 rules of good behavior that apply to dealing with police officers. The first is that their job comes with special authorities and special responsibilities. These are balanced in law with some tipping in favor of police authorities. They act as law officers. The natural police function includes maintaining the peace and scene to domestic tranquility. These derive from the common law of England. Their U.S. authorities and responsibilities are further influenced by the sovereign rights of citizens. These rights are recognized even without government, otherwise accepting significant citizens sovereignty over government. Appropriate authorities and responsibilities are written into the purpose for our having a government, as found in the preamble to our Constitution. Like much of the common law, police authority had to be reborn after the American Revolution. Police authority and responsibility have been largely codified in written legislation. Our courts have accepted legislation to be of greater authority than the principles of the common law. Still, these authorities and privileges are based on delivering justice and maintaining domestic tranquility. There is a natural reason to support the police so long as they are about the business that we the people set upon our Republican form of government. The most definitive authority is fulfillment of warrants. A warrant provides the authority to act on behalf of we the people as represented by a judge and based on evidence and an oath or affirmation of someone generally noted in the warrant. A warrant gives the one who serves it police powers to do what is in the warrant and authorizes nothing beyond this. The first intelligent step in being presented with a warrant is to receive and read it carefully. A police officer cannot act on a warrant with special authority until other people affected have had opportunity to receive that warrant. A citizen who is seized or constrained or whose property is to be searched and or taken has to have opportunity to read or to hear the authorized actions. Police authority under a warrant is specifically limited by what is written into the warrant. If authority is not specifically passed to the officer, he or she acts only on normally available authority. Take the time to read the document or if you are providing support to a family member you can read it to them. This is a sovereign right and only as you receive it without choosing to read it are they initially free to violate your person or property. If a warrant says the officer may enter a home and search for something specific then they may do so. It does not grant authority to look for other things. It does not grant authority to break locks or to do other damage unless this is specifically written into the warrant. It does not grant the entrance of general police authority into a private dwelling that is searched. Warrants are strictly observed as to the authority they grant to the one who serves it. As a warrant are not to be acted upon through inappropriate resistance, they are always a judge's order to the officer and most judges will be supportive of citizen complaints of overzealous use of the judge's granted authority. If the police damage property or do injury in violating the limits of their granted authority a judge can direct that the officer be prosecuted for crimes or take personal responsibility for the losses or damages. While there is no way for a citizen to force a judge to act in support of his or her warrant's limits the overzealous police officer is disrespecting judicial authority with witness to the act. It is up to the judge whether this insult is to be answered immediately or to be taken up privately with the police authorities or to be ignored. Other police authority is natural and is granted in full light of the danger of dealing with the worst of humanity. Police must assume that they work in a hostile environment. They have a special right to protect and defend themselves as long as they see to the peace and as they perform legal functions in defense of domestic tranquility. It is because of police pressure and authorities to act that we can walk among others in public places without general fear of being victimized by criminal conduct. The citizen rule is that you do not interfere with police as they perform their common duties and most certainly you never publicly confront them in a hostile matter. If you have a problem with a police officer you seek opportunity to present it to a judge and then it is the judge who has authority to restrain or otherwise redirect the officer of the law. If you engage in rioting or public hostility you are the one who is disturbing the peace and threatening the public tranquility of others. Citizens should not allow themselves to become part of the problem that the police are authorized to resolve. It is never wise to resist an officer who has reason to believe that he is engaged in his policing duties. Complaints should not be raised to the officer personally but may be noted as a reason for the citizen to witness his actions to a court of proper jurisdiction. The trained officer knows that this is a citizen's authorized action and will not normally act in threat or harm to one who seems willing to take it to higher authority. The one exception is the police officer who appears to be engaged in a felony. There is a citizen right to interfere whether alone or en masse to prevent serious crimes. The trained officer will know enough to back away on pain of prosecution. If the crime is complete citizens can engage in a citizen arrest of the officer but they do not have the special police authority or responsibility behind their acts. This should be the exception only undertaken where immediate action is demanded by the specific situation. Officers are otherwise authorized to direct the public and individuals as necessary to maintain the peace and to secure domestic tranquility for the larger public. And much of this is regulated by laws and codes that are not common knowledge. Police can prevent gatherings that are likely to be disruptive or lead to violence or criminal activities. They can direct citizens to take personal actions so long as these are not criminal. They can stop and challenge persons who fit the description of known criminals or who act in a manner that indicates that they may have engaged in known crimes. An officer who witnesses a crime in progress or being completed has immediate authority to take charge of the situation and act to restrain any criminal suspect. It is most unwise for any common citizen to interfere and any citizen challenge can easily be treated as interference with an officer of the law performing his duties or as an obstruction of justice or even as supporting the criminal act. The interference can even be approached as aiding and abetting the criminal with yourself subject to prosecution as if you took part in the crime. The general rule is to let the public officer do his job and even support his or her action as you are able. Otherwise, do your best to keep out of the way protecting yourself and others who might become victims of the situation. There may be some regulations such as on reckless pursuit of a fleeing felon but these are internal to the police and their the way they govern their own behavior they do not grant any special authority or responsibility to the citizen who is in the vicinity of police activities. There is nonsense being presented as social justice that police are not to preferentially stop people who are of one race more than another or who wear traditional dress of some ethnic or religious origin. This is nonsense because profiling suspected criminals is a police function. Where the description of a criminal suspect includes race or demonstrated tradition these are what need to be included in their profiling and they are expected to preferentially challenge those who meet that description. If the suspect was wearing a beard they stop bearded people. If he wore a red jacket they preferentially stop those wearing red jackets near the scene of the crime. If the crime occurs in a black neighborhood which is not frequented by those of other races then they preferentially stop black suspects. If they are trying to meet racial goals they would not be doing their function as police officers. Criminal law grants authority based on the crime not on the description of the suspect. Police officers are paid to be biased against criminals. There are certain crimes that are committed with much greater concentration among some peoples than others. Honor killings for example are within the Arabic culture and come within the definition of homicide in America where there is indication of a homicide being an honor killing. It is right to act most aggressively in searching those who have Arabic names or exhibit other signs of adherence to that culture. Being personally biased against any race or creed or appearance is not part of the police authority. Acting on that bias is a public offense. It is also a matter for supervisory police notice more than for public reaction. We hear much of criminal wrongs committed by police and there are potential criminals in all fields of endeavor. The responsibility for managing police officer behavior rests with the management of police organizations. It is the leadership that is responsible for fulfilling the police function through the officers who are hired for that very purpose. If any police officer engages in crime it is also a police manager who has failed in his or her management of subordinate officers. Most criminal behavior by officers can be addressed by holding police supervisors personally liable right along with their guilty subordinates. Both are potentially responsible for results from police actions performed under color of police authority. Gaining performance through their employees is the very purpose for granting a police leader supervisory authority with authority comes responsibility. If police supervisors do not do their supervisory duties then it is right to also recognize that they are supervised by higher level officers and that they are also lacking in supervision. It is up to higher levels of management to challenge subordinate police supervisors who have responsibility for subordinates who misuse their authority. This aligns the larger police authority with the purpose of the public. It is basic management. It is recognition that the authority should never be granted without responsibility for exercise of that authority. With this we also have to address the larger police powers granted to non- police groups. Leadership largely incompetent in performing management has not been good in containing police authority nor taking responsibility for what administration and leadership has put in motion. That is a reality of law and government in modern America. It is that the legal community is largely unwilling to challenge or reprimand officers of the law for their fear that they might themselves be seen as contributing to the wrong through failure in their duties. It is of course their failure and exercise of management authorities that has contributed to the misconduct of officers. There is a recognizable amount of awesome them attitude in the exercise of police authority and it has given effect in supervisory management. Instead of a police management that gains something through the efforts of police officers we often find a police administration that simply directs what it feels is appropriate for those who hold authority granted to officers. In this current orientation police leadership has nothing to gain from change. Change is unlikely unless citizens come together and direct their government's police authority to their purposes. That is a proper direction for citizen self-governance.