Originally Posted by
njkayaker
Well, the only way a person is determined to have committed a crime is a court trial (ignoring things like traffic violations). Cops don't have to have scads of "incontrovertible" evidence that a crime has/is-being committed to check out suspicious behavior. And, if trespassing is a crime, isn't that enough?
Yes, I would agree that it is, but I think that it should also be is the person taking a shortcut through said yard or are they "casing" it so that they can come back at a later time and steal from it? If it looks like they're just taking a shortcut then shouldn't that be allowed to slide? I mean how many times have we all either as kids or as adults taken a shortcut through someone else's property? Should we all be arrested for trespassing just for taking a shortcut?
Originally Posted by
njkayaker
(Note that I'm not commenting about the chase.)
If one car is bad, maybe more cars are worse. How long would it have taken to get a K-9 unit deployed?
Yes, more cars could be worse if they were all following, but if they were used as barricades wouldn't that be better? I don't know I've never been in a situation where I've seen a K-9 unit being called for. But from watching Cops on TV I know that they have called for K-9 units to track suspects who were on foot or who had fled from a car that had been chased.
Originally Posted by
njkayaker
None of this technically matters. Information discovered after the fact does not constitute "probable cause".
Is exactly, and as I think we saw in the thread of the teenager who had been stopped for riding his bike on a bike trail in the "wrong" part of town. If the police conduct an illegal search any evidence that is found is basically thrown into the trash can and the suspect is allowed to go free. Without even a slap on the wrist.