Opening a bridge to catch thieves - right or wrong?

[Thorgalaeg]

So i finally won lottery and having some funny while sailing in my brand new 100 feet sloop which has a 120 feet high mast. While approaching the bridge i realise my huge yacht wong pass under it so I can call the bridge tender and ask for the bridge being raised, however police doing his work of prosecuting criminals has not authority to do the same. Yeah, very reasonable.

 

[CavLancer]

In that particular case, eat that bridge. I never won the lottery, though I only played it a few times before I got smart.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Playing it too much is craziness, not playing it at all is silliness.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So i finally won lottery and having some funny while sailing in my brand new 100 feet sloop which has a 120 feet high mast. While approaching the bridge i realise my huge yacht wong pass under it so I can call the bridge tender and ask for the bridge being raised, however police doing his work of prosecuting criminals has not authority to do the same. Yeah, very reasonable.

You with your yacht can indeed ask. So can anyone. However, cops generally don't ask for much of anything. And if they do ask they have to make it very clear that that is what they are doing because they have perceived authority so the responsibility of making sure that the person being asked to do something knows that there will be no official consequences if they refuse, otherwise the person may take the officers request as an order by mistake.

 

[bhsup]

I think it is basically what Tim is getting at, though I have my doubts that this is how it would play out in Sweden! (warning, NSFW because of three naughty words so spoilered)

Spoiler :

Link to video.

 

[Gucumatz]

The policeman asked the bridge operator if he could open up the bridge right? The bridge operator could have refused, I am not sure exactly how that is improper conduct. Perhaps the barricade raised was deficient or whatever or somehow the officer failed to follow some regulation allowing the perp to see the roadblock. I am not sure what exactly led him to being cited for improper conduct here, so I can't really say anything for sure

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Real world example.

Years ago I was a shift manager at a fuel only truck stop. This is a business where the concept 'profit by volume' is a very real deal. Profit per gallon is pretty small, but when you sell tens of thousands of gallons per day it all works out. We routinely had trucks stacked ten deep by two on our approach lane.

So one night there's something going wrong. The interval between opening a pump and getting a truck pulled up and fueling is way too long. Out at the far end of the property, which we offered as 'park and sleep' area there is some sort of cop activity, and one of their cars is actually parked blocking half of our approach lane. Our approach lane is backed up out into the street, which is death for business.

So off I go to find out what is going on and get this car out of the approach lane. Response from the first cop I get to, before I say a word, is a sneer and "We don't need you here." Their criminal chasing is costing a local business hundreds of dollars per minute...no big deal. They are on private property disrupting the business of the owners of that property...no big deal. When the shift comes up thousands of dollars short of projection the owners are going to rightly ask me what happened...no big deal. They are cops, what they say goes, and what they do is the only important thing happening, anywhere, any time...just ask them.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The policeman asked the bridge operator if he could open up the bridge right? The bridge operator could have refused, I am not sure exactly how that is improper conduct. Perhaps the barricade raised was deficient or whatever or somehow the officer failed to follow some regulation allowing the perp to see the roadblock. I am not sure what exactly led him to being cited for improper conduct here, so I can't really say anything for sure

The cop in my story had no authority to tell me to do anything...and would certainly say that he 'asked me to stand aside'. The bridge operator probably had no indication that refusal was an option, and unlike me it probably never crossed his mind that a cop really couldn't just tell him what to do. Cops intentionally engender the belief in the public that they actually can just tell people what to do, so for them to play the 'oh we just asked him, he could have refused' game is totally disingenuous. Please don't try to play the game for them.

 

[Akka]

It's not the 'blocking the escape', it's the ordering the bridge raised...which he had no authority to do.

Oh well, if it's that he hadn't the legal authority to raise the bridge and did it anyway... then yeah it's a misconduct and yeah the sentencing is okay.

No idea about if a cop SHOULD have or have not the authority though.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

It's not the 'blocking the escape', it's the ordering the bridge raised...which he had no authority to do.

He had no authority to do it because the crime was too petty, or he doesn't have the authority period?

 

[bhsup]

I'm curious how people would feel about the whole "no authority" thing if the bridge had to be raised to save the life of a baby. Cop orders bridge raised, is refused because he has no authority. WOO, cop is denied... right? right?

 

[Light Cleric]

So do we actually know if he had the authority to raise the bridge or not or are we still just kinda guessing?

AFAIK he was fined for "misconduct" which is very nebulous

 

[Loppan Torkel]

They have the authority to order this. The action just wasn't defensible in this case.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Judging for bridge size it is not as if a presidential executive order was needed to raise it up.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Unless Sweden is a lot different than the US the trained operator of the bridge cannot just be ordered to open the bridge by someone whose sum total knowledge of the safe operation of bridges is "well I have a badge so what I say goes." Unless someone can produce, in writing, some statement that it is within their authority, it isn't.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

It is not that complicated to raise a bridge. Operator push a button, barriers go down, bridge goes up. Not rocketry science. It is done every day when a boat needs to pass and bridges bottoms are not occluded with sunken cars. Also i am pretty sure the policeman didnt pointed his gun to operator´s head nor menaced with killing his whole family or something. Surely only called him and asked for it as any boat captain would do. The bridge operator could have ignored such "order" if he knew there was some danger or it openly was against bridge operation safety rules.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

We have wildly different views on how cops respond to "no", and how inclined the average person is to chance it. Generally speaking, I always assume I have more experience with not being compliant with law enforcement than almost anyone I talk to, so I think my view is probably more accurate. But, since there is no real way to know this is probably best left as is.

 

[Light Cleric]

This is one of the few articles I could find that discussed that particular part of the case(his authority). Apologies if it was posted earlier. The end of it:

The officer's lawyer Johan Eriksson argued that it was an accepted practice for police in Uppsala or elsewhere - to use the bridge opening to stop a car. But, he also noted, the tactic was something that was unregulated. There were no rules to dictate how such incidents should be handled.

The officer will be fined SEK 14,000 for misconduct.

 

[Akka]

They have the authority to order this. The action just wasn't defensible in this case.

Then I disagree with the judgement. 40 bucks theft makes certainly hard to justify to raise a bridge and disrupt traffic, but driving recklessly and endangering people definitely is.

We have wildly different views on how cops respond to "no", and how inclined the average person is to chance it. Generally speaking, I always assume I have more experience with not being compliant with law enforcement than almost anyone I talk to, so I think my view is probably more accurate.

Correction : you have more experience with not being compliant with US law enforcement.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Correction : you have more experience with not being compliant with US law enforcement.

True. I think the general case I stated is also true.

I would assume you have more experience with not complying with French law enforcement than I do though, since I have none. I have always thought gendarmes was a very cool word, and had I been born in France I may have been more compliant.