There is something in law called a 'Terry Stop'. It allows a police officer to stop someone without 'probable cause' for believing that the person may be a criminal. If they have reasonable suspicion, even just a 'gut feeling' that the person may be involved in crime, then that is sufficient justification for stopping them. You can read the section on 'Terry Stops' from the police training materials here.
There were no grounds for any sane person to suspect me or my wife of being involved in crime as we were walking through the parking lot on April 9th. And in the absence of 'reasonable suspicion', the officer who stopped us was acting without legal authority. There was no lawful basis for a Terry Stop, and therefore, in striking me a blow on the chest he had committed a common assault.
There is a problem in getting justice in a case like this, though. Guess who investigates complaints about the police? You got it - the police themselves. In a community where public officials are honest and principled, that shouldn't present a problem, but I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto. This is Mountain View.
I had no difficulty getting witnesses to corroborate the assault. Our friends from the Senior Center, Simeon and his wife, and Louis and others who had seen the incident while they waited for the Center to open were many of them from Eastern Europe or Russia. For them, the sight of a police officer harassing an innocent couple was not particularly unusual, and probably made them feel quite at home! In fact, as we walked past Simeon on the way back to our apartment immediately after our encounter with this police officer, I overheard him muttering 'KGB', together with some choice Russian adjectives.
The real challenge facing us was to get hard evidence that the police officer did not have 'reasonable suspicion' of our involvement in crime, in addition to the witness statements that the assault had taken place. The officer could easily invent a pretext for stopping us to defend himself against a complaint, and I needed to remove that possibility. That would be difficult, but not impossible. I believed that I could obtain the hard evidence which I needed from the most 'trustworthy' official in the whole city. All I needed to do was to get the Chief of Police to admit, in writing, that the officer who violently stopped us on that day did so simply in order to deliver a letter to me, and therefore did not have the legal justification of 'reasonable suspicion' of my involvement in crime for the Terry Stop.
So, on April 10th I delivered another letter to the Chief of Police. Here is part of the text of the letter:
(. . . ) When I asked why we had been stopped he did not give a reason. I was holding both my hands clasped in front of me, and he struck me on the hands with an envelope and instructed me to take it. I did so, and opened it to read it. In its contents I could find nothing which threw any light on what crime we had been stopped for. Then he warned me that if I were found anywhere in the car park again, I would be arrested. Again, no explanation was given as to what crime I would be arrested for.
This incident took place in full view of a group of our friends and acquaintances who were standing nearby waiting for the Senior Center to open. This was very humiliating and degrading to us, since we felt that our friends had been left with the incorrect impression that we had done something wrong. My wife has been distressed and tearful ever since this incident occurred. This officer behaved wrongly.
Please identify the crime of which I and/or my wife were suspected which caused the officer to stop us. Also, please identify the crime for which I will be arrested should I return to the car park in future. In each case, please specify the section and paragraph of the relevant criminal code or ordinance.
I was hopeful of getting evidence I could use in my complaint, but the Chief's response was about to provide me with something far more useful, in addition . . .