I Believe I Was Unlawfully Detained

[antrc170]

If this were one of my guys, I'd be all over them to study up on what constitutes reasonable suspicion and a lawful detention. This sort of action can cause the agency to lose a case or even get sued. Regardless of what bootstrap excuse the officer might come up with after the fact, if the incident is even half of what the OP describes it as, the detention was extremely weak at best, and entirely unlawful at worst. I suspect the latter.

Since the OP was told that the reason he had to stay was that he was being forced to stay and talk to the sergeant, and there appears to be no further investigation or even MENTION of some form of public disturbance as a crime, I don't think that this excuse would hold water and would be nothing more than a lame attempt by the officer to justify the unjustifiable.

The story as told indicates that the OP was detained solely to speak to the sergeant. Since not speaking to a police officer is hardly suspicion of criminal activity, there would appear to be no reasonable suspicion to justify any further detention.

cdw - I completely agree. If the situation occurred as described I would be looking into serious discipline or termination. However weak the justification is, I am just presenting some possibilities. The reason given to the person has no bearing on the actual justification though. We both know that the police can and do lie to the public and suspects if it suits the immediate purpose of not escalating the situation. I've told people that the dispatch computer crashed, or that I read the wrong number the first time or some other b.s. while waiting for a ncic hit to be confirmed, etc.

[cdwjava]

Lying during the course of an otherwise lawful detention in order to preserve the peace is understandable. But, that does not seem to be the case here. I would not want to try and defend it, and I KNOW that some officers make dumb decisions out of ego rather than common sense. Such is likely the case here. The officer told them to stay because, darn it, he was in charge and wanted them to stay until his sergeant got there. Oops. Another case of the ego getting in the way of the law.

Yes, there might be a lawful justification for the detention, but it is not obvious from the story as told. And even trying to infer more into it, I find the justification would be weak at best no matter what the officer might claim. If this was indeed a civil issue then about all that is left to be said is: "Sorry, not much I can do, take them to small claims court. Have a good day."