On Unlawful searches jeopardizing Walworth County cases
Posted on July 1 at 1:27 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Lets shed some light on this one. First the officer was sent to a residence for a report of gang members flashing signs at other known gang members. Why would they do thiss....to disprect the other gang of course. Now after this happens, what is next the gangs get verbal with one another, then a physical fight could break out. Granted this did not occur, but I think we can all imagine what could happen. To get back on track the officer sees a vehicle while on the way to the call with the suspects inside of it in the area. Then after talking with several subjects the officer believes the vehicle he saw was indeed the suspects from this call. Now the definition of reasonable suspicioun is, believe that a crime was about to be, is or was about to happen. So throwing gang signs at a rival could be considered under the violaiton of disorderly condcut. Now having this reasonable suspicion the officer sees the vehicle and attempts to stop them. While trying to stop them everyone starts to move around in an unusual manner which the officer believes is not normal in most traffic stops. The Officer believes there might be gang members in the vehicle, they won't pull over and everyone is moving around. So the officer does not approach the vheicle and makes the subjects come back to him. This is not Probable cause to search the vehicle.. understood, however there is a state statue that covers a search of a vehicle if an officer has reasons to believe there might be a weapon in a vehicle and a search for just weapons can be done. This was not a search due to arrest. Based on all the factors this is why a stop was made. I am not sure how much more you would need to make a stop. It is believed the subjects inside the vehicle were the suspects from a disorderly complaint. However the judge did not see this in the same way the officer did. If the District Attorney's office fealt that this was an illegal stop I do not think they would have proceeded with this case. This is a matter of opinions I guess. However a gun was taken off the street and that is the main point.
On Unlawful searches jeopardizing Walworth County cases
Posted on June 30 at 7:48 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
That Law sounds like it protects gang bangers. Keep doing what you are doing DeMarasse. At least they had to sit in jail till their trial. Bangers will never learn Karma is a pain in the butt.
On Hearing set for Darien chief
Posted on June 18 at 5:55 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Konopski should just go into the military full time and just go away.
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On Unlawful searches jeopardizing Walworth County cases
Posted on July 1 at 3:21 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
The officer did identify the driver and vehicle he had seen initialy in the area of the complaint and less than an hour later, saw the same exact vehicle with the same driver as he did before. I would not call that a gut instict. That would be a positive ID by the officer from the vehicle and driver he initaly saw while driving to the original complaint. When the officer first saw the vehicle it was only a couple of blocks away from the origianl complaint location and then the witnesses gave the same vehicle description as what the officer saw. I still think that would be more then enough to have at least suspicion to stop the vehicle, but I am not a judge so my opinion does not count. Remember you don't need probable cause to stop the vheicle on reasonable suspicioun.