Your Typical Dumb, Arrogant Cop: A Case Study

The following is a case study of one particular example of “your typical dumb, arrogant cop:” Deputy John Kress of Oakland County Sheriff’s Department in Pontiac, Michigan. Although this officer is unique, he is a prime example of law enforcement officers who are too stupid to care if they break the law. However, I think that Kress is probably not the type to fire at unarmed black men as they are running away, but I think he easily fits the definition of “bad cop.” He is a prime example of what your friendly neighborhood cop is like a great deal of the time.

By and large, Oakland County Sheriff’s Deputies aren’t that bad. There are plenty to be seen on YouTube, and I can say there are some pretty damn near flawless cops who are OCSD. However, there are many who shouldn’t be there. This is not surprising, as our PLANET is crawling with police who use coercion and enforce unjust laws. Even the “good” cops are guilty of this, and really can’t be honestly called “good cops”. I have another post when anOakland County Sheriff’s Deputy pulled his gun on me when I confronted him about the multiple traffic infractions he had just committed. Again, by and large, OCSD is not all that bad for a law enforcement agency.On May 27th, 2014, OCSD was operating a seatbelt sting in Orion Township, MI. Checkpoints are illegal in the state of Michigan, so one sentry deputy watched traffic on one side of the road. He would radio the other dozen or so deputies which vehicles in the two southbound lanes of traffic had front seat passengers and drivers not wearing their seatbelts. What this amounts to, of course, is taxation at gunpoint. Who is the victim if you do not wear your seatbelt? It is yourself, and you have the liberty to make that decision. The government enforcing a regulation to wear seatbelts may or may not have positive outcomes for fatality rates in motor vehicle collisions, but it most certainly helps line the pockets of those who would oppress us.

A passenger in a southbound vehicle raised her middle finger to about nine OCSD vehicles parked on the west side of the road, prepared to pull over any vehicle that the sentry deputy says to. One “hero” deputy decided to pursue this vehicle, and initiate a traffic stop (under threat of violence if the driver did not comply with the illegal stop). You see, a law enforcement officer must have seen a civil infraction occur, or must have reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts that a crime has taken place to stop any vehicle. This is Cop 101 stuff, folks.

Deputy John Kress was the driver of this particular marked Chevy Tahoe owned by Oakland County Sheriff’s Office that stopped the vehicle with the passenger who disrespected them. He immediately calls for backup, upon learning from the driver that two of the three occupants were doubly armed with pistols and accompanying licenses. He initiates what we call a “Terry Stop” or a “Terry Frisk”, named after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio. A Terry Stop is where a law enforcement officer detains, searches, and/or frisks a person for weapons IF and ONLY IF the law enforcement officer has (again) reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed. Deputies Kress and Kershaw begin searching the vehicle, the clothing of the occupants, and their effects. The firearms were seized, the law (again) mandating that law enforcement officers first have reasonable suspicion of a crime. The driver demanded that Deputy Kress explain why his vehicle was stopped, and why they were being searched and seized under the Fourth Amendment. Deputy Kress replied very clearly, “Ask your passenger.”

Whoa, hold on a minute. Was he referring to the uninvolved backseat passenger who was just frisked without consent, or the front seat passenger who exercised her First Amendment right to raise her middle finger to the deputies involved in the unethical seatbelt sting? Now, we can make some intelligent ethical arguments about proper conduct for a lady. The important fact of the matter is that these policy enforcers were taxing people, under threat of violence, for making a personal choice that should be left unmolested by government intervention.

The driver demanded, again, for clarification on why they were stopped. Kress repeated, angrily, “I said, ask your passenger!” The driver explained that the U.S Supreme Court, several U.S. Appellate Courts, and the Supreme Court of Michigan have all established and maintained that the front seat passenger’s actions were perfectly legal.

Bingo.

A long pause ensued, while Kress came to the realization of the illegal stop he had just made.The driver prompted Kress again (third time’s the charm) for his reasoning behind his thus-far illegal and lawsuit-worthy kidnapping of these three people. Kress shook his brain, deep in thought, and decided on “careless driving.” 

Apparently, like a time portal from three minutes before opened up, Deputy Kress declared that the driver has almost rear-ended somebody while stopping the car as Kress’s vehicle approached.“Careless Driving” is not a crime, and therefore renders the illegal searching and seizing illegal even if it wasn’t a lie. “Careless Driving” is a civil infraction of the Motor Vehicle Code, and only applies to Motor Vehicles as defined by the U.S. Code (of which the detained vehicle was not, because it was not being used for commercial purposes at that time). Even so, the driver pointed out the obvious dashcams covering every angle of his vehicle, including the ridiculously obvious “Audio and Video Surveillance in Progress” stickers on the front two windows. Just like every other dumb low-level oppressor, once he or she runs out of catchphrases to quote from their training, they tell the detainees to sit tight while some other idiot on the radio helps Kress play damage control with the mess he just made.

Kress went back to his vehicle and mulled over the predicament he was now in with his fellow deputies on the radio. “I hope [the vehicle occupants] have warrants [so we could arrest them]” was a gem pulled off of the audio recording of the dashcam sitting right in front of Kress as he said it. He was so desperate to cover up his blunder that he was formulating a plan to continue to arrest the occupants, even under the pretext of a stop he knew was illegal. He eventually was told by his superiors over the radio to let the detainees go as soon as possible, and he returned their property to them. He threatened to write a letter to the local gun board, in an effort to get their mandatory-issue concealed carry licenses revoked. 

Eh, it was all blown smoke. The vehicle occupants were not falsely ticketed or arrested, and Deputy John Kress was quietly reprimanded given the overwhelming evidence caught on camera. Maybe Kress learned something, and we should all just be glad that his devotion to taxation under threat of violence using the Motor Vehicle Code didn’t get anybody killed.

At least, not that week.

 

Only a couple weeks later, Kress was involved inanother traffic stop. This time, a Camaro heading south on Baldwin in Pontiac, Michigan did not use its turn signal while turning right onto another street, from the right-turn lane, while all the lights were green. This microscopic (and completely meaningless in the current weekend 5:00 A.M. traffic situation anyways) infraction was the perfect Motor Vehicle Code violation from which he could extract a tax from this driver. The difference was that this driver did not want to have his money stolen from him at gunpoint, and Kress refused to let him get away. The passenger of the Camaro, a 22-year old Brandee Herritt, was killed in the chase. She was in my high school class.

I guess old habits die hard, eh John Kress?