Detroit Free Press:
When a man armed with a loaded assault pistol strapped to his leg, dressed in camouflage, and singing to himself, began walking in front of a Grand Rapids church one snowy Sunday morning in March 2014, an alarmed churchgoer called 911. When police arrived, they took the man’s gun, and briefly handcuffed him while they questioned him. The man, Johann Deffert, an “open carry” gun advocate, then sued police saying they had violated his constitutional rights.
A federal judge disagreed.
In a decision released last week, U.S. District Judge Janet Neff tossed Deffert’s lawsuit, saying the police officer “was justified in following up on the 911 call and using swift action to determine whether plaintiff’s behavior gave rise to a need to protect or preserve life … in the neighborhood.”
[ … ]
“We’re seeing sporadic reports of it from around the state, those who are trying to draw attention to themselves and it’s needlessly alarming people,” said Robert Stevenson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, which has 1,100 members. “People aren’t used to seeing someone brandish a gun in front of their kids’ schools.”
Stevenson said the increasingly confrontational nature of the clashes is dangerous.
“It puts the police in a position where, we don’t know what their intent is, so they’re going to approach this person, not realizing that the intent is to hurt somebody. It’s a terrible situation what these people are doing, somebody is going to get hurt.”
Sheriff’s officials say they are duty-bound to investigate what they perceive as threatening behavior, regardless of whether a person has a permit to carry a weapon or whether they are openly carrying a weapon in a place permitted by law.
Michigan is an open carry state without a stop and identify statute. Thus has judge Neff fabricated law out of whole cloth, without even the input of the legislature. A black robed tyrant, she is. As for the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police (assuming Stevenson is the one quoted on the duty to investigate threatening behavior), he is of course lying. He is wrong and knows it, which makes it a lie. See Castle Rock versus Gonzalez. Police are absolutely not “duty bound” to do any such thing.
Thus has Stevenson fabricated duties out of whole cloth in order to support the illegal stop and identify and detention. Rights? Laws? Eh, who needs them? The system has judges and cops. That’s all they need.
