
At azbikelaw, we don’t discuss abortion; but we do talk about how some police disregard the law; all while acting heavy-handed. There’s also a huge creepyness factor here in that these people that were arrested besides not doing anything illegal, and were literally not bothering anyone, they were leaving the area and were ‘caught’ on video surveillance.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Jaywalking is to pedestrians, as FTR (Far to the Right; or AFRAP if you prefer) is to bicyclists. Things can get out of hand with heavy-handed police who don’t actually know what they’re doing (see state-v-patrick … Don’t Tase me bro!)
Four people were leaving a rally were arrested near the capitol grounds for … wait for it… ‘jaywalking’. The judge (a superior court commissioner) gets it right, they weren’t apparently doing anything illegal. It’s almost always legal to cross a street anywhere (see jaywalking in Arizona for the law)
The police involved were Arizona DPS (Dept of Public Safety, our State police), and not city of Phoenix police (apparently, despite being in Phoenix, the DPS have jurisdiction over the Capitol and grounds).
Spending the night in jail probably really sucks.
… Four women, ages 19-20, were arrested Sunday night and accused of being uncooperative after troopers stopped them for allegedly crossing a side street outside a crosswalk a few blocks from the Capitol.
According to the probable cause statements, troopers monitoring the scene via closed circuit television surveillance cameras observed the women crossing outside a crosswalk at 18th and Madison avenues[there’s no signal here] around 11:30 p.m. They notified troopers on the ground, who contacted the group.
… (Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner) McLaughlin wrote the following on each of the women’s release orders: “Form IV does not establish probable cause to find that the Defendant crossed outside a marked crosswalk ‘[b]etween adjacent intersections at which traffic control signals are in operation,’ as required by A.R.S. 28- 793(C).”
8 of 9 people arrested at abortion rights protests at Arizona Capitol released
… Of the nine people arrested over the weekend in connection with abortion rights protests, eight were released after a judge determined no probable cause for charges were found, according to court documents.
There’s a second twin issue here, but I couldn’t gather whether (from the news reports) exactly where it fit in. Various sources referred to the suspects “failure to identify”. In Arizona, there is no requirement for a pedestrian to carry or produce identification (the law was tossed in 2003 for vagueness; people who are being lawfully detained must, however, provide truthful names under a different statute); some cops get this comi-tragically wrong, see e.g. the Ersula Ore ‘jaywalking’ incident (at the same link) that involved an ASU police officer who was eventually fired.
Point of information: The county sheriff’s offices have jurisdiction over county buildings (courts, jails, etc.) as well as any unincorporated areas of their counties. DPS has jurisdiction over state buildings and the freeways. That, of course, lends itself to other issues, in that these agencies have to enforce the laws of the city in which the buildings or freeways are located, which may be different in each case. Bureaucracy at its finest! I suspect most of these are relics of the much less urbanized Arizona of yesteryear.
Thanks for the clarification.