Hanging out on your own porch = Loitering? And gets you arrested twice?

[Rhea]

I've been looking trying to figure what possible mindset these cops could have been in to feel justified in this action.
First the idea that there are laws against "loitering" in front of your own house just flabbergast me in the first place.

As usual, I can't watch video, so i have to go on the reporting (feel free to add descriptions if you decide to watch it), but it seems like the USED to be laws against hanging on your own porch, which were found unconstitutional years ago and changed in this town.

But this family was targeted and arrested for hanging out.

One of the kids, it seems, shouted back and kicked the cruiser. Not terribly different from what a lot of people do when wrongly arrested (shouting back, swearing, resisting), and certainly less than 2A advocates in my neighborhood who would respond by marching with drawn weapons.

And that strong reaction by one of the men at the house does not negate the fact that they should not have been targeted in the first place. Can we wonder why a family would respond negatively to police trying to arrest them for "loitering" at their own house? How is that even justifiable in the minds of the cops?

(includes video)
https://kywnewsradio.radio.com/arti...ack-after-loitering-arrest-outside-their-home

She said everything started they day before, on Oct. 1, when Officer Pasquale Storace III arrested her sons and nephew for loitering while they were playing in her front yard.

"The gentleman were taken to jail, they had high bails placed on them. The families scrambled to get their money together, they were able to get them out the next day," she explained.

When the young men, who are black, were released from jail, they were greeted by family members on that same lawn where they were arrested. Kevin Mincey, the family's lawyer, said that's when officer Storace, who is white, showed up and decided to re-arrest them as well as several other members of their family.

"This shouldn't happen to any citizen, and certainly a homeowner or someone who's renting a property," Mincey said.

The family says they were not going against any of the township's loitering statutes, statutes Mincey said were deemed unconstitutional in 2012 and have since been revamped.

and
(includes description of one of the sons reacting to the arrest by kicking the cruiser)
https://www.fox29.com/news/family-c...ped-after-loitering-arrest-outside-their-home

The video, lawyers say was edited to shield an elderly family member overcome with emotion, shows officers making multiple arrests and pulling a young man off of a porch onto the ground.

"The Chester Township Police Department failed my family instead of protecting us and serving us. They decided to attack us on multiple occasions," Rachel Brigg said.

In the affidavit of probable cause, released by the lawyers, a police officer writes when he told the group they were loitering he was met with swear-words, resistance and a male kicking at the window of a police cruiser.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I smell a big fat lawsuit coming on. This is going to be a very costly cop screw up for Philadelphia. Low IQs and bad attitudes. A bad combination in a policeman. Hang 'em high!

 

[laughing dog]

I am under the impression that loitering is one of the primary functions of a home.

 

[Rhea]

I am under the impression that loitering is one of the primary functions of a home.

^^^^ Yes. Well put.

 

[Derec]

I smell a big fat lawsuit coming on. This is going to be a very costly cop screw up for Philadelphia.

Why? This didn't even happen in Philadelphia.

Also, I suspect there is more to the story and that it will come out. Like maybe it was public intoxication^*.


^* Not that I agree with public intoxication laws

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Yep. It was not Philadelphia but Chester township, which is next door to Philadelphia. Still, we will see some expensive lawsuits coming right up, hot off the griddle. Dumb ass cops, the most expensive cops you can get. Coming soon to Walmart. Two dumb ass security guards, ex-cops.

 

[Rhea]

Also, I suspect there is more to the story and that it will come out. Like maybe it was public intoxication

How can it be public intoxication at your own house?

 

[Trausti]

I smell a big fat lawsuit coming on. This is going to be a very costly cop screw up for Philadelphia.

Why? This didn't even happen in Philadelphia.

Also, I suspect there is more to the story and that it will come out. Like maybe it was public intoxication^*.


^* Not that I agree with public intoxication laws

One would hope there is more to the story. The apparent facts as of now are pretty bad.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Also, I suspect there is more to the story and that it will come out. Like maybe it was public intoxication

How can it be public intoxication at your own house?

Nope. If it had been public intoxication, the arrest charges would have been public intoxication. It seems to have been a case of being black in the presence of deeply stupid and racist cops.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Yep. It was not Philadelphia but Chester township, which is next door to Philadelphia. Still, we will see some expensive lawsuits coming right up, hot off the griddle. Dumb ass cops, the most expensive cops you can get. Coming soon to Walmart. Two dumb ass security guards, ex-cops.

Lots of money in Chester County.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Yep. It was not Philadelphia but Chester township, which is next door to Philadelphia. Still, we will see some expensive lawsuits coming right up, hot off the griddle. Dumb ass cops, the most expensive cops you can get. Coming soon to Walmart. Two dumb ass security guards, ex-cops.

Lots of money in Chester County.

Not after the inevitable lawsuit that will soon be filed. Again, stupid cops, the most expensive cops you can hire.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

...maybe it was public intoxication...

The charge would surely have said so, but even so.

In Aust. I can get blind drunk and sleep on my own lawn, if I so desire. (Ahhh, memories) Are the laws very different where you are?

 

[Patooka]

...maybe it was public intoxication...

The charge would surely have said so, but even so.

In Aust. I can get blind drunk and sleep on my own lawn, if I so desire. (Ahhh, memories) Are the laws very different where you are?

In Australia, you can be blind drunk, headbutt a former Prime Minister, and only get two months jail. If anyone tried to do that to Bill Clinton, Secret Service would turn them into a red stain of a cautionary tale.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

That's assault, and had it been anyone but Tony I would be arguing for a longer sentence. As it is, I completely understand the extenuating circumstances.

But the OP is an issue of enjoying the freedom of your own home, and even if drunk I doubt any legal right for the police to interfere in that.

Was alcohol a factor here and does that change things in the US?

 

[barbos]

At least nobody got shot.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Bah! Try getting shot in your own bedroom. Imagine, hearing something in your front yard, and you go to the window... and then get shot to death by the police?

What started as a neighbor doing a wellness check because she saw the front door open became a death sentence.

 

[Derec]

Bah! Try getting shot in your own bedroom. Imagine, hearing something in your front yard, and you go to the window... and then get shot to death by the police?

What started as a neighbor doing a wellness check because she saw the front door open became a death sentence.

This indeed looks very, very bad.

 

[ZiprHead]

Bah! Try getting shot in your own bedroom. Imagine, hearing something in your front yard, and you go to the window... and then get shot to death by the police?

What started as a neighbor doing a wellness check because she saw the front door open became a death sentence.

This indeed looks very, very bad.

Just read that that cop has been charged with murder.

 

[Toni]

Bah! Try getting shot in your own bedroom. Imagine, hearing something in your front yard, and you go to the window... and then get shot to death by the police?

What started as a neighbor doing a wellness check because she saw the front door open became a death sentence.

This indeed looks very, very bad.

Just read that that cop has been charged with murder.

Former cop. He quit before he could be disciplined/fired.

He should be charged. There was zero reason for the officers not to announce themselves or to discharge their weapons.