Albany Citizen's Police Academy - Week 5 - Search and Seizure and Traffic

This week's class was taught by Officer Robert Hayes. He taught both portions of the class. Hayes explained the rules that determine constitute a legal search. Probable cause is 51% more likely than not that the person committed an act. Reasonable suspicion is less than probable cause. An encounter is when an officer stops a citizen to make an inquiry without indicating the citizen isn't free to leave at any time. A stop is when the officer makes it clear the citizen is not free to leave. Officer Hayes explained that an officer must be able to articulate proof for any search or stop; however, an encounter doesn't require a report. If an officer can't articulate a reason for turning an encounter into a stop, the stop won't hold up in court. Hayes discussed the different types of legal searches including consent, warrants, and probable cause. An officer often searches an individual during a stop to insure the officers safety. A frisk is to look for weapons that could put the officer in harm.

Officer Hayes also discussed traffic laws in Oregon. He discussed the dangers of speeding and not obeying traffic devices. He explained how some of the traffic laws can be interpreted quite differently creating situations where the courts will dismiss cases based on the confusion.

At the end of the class, Officer Hayes took us out and let us use the lidar (laser radar) to see how it worked. That was cool. The car I set the lidar on was going 23mph in downtown Albany where I'm fairly certain the speed limit is 20mph. He also stepped out into the street to stop a passing car to tell them to turn on their headlights!

I went to this class expecting it to be dry and boring, but Officer Hayes is a good presenter. Anyone who can make traffic law interesting has to be a good speaker!!

Okay, it wasn't a K-9 demonstration or EVOC ride-a-longs, but it was still interesting!
T. L. Cooper is an author and poet whose work aims to empower and inspire through an exploration of the human condition. Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared online, in books, and in magazines. Her published books include a collection of short stories, Soaring Betrayal, her Silhouette Poetry Series, and a novel, All She Ever Wanted. She grew up on a farm in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She currently lives in Albany, Oregon with her husband and three cats.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When Failure Isn't an Option, But...

The flip side of fear of success is fear of failure. Both end up in paralysis, have some of the same triggers, and share some of the same roots. It can be hard to discern which is which. I've struggled with both, and at times still do. Fear of failure for me was a need to be perfect. I equated perfection with love. I could only be loved if I was perfect. I could only be perfect if I was successful at everything. Failure wasn't an option. An "A" was never good enough in school. Everything I did could be better.  Early in my life I developed a fear of failure that at times has stifled my creativity, my progress, and even lead to complete inaction. In some ways my fear of failure contributed to my later fear of success. I started life confident that I could and would do whatever I wanted, but as I began to encounter those little digs that meant I could never be perfect and the harder I tried to be perfect, the more my imperfections haunted me. When I was assaul...
Read more

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Image
I recently read A Collection of Poems by Robert Frost . It's a beautiful book and one I'd been salivating over for a while, ever since I saw it in Costco several months ago. It is filled with poems that speak to my heart, my imagination, my core. I was thumbing through one day while reading - yeah, I was looking ahead - and came across Nothing Gold Can Stay , and the first thought that popped in my head was "Stay gold, Ponyboy." I stopped in my tracks as a shiver went up my spine and a smile slid across my face. I remembered in that moment the first time I read The Outsiders   by S. E. Hinton . The first time I read Nothing Gold Can Stay in the book, The Outsiders , the first time I heard the poem aloud in the movie , the first time I read the letter at the end of the book, the first time I heard the letter at the end of the movie... Robert Frost and The Outsiders are forever linked in my memory because of this poem. S. E. Hinton used Nothing Gold Can Stay to...
Read more

Benefits to Buying Books

Image
Last week I wrote about supporting authors without buying their books, so this week I want to talk about a few benefits of buying books. To be honest, there's this little voice in my head going "People need reasons to buy books... They're books. That's reason enough." Of course that's the writer and reader in me. The minimalist and anti-consumerist in me totally gets why many people don't want to buy books. Buying books is a commitment. It's adding another "thing" to your shelves, your home, your life. Let me be clear. I understand that people work hard for their money, and buying a book can feel like a luxury. I totally get it. I've been there. The rent, the mortgage, fuel, food should all be higher priorities than buying books. I remember days when I saved change for a month to buy a book. I'm not, in any way, proposing that people sacrifice necessities to buy books. There are advantages to buying a book. You own the book. ...
Read more