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Governor Swill wrote:
In California, in order to arrest for a misdemeanor not committed in
an officer's presence, the victim must be willing to go to court to
file the complaint.
A witness to the crime can do a citizen's arrest to get into a court.
The matter can also be sent to the DA to get into a court. It has to do
with due cause to make an arrest. Non-peace officers risk a false arrest
tort. Everybody has that power, and peace officers have additional
powers and protections.
This seems logical to me. If the victim isn't willing to swear in
court, the "incident", if there was one at all, is simply not a big
enough deal for the police to pursue.
Imagine instead, a world in which *anybody can be arrested on any
other person's say so* and the accuser doesn't even have to swear in
court that anything happened.
We cannot have people arrest people willy-nilly. While not letting
criminals slip away. Abuse can be counterred with a tort.
Further, if you listen to the conversation the videographer had with
the cop, it's very clear this was a setup, a political hatchet job deliberately designed to communicate a mistruth.
I heard bits of the officer explaining any witness can do the arrest.
Once that happens it is treated like any other arrest with the officer
taking the accused in custody. Then it goes to court. The police are not
a power and terror in themselves. We have a process.
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