Charlie’s Redheaded Angel strikes again…. Criminal Law and History?

The first thing I will relay to you is that our fearless leader Jeff (now forever known as “Monk”) informed me that I will not be allowed to take photos during class. This is an obvious bummer, but the power of the pen, or typed word in this case, can hold a lot of weight. So for today’s blog I have some police photos from my DC trip last weekend that I will scatter throughout just for kicks.

Last night we were graced with the presence of Monk’s boss, Sgt. McLaughlin. Until that moment I had no idea how important it was to still have a head full of hair as a long standing member of the police department.  I think that it puts these guys into a whole separate category but that I will have to investigate further.

Our honored guest speaker for our Law Enforcement history lesson was none other than Captain Billy Dean.  As you can surmise from his name he’s a good ol’ southern boy predisposed to big trucks and “dawgs”.  To my knowledge, he has no relation to the sausage guy Jimmy.

Billy had a great head of hair despite having longstanding issues with his mother and the shady characters she’s been known to hang out with.  Although he comes from a long line of police officers in his family, SHE is the one who taught him how to fight?  Go figure.

For the history buffs out there like my husband, here’s the story in a nutshell.  As you can imagine, in primitive societies we had the natural evolution of leaders but it was not until 1829 that Sir Robert Peel came up with the concept of the London Metropolitan Police.  He had 3000 applicants, hired 1000 and lost 1/3 the FIRST DAY on the job because they showed up drunk.  What would Freud say about that?

In America, Boston was the first city to establish a police force although I don’t know what year.  Meaghan do you know?  That was probably when I left the room to hunt down more tissue for my runny nose.  Billy probably thought I was going out to hit on the prisoners working in the hallway.  Ew.

After Boston, it came to no great surprise that NYC was next in line and we all know how things go in New York but they didn’t go into any detail about that.

Billy shared a tremendous amount of information with us such as “The Peelian Principles.”  Peel’s first principle of policing states that (police should be) “in tune with the people, understanding the people, belonging to the people, and drawing it’s strength from the people”.  He told us about the different Presidents and their roles in the evolution of the police department and the most interesting to me was President Garfield.  I was unaware that a narcissist french guy named Giteau actually shot, later killing Garfield because although Giteau helped get Garfield elected, Garfield didn’t give him the appointment he wanted.  Giteau was also the first person to claim “insanity” as a defense.

Around 1905, a gentleman named August Vollmer from Berkley, CA was responsible for putting cops on bikes.  Among other things, he also put officers in police cars and created the concept of filing crimes by “MO” or “modus operandi”.

Speaking of “Billys” – President Bill Clinton changed the force into that of “Community Policing” and promoted the hiring of additional policemen using federal funds.  Oh look, something new for us to think about when the topic turns to Wild Bill…..

There really is SO much more information I could share here and I truly hope that I have not disappointed Captain Dean by my limited coverage of his topic, but my friend Cara says I have to keep my blogs short.  yeah right.

Criminal Law!!!!!!!  Wake up people because YOU could be needing this information one way or another.

The next speaker up was MPO Jim McElligott – no hair, but I think this is because he works with Jeff (aka Monk).  Poor guy.  He just had SO much great info that he had to fly through his presentation, but I really got a lot out of it so good job Jim!

What’s the difference between Criminal Law and Civil Law?   “Individuals can be charged criminally and sued civilly”  Think OJ.

We have Federal and State court systems.  The Federal system is used for cases brought by the FBI and/or the military for misdemeanors and felonies.  Norfolk is in the 4th district with the Federal appeals court located in Richmond.

The State court system is comprised of the General District Court, Juvenille & Domestic Relations (think OJ again but for the minor beatings he doled out), Circuit, Intermediate Court of Appeals and the Virginia State Supreme Court.

The 4th Amendment is the primary amendment dealing with the everyday life of a police officer.  This is the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, ….. against unreasonable searches and seizures…probable cause is necessary, blah blah blah.  Thank goodness for TV educating people!

This one shouldn’t be news to anyone but just in case, the police must have a warrant, or your permission, to search your residence and/or take items to be used as evidence in court.  It further requires that an officer must have an arrest warrant to take you into custody although there are 7, yes SEVEN exceptions to this rule – the primary one being if you did something stupid in front of a cop like bitch slap your girlfriend.  That, my friends, is called “battery” and the officer will haul your butt into jail.

But what’s the difference between “assault” and “battery” you ask??  Believe it or not, just getting into a crouch stance with your dukes up can be construed as “assault” and putting your boot in someone’s eye, that’s battery.  Imagine being hauled into court because you made a face at someone with your fists balled up.  I double checked and confirmed this to be fact.

Any Law and Order fans out there?  First tidbit of info, the local police department used to have a sex crimes unit and because of the tv show, the big boss changed the name and now WE have our own VA Beach SVU although if a death is involved with a sex crime, they hand it over to the Homicide department unlike on tv.  I think we have homicide detectives coming in one of our classes down the road.

Speaking of tv, does anyone really know what they are talking about with regard to felonies and misdemeanors and the different classes therein?  I didn’t until last night.

Felonies:

• Class 1:  punishment up to death like Capital Murder
• Class 2:  up to life in prison and/or a fine up to $100k like armed burglary
• Class 3:  5 -20 yrs in prison and/or a fine up to $100k like regular burglary
• Class 4:  2 – 10 yrs in prison and/or a fine up to $100k like shooting in or at an occupied dwelling, throwing objects at moving vehicles
• Class 5:  1 – 5 yrs in prison and/or a fine up to $2,500 like assault on law enforcement.

Misdemeanors:

• Class 1:  up to 1 yr in jail and/or $2500 fine like DUI, hit and run and reckless driving
• Class 2:  up to 6 mos in jail and/or $2500 fine like driving on a suspended license
• Class 3:  fine up to $500 like curse and abuse – not sure what the heck this means.  Guess I was flirting with prisoners again
• Class 4:  fine up to $250 like being drunk in public.  This is the ONLY time a formal arrest can be made for ANY Class 3 or 4 misdemeanor.

Did you know there is an actual difference between burglary and robbery?  You can rob a person but perform burglary on a dwelling.  One cannot “rob” a bank.  You can “rob” a teller in a bank but not rob the actual dwelling.  In addition, to have a true burglary, you must have breaking and entering with the purpose to commit a misdemeanor.  Breaking and entering can be as simple as merely opening an unlocked door.  Crazy.

Strong armed robbery is cited when there is force used while committing the robbery such as pulling on a person while stealing a purse.  On the other hand, larceny is theft without bodily contact.

True “armed robbery” can be as simple as sliding a note to a bank teller stating that you have a gun, or using your finger in your coat pocket pretending to have a gun or any other kind of weapon.  In this case, it’s all about perception folks and the difference between regular robbery and armed robbery could be how long you end up married, without your consent, to your cellmate Crazy Larry.

What about jail and prison?  In prison, they have the “tossed salad man”.  If you don’t know who that is just ask Chris Rock while the kids aren’t around.  Not a pretty place.  Jails on the other hand, while not as harsh, are still no joy ride and can only hold an individual for a maximum of 1 year PER CRIME.

I also was unaware until last night how egregious the truancy issue is in VA Beach.  Last year 12,000 students out of 70,000 were found to be truant.  The law states that all children between the ages of 5 and 17 must go to school unless arrangements are made with the state to home school them under special circumstances.

Finally, as a mom, I was quite surprised that the car seat law around here requires children up to age 8 ONLY to be in a car seat.  I thought weight was also a factor but guess not.

Hope you learned something and are still awake.