Connor Deleire, a Manchester, New Hampshire, 18-year-old, kept asking the police “why?” It was a damn good question, though he wouldn’t appear to be the best person to ask it. The problem was that he had a gun, another loaded magazine, so it might appear that it was a good call on the part of police, even though the gun was lawful.
So why? Data, according to the police. Deleire was parked in a predictive hot spot.
On October 20, Connor Deleire was sitting by himself in his parked 2000 Honda Accord on the north side of Merrimack Street near Union Street, part of an area deemed a “hot spot” by computer programs that predict where crime is likely to happen for the Manchester Police Department.
The computer said so, and as everyone knows, computers don’t lie. So the police did what the computer told them to do.
Officer Derek Cataldo spotted the teenager at 5:35pm. In order to determine if Deleire had a legitimate purpose for being there, he circled the block to park his squad car in a place where he could get a better view. After several minutes without provocation, Cataldo got out of his squadcar and walked up to the driver. Cataldo described Deleire as “physically shaking” as he handed over his ID.
Upon further questioning, Deleire “attempted to provide a legitimate reason for being in the area,” according to Lieutenant Brian O’Keefe, who relayed Cataldo’s account to the media. Cataldo was reportedly unconvinced of Deleire’s answers and ordered him out of the car. Deleire complied.
How one “attempts to provide a legitimate reason” isn’t clear. One either provides a reason or doesn’t. What that reason was matters more than whether Cataldo deems it legitimate. But nobody is saying what Deleire had to say. Then things got worse.
“Deleire grew agitated and stated he was not allowing a search of his person or property,” Lieutenant O’Keefe reported. “The officer advised him he was conducting a pat down search to ensure the safety of both officers. While doing so, he felt an object inside of his left front pocket that he believed to be a gun magazine.”
“Deleire began to pull away and forced his own hand inside of his pocket prompting the officer to forcefully pull his hand from his pocket. He pulled out several items to include the fully loaded gun magazine. The officer attempted to calm him down and again advised him that he was conducting the pat down search for his own safety.”
And then things got much worse.
Deleire reportedly put the gun magazine and other items on the car’s roof. At this point, police allege he began “thrashing back and forth” and was placed under arrest. Eventually, Deleire was “transitioned to the ground” before being pepper sprayed and Tased by newly arriving backup officers.
Gotta love those newly arrived backup officers, who feel some innate compulsion to get a kick, a punch, a pepper spray and tase in before all the fun is over. And when they say “transitioned to the ground,” what they mean in English is that they smashed the guy’s face into the asphalt. Somebody needed a lesson in who’s the boss.
But Deleire was agitated. If you believe the story, he started “thrashing back and forth” for no particular reason. There was a reason, of course. The reason was that Deleire was in his car, minding his own business, doing nothing to suggest that criminal conduct was afoot. There was no reasonable suspicion, no cause for a Terry stop, no nothing.
Connor Deleire had a right to be left alone.
But he had a gun? He had a separate magazine filled with bullets? He must have been up to no good, right? So what if the gun was lawful, as was his possession of it. A lot of people hate guns, and presume, despite the law, that anyone with a gun is up to no good. And Deleire had one, which proves that he deserved whatever happened to him.
That makes him a bad example of a far worse problem. After all, to those for whom the lawfulness of his possession of a gun won’t prevent their prejudice against weapons from overwhelming their thinking, it seems like the predictive hot spot worked perfectly.
When a guy who was minding his own business is the recipient of police attention, is commanded to explain why he’s there, gets ordered out of his car, gets “transitioned” to the ground to the extent that his face bears the wound, his tooth is broken, he’s got a pretty good reason to be agitated. He’s got a very good reason to ask “why?”
Yet, so many people adore the concept of empirical analysis, the use of computers to predict such things as “hot spots,” because it removed the discretion that would otherwise be left to cops. Sure, there is the GIGO problem, but that’s shrugged off because humans. Instead, it’s replaced by a fantasy discussion of how “true” binary analysis would cure the system of its prejudices.
Except Connor Deleire was doing nothing, absolutely nothing, to cause the police to violate his right to be left alone. Except the Connor Deleire post-hoc rationalization, his possession of a totally lawful gun, doesn’t make him criminal-ish except to those who don’t give a damn about law and think their prejudice against weapons makes the cops’ conduct valid.
Bear in mind that if Deleire didn’t have a gun, didn’t get agitated, didn’t “thrash back and forth” (as an eyewitness says he didn’t), then his right to be left alone would still have been violated, except no one would ever hear about it because he wouldn’t have been arrested.
Maybe Connor Deleire isn’t such a bad example after all. When the computer says you shouldn’t be where you happen to be, and when a cop demands you explain why you are where you are fully entitled to be and doesn’t find your reason “legitimate,” it seems like “why” is an excellent question.
But the computer won’t answer, because it’s a computer. Neither will the cops, because they’re the cops. Was this what you had in mind when you decided to hand over your right to be left alone to your binary overlord?
whose the boss
who’s
I read about this & my question was “who the hell are you to determine what “legitimate” means..
Question:
Is there ever a time when a CDL says “Yes!! Oh Yes!! Please I want your case!!” ??
If So, This would seem to be one of those times..
Of course. Most of the time, it has to do with the defendant’s last name being Rockefeller. We’re a practical bunch.
“… But I’ll gladly fix your toilet on Tuesday, for a Zealous Defense today…”
That’s me using my barganning skills..
Monday? WTF do CDL’s do on Monday after making face in court and polishing up research?
obits get old, stickers and zines are the future…
Thanx for that..
Once the computers are in charge, all bets are off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARJ8cAGm6JE
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Dave Bowman: What’s the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
So, when the police illegally search somebody for parking in a “hot spot” and end up arresting him for resisting arrest, does that count as a statistical “hit” that reinforces the predictive validity of the hot spot?
If they get a lot of arrests, it confirms their bias. If they get no arrests, it shows that monitoring that location has been working.
The real problem is that police are violating rights and getting inventive on excuses that the public finds more palatable.
Is that the real problem? What’s your empirical basis?
Duh. It’s just data.
Cops have always done this. The computer changes nothing. Every time I’ve been detained for walking on a public street at a time of night when the cop thought all the good people should be at home, I’ve been informed that I was in a “high crime area” or that someone had reported a “suspicious character” who was apparently suspiciously walking around minding his own business.
Nope. While what you say may be correct, you totally missed the point of this post. I award you no points.
I didn’t want those points, anyway. But as long as they can treat you as detained while they look for reasons to detain you, it doesn’t matter whether they attribute their successes to a computer or to their highly accurate hunches/magic cop powers/intuition about unspecified criminality.
You have this issue with persisting to go down your rabbit hole even when it’s not the topic of the post. I can always trash your comments for being off-topic, but I try not to do that because of my love for Dairy Queen. In any case, you’ve now missed the point twice, so Ima gonna explain it to you in smallish words.
Whether a stop is based on a reasonable, articulable suspicion, a hunch or absolutely nothing, the police will be required to explain their basis at a suppression hearing. That it occurred in a “high crime area,” one of the most bullshit excuses ever since they don’t exist, makes for a contributing factor, but is never, in itself, sufficient basis for a stop. They still have to come up with other factors to make a viable excuse.
Here, the cops made no bones about the fact that it was a predictive hot spot. That’s an entirely different matter. Many readers here (particularly of the computer-loving type) think this is not only the wave of the future, but a better idea than requiring a reasonable, articulable suspicion. That’s what this post is about.
So you now not only get no points, but you owe me a vanilla soft-serve with rainbow sprinkles for my efforts. Pay up.
My apologies. Your use of a case in which there isn’t any evidence to suppress got me more focused on the immediate harm in cops screwing with people who were minding their own business rather than the rules that should dictate police policies.
I don’t have the ability to deliver to your area, so just stop by our most convenient location for you and take all the soft serve you want. Tell them I said it was ok.
Hey Everyone!! Free Soft Serve For All!!!
MB Said It’s OK ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Turns out the kid was, as per the Chief of Police, “glancing down at his lap, which is a sign of potential drug use”. There you have it, case solved. Have to add that one to the ever growing list of innocent activity that, in the eyes of Officer Friendly, is an indication of criminal conduct.
Well then, it couldn’t have been clearer. He should be thankful they didn’t just shoot him, since everyone knows that drug use is associated with violence.
don’t give them any more ideas… sheesh!
“Turns out the kid was, as per the Chief of Police, “glancing down at his lap, which is a sign of potential drug use”.”
‘Glancing Down’ could also be a sign of taking a nap.. although I’m usually glancing down for 15mins or so..
NH law is somewhat strange in that resisting arrest is a stand-alone charge, even even if there is no valid reason for an arrest:
NH RSA 642:2 Resisting Arrest or Detention. – A person is guilty of a misdemeanor when the person knowingly or purposely physically interferes with a person recognized to be a law enforcement official, including a probation or parole officer, seeking to effect an arrest or detention of the person or another regardless of whether there is a legal basis for the arrest.
I moved to FL in June but prior to that spent the last nine years in NH, the most recent three in Manchester. It’s a typical old New England mill town but the police are ill-prepared to deal with the recent influx of crime. The heroin problem there is off the charts, for example. The PD is quickly gaining a reputation as being extremely heavy handed in dealing with the public and have faced several lawsuits because of it.
Anyway, in a perfect world this kid would spare no expense in hiring the finest lawyer in all the land who would then stand before the court railing against injustice while quoting from the Constitution, a performance that would rival Clarence Darrow in passion and intensity.
Unfortunately, the DA will probably offer him a reduced charge of disorderly conduct with a $100 fine and he’ll accept it.
It’s fairly common (maybe even universal?) that resisting is a stand alone offense.
Interesting.
I thought the “regardless of whether there is a legal basis for the arrest” part made it somewhat unique.
Cops can arrest by mistake. Whether there is a legal basis comes later, after a judge determines that the cop had probable cause. Even if the cop is mistaken as to PC, people still aren’t lawfully allowed to resist in most states.
Thank you for the explanation. That makes sense.
While the law fascinates me, the minutiae is sometimes difficult to understand. Plus, I am not a smart man.