TexasCHLforum.com

v7a wrote:In case anyone was under the impression that reporting APD harassment will do any good:

reddit poster wrote:Austin police have what can only be called an official stated policy of demanding ID, under penalty of arrest, from subjects who are detained but not under arrest when ID is requested. Yes, TX Penal Code 38.02 does not allow that (though there are certain narrow ID-on-detention situations like on the UT campus or while concealed carrying a handgun). Yes, APD has been made very directly and explicitly aware of this. Yes, the office of the Police Monitor is aware of this. Yes, staff of the City Council were briefed on this. Yes, there have been Texas Public Information Act requests filed and answered, and -- yes -- they show APD staffers being explicitly aware of the current law as they lobby the state legislature to loosen it. No, nothing has changed.

...

There are thousands of Failure to Identify arrests in this city just in a period of a few years that I started to analyze last year. I've pulled from APD, the County Court, and some from the Municipal Court, but there have always been missing elements involved in nailing down a pattern on things like race, age, and geography, and part of the difficulty has in truth been down to stonewalling. The behavior of public information officers in particular has been very disheartening.

Ruark wrote:
That "settled" 4th amendment law has been in effect for quite some time. Do a YouTube search for "open carry harrassment" (without quotes) and watch some of the videos. Granted, most of these people were carrying ARs, but they were doing so peacefully, and completely legally - just as legally as we will open carry handguns after 1/1/16. The 4th amendment sure didn't stop them. If LEOs are so aware of being blocked by the 4th amendment regardless, then why were so many of them (including chiefs) hysterically against the amendment to HB910?

FWIW, it was in effect during the Grisham incident, too.

Also, I think it general it's a little futile to start arguing with an LEO about constitutional law. That's "not where their heads are at," so to speak.

I realize and agree that the vast majority of LEOs are decent people. But not all of them. There's also the matter of departmental policy regarding OC. I would love to be a fly on the wall when Acevedo talks to his officers about it.

Ruark wrote:I appreciate the input here, and it's a viable topic of conversation, but I'm hoping we can get back to the original question: in the case of investigatory stops without PC, what complaint options are available besides a $350-an-hour lawyer?