San Jose Police Dept gets a smackdown by a garage sale lady for not following the rules:
“No you haven’t dealt with me… I’m with Cop Watch, I’ve dealt with YOU”
^^^^^^^^ OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH burn! ^^^^^^^^
All over Airshit and because some halfwit called them and told them “real guns” were being sold. haha gold.
Thoughts?
Hat tip: Raeshawn
Comments
62 responses to “Firearm Raid Attempt At Garage Sale Get Denied”
Nothing is going to happen to those cops. He should have discussed the situation with the residents first though.
No shortage of cops overstepping their powers. Not in the US, Norway or any other country that has cops. They’re used to being the law. Camera phones and the internet are really screwing these guys up :D
One should think the cops would have gotten wise to people with cameras in situations involving guns, real or not.
If I was a police shift supervisor, I’d sure as hell make my officers read up on can&can’t do. If nothing else, then at the very least to piss off selfrighteous people with cameras. Nothing makes one of those more sour than being denied their opportunity to show police “oppression” :p
I’d be especially wary in this case, since they obviously knew who these people were and had dealings with them before.
I’m not a cop though. I’m just another internet smartass :p
As an ending point, I guess the people with the cameras only post if they’re shown to be right. If they get schooled, it doesn’t go online. I’d love to see that side of the coin too :D
If someone whips out a camera and is on the wrong side of the law you get this:
https://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2012/06/14/man-shoots-three-guys-over-loud-party-music/
it usually doesn’t show up on youtube because it gets entered as evidence. Why you would want to see someone pinned by Johnny Law is beyond my understanding, except for maybe some perverse desire to watch people suffer I guess.
Boom, right in the kisser !
Too bad the cops were so eager to show their power… They could have come gently, say hello, explain it’s their duty to check, ask for permission, and they would have come back to their donuts without being “dealt with”!
Agreed!
1.) Fuck that hefty cop, I hate when cops skip polite steps and go straight to the “authority voice” like he did with his “I need you step back” there at the beginning.
2.) Anytime a cop steps onto someones property illegally, they should face civil trespassing charges.
3.) that lady was annoying, and purely from a human perspective, regardless of legality and rights, someone should punch her in the mouth.
+1 Andy
The cop and the woman both acted like punks.
I think she acted the way she did because of her REPEAT ENCOUNTERS with officers acting in similar manners. Cops out here in LA are ridiculous. I have little to no regard for them. They are LA’s largest gang.
+2 :-) I support law enforcement….in concept…… however, as a whole, they seem to have done away with common courtesies, niceties and even basic respect for those they “protect” ; although this was far less invasive than some of the rights-trampling Nazi-gestapo tactics often exemplified it falls in the “give an inch and they’ll take a mile” arena – so if people continue to let this kind of police behavior continue (as most do) then it leads to the far end of the spectrum, often faster than we would like to think……
Andy and I feel the same way, all the cop had to do was be polite. And that lady was annoying as hell.
I’m not defending the cops, but as far as a legal matter I think having a garage sale invites everyone on your property.
Sure, just like when walmart opens the door in the morning. Also just like walmart, as soon as someone tells you to GTFO you’re trespassing.
+1
+1
Unfortunately the Civil Rights Act of 1964 so badly blurred the lines between public and private property that the vast majority of Americans are utterly confused; they now think that if anyone else can see you it’s public. This is why this kind of shit goes down, and usually not in the property owner’s favor.
I guess I’m lost here, I would have thought the phone complaint would have given them at least probable cause to stop by and peruse a garage sale that is out in the open and accessible to anyone…much like a welfare check allows them to look around and into the windows of a house.
As for politeness, the officer maintained a professional demeanor the whole time. When asked to step back…step the hell back, you don’t know what they’ve had to deal with in the course of their duties. It’s pretty common knowledge that someone can close a gap of up to 20ft before a trained person can cleanly draw and fire a handgun, why is a couple of feet a problem for you?
I also don’t see this as a “win” for the homeowners(apartment tenants). The officer came onto the property, did a check of the toys and left the property. How did they “know and exercise” their constitutional rights? All I see is some people harrying a police officer, who goes about his business and leaves when all is found to be well.
Probable cause laws seem so weakened after that ‘we thought we heard something broke in and found marijuana’ supreme court case I’m really surprised as well.
Though now in hindsight…so what if they were real guns?
It’s not illegal to sell guns to private sellers at a garage sale as long as the bureaucracy is fed it’s paper trail. Kalifornia probably has a law against private sales given their propensity to piss away their gun rights.
“Comrades of the Republik may legally own firearms if they are unloaded, disassembled, locked in a 3″ thick safe with biometric, combination and key locks, encased in 3 feet of concrete and submerged under no less than 30 feet of water.”
not quite that bad… yet.
you may sell guns privately, but all firearms must be transferred through an ffl with full DROS paperwork. There is a 10 day waiting period before the firearm can be picked up.
it sucks balls, but it does protect both parties from some shenanigans. Just be glad that we’re doing our best to keep the gun-hating-liberals contained.
Uh, actually face to face transfers of firearms over 50 years old (or whatever c&r status requires) is legal in california. Cash and carry. I know that wasn’t exactly a garand, but I’m sure the result would have been the same if it was.
What’s the big deal? I buy “real” guns at garage sales all the time. Thank God I don’t live in Lib-erfornia..
Even private party gun sales require transfer through a FFL in California.
Everyone hates cops, till they need them….
Not true. While this video isn’t as bad of an example of a cop out of control (see the cop taking the motorcyclist helmet cam posted here), police violating rights of citizens is inexcusable.
No way man. San Jose PD is usually hella professional. This dude obviously has a history of being a douche to these people, so his eyes probably got big as headlights when he got the call.
Still the dude was wrong and a douche about it, and everyone on shift with him that didn’t dope slap him back at HQ is a douche too.
from the opening frames: “and they think they’ve got a right to search”. they have a Duty to search. if an officer gets a dispatch call (note that local laws and ordinances will vary) that guns are being sold at a garage sale, or out of a car trunk or off a street corner, the officer is duty bound to investigate. mostly it will be nothing and no action is taken. i’ve been in this very situation, though i handled it differently. in some states a yard sale is considered a business and one has to get a business license and all to throw one. therefor, if one is selling guns out of your business, with out an FFL then one is in violation of Fed and state law. here in Lower Alabama we’re a little more laid back about the whole gun sales thing but if we get called to a scene we have to investigate, no if’s and’s or but’s.
upon a second viewing i begin to wonder: all of this seems too pat, almost as if this was set up. might just be my inner sceptic, but yanno.
I too wondered if the residents didn’t set up the scene. The officer and the residents both could have handled it better.
Wrong. They have evidence now to get a warrant. A warrant allows them to search, and probable cause and / or reasonable suspicion allows them to pursue a warrant.
She said, “We’re still going to file a complaint. You know better than that.”
To which cop #1 says, “I’m sure you do, too.”
Sounded an awful lot like a threat to me.
Agreed
I would have thought the cop would have figured out it was airsoft halfway from the car considering the little kid manning the guns for sale table. But just having some manners and asking for the owner first and then doing the ‘you will never guess what some halfwit called in and is wasting my time with’ routine would have worked much better imo. Laugh at the stupidity of the caller, then say, can i just look at these so i can go back to doing my job?
Exactly. instead of getting passive-aggressively hostile, I would have just let them take a look if he was not being aggressive (which he was not). Rights violated or not, you don’t gain anything from antagonizing the police.
In the end, you don’t want the police to see you as the a-hole citizens that live on your patrol route, get stopped with warnings, delay due process because they don’t like you, etc.
I got no beef with the lady’s attitude which was made up of asserting her rights repeatedly and rightfully, and in being pissed at the illegal searching the cops were doing. I thought she did pretty good. SJPD is as bad as OPD and SFPD in regards to gun calls.
They did have to respond to the call and they did have every right to enter the property and because it was a garage sale they had every right to handle the goods. The minute they were told to cease their searching and told to leave the property they had no right to be there. They also had no right to demand that people get back.
In California, putting real guns on the table for sale though technically legal can and will still get you arrested because “reasonable persons would agree that if they’re on the table (especially without any signage saying “transfer via FFL only” or something) would violate law.” And then you’d spend $10k of your own money exonerating yourself on the grounds that you had every intention to transfer with an FFL. And you’d have no recourse to recoup your lost money, time, or a possible arrest and good luck getting your seized guns back too.
Ladies like this are part of the solution in CA where people are fighting for gun rights more than those of free states who pay their NRA dues thinking they’re part of the solution to save 2A rights (and aren’t by a long shot).
I see we have several street corner lawyers here. If anyone actual knew the law, they would know this falls under the plain view doctrine. As explained here, http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Plain+View+Doctrine
Also, a few people have mentioned that this is a garage sale. Which does invite people one your property. It is correct that if the home owner asks a person to leave, they need to. BUT, the Police Officer made access to the driveway legally. He found evidence of a possible crime and has a requirement to investigate. I’d say a table of very looking firearms in the least firearm friendly state in the country was likely ground to investigate.
This officer was 100% in the right and did the right thing. He conducted his investigation and left before these people got stupid (well more stupid).
+1 Unfortunately everyone seems convinced they know their “rights” but hardly anyone (LEOs included) know very much about the law. The call and table of what appear at a distance to be firearms are grounds to investigate further under plain view doctrine.
These kind of discussions always end up with everyone being overly defensive for their “side.” NonLEOs tend to always side with the people in the video regardless. On the other hand I’ve read forum threads where police officers defended other police officers threatening CCW holders on video. There’s a self feeding cycle at work here: people disrespect cops because a lot of the cops they see are jerks, while cops who aren’t jerks start like jerks because they deal with people who disrespect them. We wouldn’t have these problems if everybody could just resist the urge to be a jerk when it isn’t necessary.
Nope. Guns on the table on private property in plain view or not grounds for searching, running serials, IDing owners, etc. Even an AR15 where the cop wishes to do a 12276.1 (detachable magazine) check isn’t lawful without having suspicion that there is a detachable magazine without a magazine locking device (bullet button). If someone is wearing a rifle (open carry) on private property, I don’t think they can do a loaded check (12089) either.
Anyway, there was no lawful searching by the cops in that video based on a “real gun” call. This has nothing to do with us vs. them. I know and appreciate many CA cops who do understand the basic laws they’re sworn to enforce..especially real common ones like these that no cop has an excuse not to know after the years long efforts of Calguns members and other law savvy gun owners in the state who have notified every county and local PD of the laws regarding guns.
I was about to post the same thing, but you beat me to it. So many people think they know their rights when they really only know a small part of it. And it seems as though they scream the loudest about knowing their rights.
Those CopWatch/CopBlock/”Sovereign Citizens” idiots are always trying to upset LEOs. I saw a video of one of their members who came up from 6 o’clock during an 11-95 that was writing a ticket and started filming while open carrying a pistol.
YEP! Exactly Actual Cop. This has nothing to do with “Private Property”. It has everything to do with the 4th amendment, which protects us from unreasonable search and seizures. However, this amendment has several exceptions, which every rookie cop learns in the academy. One is “plain view”. This allows officers, who are legally present, to seize objects in plain view as long as they have probably cause that they may be contraband. “High cap” mags are contraband in CA and that toy had a very real looking 30 rnd mag inserted in it. Maybe Ms ShakyCam should have hit Wikipedia instead of turning on her camera.
No. High cap (normal capacity) mags are NOT reason to search because they are PERFECTLY legal. And since magazines do not have dates stamped on them, cops cannot possibly know or even guess their manufacture date nor does the owner of the magazine need to produce a receipt showing that the magazine was purchased prior to 1994 (i think that’s the year). Also there have not been any arrests of persons using their lawfully owned 10+ round magazines in their ARs or other guns that use normal capacity mags (more than 10rds) because it’s simply not something the cop can know. If after arrested for something else, the magazine is inspected and somehow discovered to have been purchased after the date, then yes, it becomes a multiplier to the crime the owner is charged with.
Well no, selling a firearm is not illegal in California, nor is selling airsoft. The fact he stayed past the first time he was asked to leave is the issue, not his commitment to uphold a law.
I’m going to go ahead and say that whoever called up the cops because they panicked at the mere sight of gun shaped things without bothering to check for more details is to blame for spreading misinformation to the police. How many times have we seen articles where the SWAT team has to check up on kids playing cops and robbers because someone caught a glimpse and figured it was a drug deal/bank robbery in progress?
Yes! THis is the big issue. Endless idiots who pee when they think they see a gun and then cry to the cops and tell them some foreigner down the street has an evil black ak47 baby killing glock 18 with the silencer and the jack bauer clips that never run out…assault rifle!! What recourse does the innocent law abiding gun owner have after having been thrown down on the cement after cops laid them out and harrassed them and illegally detained them for an hour and yelled at them? None. THe pansy rat probably sits and laughs.
“I see we have several street corner lawyers here. If anyone actual knew the law, they would know this falls under the plain view doctrine. As explained here, http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Plain+View+Doctrine”
I hope you at the very least attempt to set a higher example for your peers, instead of just being a dick. That’s the biggest problem with cops, no one fucking likes you so we all give you shit, and thus you have to be extra dick’ish.
Every reason you have described above [“actual cop”] is why we are experiencing a full-on police state, completely outside of the restraints of the Constitution as it was originally intended and written. The officer may or may not have been within his legal authority as determined by CA law, but his actions, lack of restraint, arrogance, and condescending attitude (and your’s as well) towards a law abiding citizen is why this nation has fallen so far. All he had to do was ask one question, “Are you selling real guns?” Answer- “No”. “Thank you ma’m, we received a false police report, and I will be leaving now to arrest the person who made that false report. Have a good day.” Instead, We The People get to experience the daily harassment by police forces that have not been trained correctly in the founding principles of this country, and have been instructed by out of control politicans to capriciously harass any sort of behavior that those politicians decide is threatening to their fascist policies. That officer may have been within his legal authority, but he was 100% in the wrong for using that authority in the manner that he did so.
Street corner lawyer = An actual cop
Thank you actual cop. Not sure what is sparking this anti-law enforcement sentiment lately. I suppose they could have been a little more polite, but they’ve obviously had interactions with these folks before. This was also clearly set up in an attempt to get these officers in a trick bag. Who would hang anything appearing to be an assault weapon from an umbrella, or whatever it was. I follow this blog regularly, but i’ve been put off a little lately.
+1 Right there with ya.
Probably this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVmGWLsn0iM
It’s getting harder and harder to play the “gosh cops are such heroes” bullshit now that the cameras are rolling 24/7. You could spend weeks just watching the systematic criminal behavior of police on YouTube.
The camera is the new gun, and it is the only hope the average citizen a has of fending off the police.
– An Actual Former Cop (as if that matters)
What? Let me ask that question with some reality behind it: “Who WOULD hang an actual assault weapon from an umbrella?…attached to a table with a child running it’s sale?” Ever drive through a chinatown? And you think the people were “clearly” trying to set up the cops? You think they hired someone to call the cops on them so they could make a crappy filming of it because they feel the need to satisfy the anti-LEO audience on youtube?
This is not a LEO vs. non-LEO debate. It’s just one of many excellent examples of pissed off people tired of being subjects of the government. And hell yes that lady should behave angrily over this…and no, she should NOT have enabled their illegal searching by just letting it go without calling the supervisor. Retraining law enforcement is a duty of citizens. And some smart fore-father told us we shouldn’t fear them, they should fear us.
C.O.P.S. – Fighting crime in a future time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Un6h2WeX6o
Yes, i think they were clearly baiting someone to call the police by hanging the airsoft. Then when the police arrived, they could act ignorantly
and file “another complaint.” i’ve never had police show up at my yard sale. As was said, plain view search, following up on a report. Nothing wrong here.
Actually they can enter that part of the “private” property. Especially if they were using that part of their property to conduct commerce. The prohibitions on unreasonable searches and seizures cover a dwelling and curtilage. The part of the private property open to the public and accessed by the public as well as used for public commercial purposes are not protected from the public or the police entering. It appears neither the officer or the complainant knew the law. You can’t have a garage sale open to the public and not expect the police and the public to enter.
Am I the only one who thinks this all could have been avoided with some common sense, cardboard, and a sharpie? Maybe a sign that says Airsoft 4sale… If you’re going to sell a toy gun that can easily be mistaken for the real thing you probably shouldn’t hang it up for all to see and possibly mistake for the real thing. If one these dipshits would have picked one of them up and got shot by the cop I would have laughed (only on the inside, I believe in Jesus) then I would have nominated them for a Darwin award.
Also, no cop should ever respond to any call involving a firearm without being on edge. Complacency kills. If you think he should have walked in there kissing their feet I have some crayons and a coloring book go sit in the corner with the other special kids.
I will defend the cop in this instance. This was a set up for publicity. The lady is a known “Complainer” of everything the cops do. The cop entered a YARD SALE a sign was not erected that said “NO COPS” if it did she would have a leg to stand on. This lady and her idiot sidekicks need a life. How many crimes/assistance to people were delayed by this bullshit?
Look, there’s bad cops out there. But to set up something like this to “Out” some overzealous cop is ridiculous. The cop actually handeld himself about as good as anyone would. Someone calls on “Illegal Gun Sales” Supervisor should have been first on scene. Granted. It’s CA so “GUN” is immediately a tac red alert!
Considering it’s their job to enforce the law and not break it, a setup like you’re talking about really shouldn’t ever net anything.
I’ll agree with that Mike. That cop looked around a yard sale, picked up a few items. YES he checked. But if you are having a yard sale. By definition it’s open to the public. Cops are public servants so he was also serving the public that called. Had he put the people on a curb in a felony position he’d be in the wrong. What he did was in NO WAY a breach of constitutional rights.
I really hope the lady doesn’t have an emergency and needs the cops she so hates. The donut shop will likely sell a few more before they “Rush” to her aid.
Personally I understand there are bad cops. But I also know there are some damn fine examples of professionals wearing blue. We need to out the bad ones while honoring the good ones. This shit is like crying wolf. Sooner or later the idiots like this lady will need help. Id be the first to say fk her.
“Id be the first to say fk her.” That’s exactly what a turd cop would say.
What rights?! We live in 2012 America, if you still think you have “rights” you are a fucking retard. We have 2 rights, the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.
but if you remain silent what use is an attorney?
oh wait, i get it now…
Oh BTW. I ran into your buddy the other day at the range. James Yeager. I thought he was bigger. And I didn’t see any unsafe acts or derp worthy shit. He seemed to be a pretty decent guy.
haha yea he seems like an alright guy for the most part, I just give him a rough time for those few things he does that I think are derpy.
Lucky you didn’t say anything to piss him off though, because he’d break your fucking back (https://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2012/03/24/james-yeager-is-a-tool/) LOL