Surviving a Traffic Stop - One Attorney's Advice: Being pulled over by a
police officer can be a stressful experience. Although life is full of
such experiences, unlike many other stressful experiences, a traffic
stop has the potential to end in a loss of money, liberty or even life.
No two traffic stops are entirely identical. Therefore, the advisable
course of conduct will vary depending on the situation. However, there
are some general rules which can be helpful in many situations. The best
piece of advice one can offer is to avoid being pulled over in the first
place. A traffic stop offers nothing to be gained. The best case
scenario for the driver is to leave as if the stop never occurred losing
only some time... (Marc Victor is regarded as one of the top
criminal-defense attorneys in Arizona. I think we can presume that a
large proportion of his clients may be engaging in otherwise criminal
conduct when they are pulled over. Note that he too advises not to try
to "schmooze" the officer. Other articles can be located under the
Articles tab at the top of the linked page and a must-see video is
available at the bottom of his Home page.)
http://www.attorneyforfreedom.com/surviving_traffic_stop.nxg
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A Time to Reflect and Plan: Politically savvy power brokers have bags
full of model legislation - sample laws they draft themselves, that
serve their interests, and make it easy for legislators to introduce -
and enact. To preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the
freedoms we cherish, this is a page we should have in our play book.
These are already drafted. Some are already law. Simply select one or
two, and show them
to friendly legislators in your state. They'll need to make clerical
changes to suit your state, and the important prinicples in the bills
will be on their way.
http://www.gunlaws.com/ModelLegislation.htm
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From Force Science Research Center:
Our readers write:
1. Time speeds up sometimes, slows others. How come?
During my civilian experiences and work as a medic, I have often had to
restrain people, end fights, use passive restraint and very mild
self-defense. When in these situations, or some intense medical/trauma
scenes, time sped up and became choppy, leaving me with poor perception
during and poor recollection after the events.
But in other seemingly similar cases, time would see to slow down and I
could move and respond much faster than normal, with total clarity and
both physical and mental rapidity beyond my normal abilities.
Can you explain why some severe stresses provoke a "tunnel vision" and
choppy experience, while other seem to bend time to make it easier to
help? And how do you transform the former into the latter?
Jesse Beckow
President/lead medic
Advanced Rescue Consulting
Thornhill (ON) Canada
Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research
Center, responds:
First understand that the human brain does not have a built-in clock
that constantly measures time objectively. Instead, the brain uses
itself, its experience, and to what and how it's paying attention, as a
reference point. So when the more rational, contemplative part of the
brain is hijacked in stressful situations by the primitive,
emotion-based amygdala or "crisis center", widely differing impressions
of time tend to register.
Broadly speaking, when you're feeling suddenly overwhelmed in a
stressful situation, with too much to comprehend and accomplish in the
time-frame available, you're likely to perceive time speeding up. But in
a similar situation, if you are sharply focused and drawing on a deep
well of training to respond, time may appear to slow down, because your
brain has streamlined the situation and is operating efficiently in
survival mode. Because your sense of competence, confidence, emotion,
and attention can vary among quite similar situations, your perception
of time can vary as well.
Research conducted by Drs. Audrey Honig and J. Roland and earlier work
by Dr. Alexis Artwohl inform us that some 41% to 62% of officers who
survive shootings report having experienced a "slow-motion" effect in
which they felt sufficient time to respond effectively. Only a minority
of survivors (17% to 20%) seemed to experience time speeding up.
Either way, we need to remember that officers who've been in stressful
events should not be expected to give accurate estimates regarding
duration. They may try to do so in response to investigators' questions,
but they're only guessing at best.
Any officer who is attempting to accurately note time while in the midst
of a highly stressful, rapidly unfolding, life-threatening situation
might be better off paying attention to other more important matters.
================
(c) 2009: Force Science Research Center, www.forcescience.org. Reprints
allowed by request. For reprint clearance, please e-mail:
[email protected]. FORCE SCIENCE is a registered trademark of
The Force Science Research Center, a non-profit organization based at
Minnesota State University, Mankato.
================
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From John Farnam:
29 July 09
SIG P250
My nine-year-old granddaughter had a great time shooting several
handguns yesterday. It is not the first time for her, but her hands are
still far too small for most serious pistols.
She liked the trigger on my Kahr PM45, but recoil was too heavy for her,
and she only fired three rounds from it before handing it back to me.
She really liked the small Kahr P380! It fits here hand and recoil was
manageable. Trigger is extremely useable, and our only limitation was
the fact that we quickly ran out of ammunition!
Like the Kahr P380, she liked the size and light weight of my S&W 340PD
(five-shot snubby revolver), but its trigger is too heavy for her small
hands. She needed two fingers.
What was most interesting was the way she took to my SIG P250/Compact 9mm!
It is equipped with the smallest of the three frames available, and she
was able to reach and press the trigger easily. She gracefully fired
round after round, hitting with every one.
I had mixed feelings about the 250's trigger when I first started using
it, but, after seeing this nine-year-old's rapid progress, I'm starting
to like it. Smooth, steady, seamless, with a distinct (albeit deep)
reset, there are no surprises, no inconsistencies. And, of course, no
manual safety and no decocking lever.
The P250 was the one pistol she wanted to shoot the most, and
one-hundred rounds later, she still wanted to shoot it more!
As a utility, defensive pistol that nearly anyone can be taught to
manage well and shoot well, the P250 is hard to beat!
(I have never even handled, much less fired SIG's completely modular
P250
[
http://www.sigsauer.com/Products/ShowCatalogProduct.aspx?categoryid=54].
I am wary of SIG's other pistols due to their location of the
slide-release tab at the top of the left grip panel, which makes it very
difficult to operate one-handed in the left hand. This was no doubt
conditioned by the placement of the one-stage decocking lever on SIG's
earlier pistols. Yes, I know "emergency" techniques to release the slide
without pressing this tab but they compromise muzzle discipline at a
time when I least want to do that. I understand that the slide-release
control is ambidextrous on the P250, albeit in the same location. If the
rest of the pistol fills your needs, without emptying your pocketbook,
go for it but view it as a jealous mistress because you will be reaching
for that control in a different location than you would with any other
brand of pistol.)
30 July 09
Addendum to "Cookie-Bandit" story. It gets worse!
Two officers were involved. The murdered deputy's partner left her
service pistol in the beat-car and did not have it, nor any other gun,
with her when the two arrived at the location where the suspect was
confronted a short time later!
The deputy who was ultimately murdered, surprised to learn of his
partner's impotent status, quickly gave her his backup pistol (type
unknown, may have been a 1911 with a manual safety), with which she was
"unfamiliar."
Right on cue, the suspect appeared and was immediately confronted and
arrested. He allowed himself to be handcuffed behind his back, but then
reached for a secreted revolver in his waistband and, still handcuffed,
started firing at the two deputies. The first deputy was hit in the
strong-side hand and, with the second shot, in the groin. The second
shot was to prove fatal, as it severed his femoral artery. He died at
the hospital several hours later.
His partner was uninjured and attempted to fire at the suspect with her
borrowed pistol, but was "unable to work the gun." She fired no shots.
In a panic, she handed the gun to her now fatally-wounded partner, who
grasped it in his support-side hand and immediately shot the suspect in
the head, twice. Suspect was DRT!
Comment: With "partners" like this, you don't need enemies!
"Police" is not what we do. "Police" is what we are! Who are not
serious about this profession, and their place in it, need to find other
work, sometime before they get themselves, or their partners, killed.
We call dangerous criminals VCAs for a reason. Give them an edge at
your peril!
/John
("VCA" is Farnamese for "Violent Criminal Actor." The story may be
apocryphal but the guy who taught my basic Law Enforcement Firearms
Instructor Development School claimed that he once rolled up to a
shooting in progress outside a DC housing project. The embattled officer
on the scene called out to him, requesting more ammo. My instructor
asked him how many rounds he had already fired and was told eighteen. He
asked, "You hit anything?" When the other officer said no, my instructor
claims he told him that he should try to impregnate himself because, if
he could fire eighteen rounds without hitting anything, he wasn't
getting any of his ammo. Sometimes we need to be able to assess whether
it's beneficial to share scarce resources.)
31 July 09
The problem with "institutionalized incompetence," from a friend with a
PD in the Midwest:
"One of our patrol lieutenants falls into the same category as the
incompetent NM female officer you described.
The first time, he unholstered his pistol and laid it in the doorway of
the hotel room where we went in to confront a delirious suspect. When
another officer discovered it laying there, our lieutenant said he put
it there 'because he didn't want the suspect to grab his gun!' Of
course, by the time our lieutenant even got there, the suspect had
already surrendered, been taken into custody, and removed from the scene.
In the second incident, several months later, this same lieutenant went
to assist a neighboring jurisdiction with an armed suspect in an
apartment. When he finally arrived, another officer at scene noticed
there was no pistol in our lieutenant's holster. Our lieutenant
responded that he left it locked in his vehicle, '... so the suspect
wouldn't get it.' Once again, the incident had been resolved long
before he ever showed up.
This lieutenant, even when a patrolman, was always last to arrive on any
call where there is even a hint of violence. It was invariably
long-since over when he finally got there. Sometimes, he didn't arrive
at all.
Our department issues good, level-two, security holsters. This guy is
just a loafer, coward, and pathologically afraid of guns. He is
altogether unsuited to police work and never should have been hired in
the first place, much less promoted. Because of his position within the
department, his inveterate incompetence puts all our lives in peril,
every day!
As in the NM incident, it is only a matter of time before the lines
cross. Our chief readily concedes there is a 'problem' with this
officer, but continues to do nothing."
Comment: All to common in American public service.
When the incompetent/unqualified are elected/promoted to important
positions, for invariantly political reasons, public safety is fatally
compromised. Unhappily, promoting bungling buffoons for political gain
is a grand American tradition, and politicians, of course, couldn't care
less about innocent people who are predictably hurt and injustice that
is ever propagated, nor do their media stooges.
But, we do!
Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police need to be extremely adept at saying "no"
to political promotions and hiring, and equally accomplished at firing,
instead of promoting, the demonstrably incompetent/unqualified/inadequate.
If not, when cashing their paycheck, they should be arrested for armed
robbery!
/John
(Unfortunately, I would be surprised if there is anyone on the list who
has not encountered some form of this incompetence-avoidance-cowardice
continuum in other lines of work, whether public- or private-sector.
Often one finds it at the level of department head. As with my prior
comment, we need to be able to assess these people as resources before
we waste scarcer ones on them.)
Aug 09
America in 2009, no good deed goes unpunished:
Last Wednesday, a teller working at a Seattle, WA bank was confronted by
a robbery suspect.
The 29-year-old suspect, a slovenly, unkempt, perpetually-unemployed
"transient" (what we used to call a "vagrant"), with a lengthily
criminal record, and at the time under the supervision of Washington's
Department of Corrections, nervously walked into the bank and demanded
money from the first teller he saw.
This teller, instead of handing over a wad of cash, lunged at the
startled suspect, knocking him backward. He then chased the suspect out
of the bank and down the street, where he captured him and held him for
police. The suspect was arrested at the scene a short time later.
The bank's predictable response was to fire the heroic teller the
following day! I'm sure they're petrified that the robbery suspect will
sue them for "intentional infliction of emotional distress," so
upside-down is our civilization.
What caught my attention were the absurd and demeaning statements made
by the local PD, as well as the FBI:
Advice from SPD:
"When confronted by a violent criminal, it is best to comply, unless you
feel your personal safety is in jeopardy."
Now, when "confronted by a violent criminal," when am I supposed to
think my personal safety is NOT in jeopardy?
These guys need to listen to what they themselves are saying!
From the local FBI/SAC:
"You want tellers to be proactive, but you want them to do it safely."
Now, how it is possible to be "proactive" safely? How is it possible to
take any positive action safely?
Once again, this "advice" is self-contradictory nonsense!
Translated into plain English, the message is clear:
(1) We want all American Citizens to think of themselves only as feeble,
helpless victims. Being a "good victim" is your ultimate, civic duty.
(2) When violent criminals express a desire to rape, maim, and/or murder
you, always wait until it is too late to do anything to defend
yourself. Never do anything that has any chance of success!
(3) The use of force is the exclusive province of government and
criminals. You peons exist only to serve the former, and entertain the
latter.
(4) Don't be a hero! We don't like heroes. We want only timid,
frightened, impoverished victims who think they need us.
The real truth is:
(1) You are on your own! "Protection" provided by police, or the FBI,
is mostly illusion.
(2) Go armed. Train regularly.
(3) Act at the critical moment! Use force on your own summary command
and judgement, with enthusiasm, and without apology. We are Sovereign
Citizens and thus entitled to unilaterally protect ourselves via any
means necessary.
(4) Be a hero! This civilization was built by heroes. Frightened
cowards never built anything!
/John
(When I got my first computer, I used to sign letters and e-mails "Stay
safe and stay in touch!" "Stay safe" is a common closing in law
enforcement. One day I read a comment from Jeff Cooper that freedom is
more crucial than safety. Now I close with "Stay free and stay in touch!")
--
Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
