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Originally Posted by SelfDefense
I don't know whether the detention and handgun seizure was justified.
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But there's an easy way to know: what are the underlying laws? Those laws are crystal clear:
1. OC is perfectly legal in PA.
2. Police may not simply seize your possessions, then demand that you prove ownership to get them back. The police may no more take the gun from your belt and make you prove you own it, than they can take the shoes from your feet or the coat from your back.
3. Refusal to provide ID is not illegal.
Since it is inarguable that there was no underlying offense committed, then the police invented everything from whole cloth. You can't bootstrap a detention and a confiscation when there was no underlying crime AND the police were ignorant of the law. LE ignorance of the law undercuts and removes any assertion that the police were acting in good faith but the patrons were being obstructionist.
Since there was no underlying offense, there was no RAS, and everything that followed -- the bullying in front of one's children, the arrest, the cuffing, being flung in the back of the squad car, having one's gun stolen -- was 100% police malfeasance.
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We have only one side of the story.
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Actually, we don't. We have a local DA publically stating OC is perfectly legal. That alone
completely undercuts everything the police on the scene did that day.
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Someone clearly called the police with a complaint that was deemed sufficiently serious to dispatch officers. It is not credible to believe that police would arrive and not investigate the situation.
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That's right. They should arrive and they should investigate. But the investigation stops as soon as it is clear no laws are being broken. Everything that happened after that was a roust, not an investigation.