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Did the police officer's actions "communicate the message of 'We Who Must Be Obeyed'"?

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Did the police officer's actions "communicate the message of 'We Who Must Be Obeyed'"? Here, it did not. State v. Garcia-Cantu, 2008 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 581 (May 7, 2008) (over dissent): Police officers are as free as any other citizen to knock on someone's door and ask to talk with them, to approach citizens on the street or in their cars and to ask for information or their cooperation. Police officers may be as aggressive as the pushy Fuller-brush man at the front door, the insistent panhandler on the street, or the grimacing street-corner car-window squeegee man. All of these social interactions may involve embarrassment and inconvenience, but they do not involve official coercion. It is only when the police officer "engages in conduct which a reasonable man would view as threatening or offensive even if performed by another private citizen," does such an encounter become a seizure...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on May 10, 2008 (boomark / email).