 Hello, everybody. This is search and seizure in golf balls, where I will teach you a little bit about search and seizure, and then Eric will tell you everything you want to know about not hitting someone with a golf ball and getting blamed for it. Can I have a quick show of hands? Who knows a little bit about Eric's story? I've heard it before. Fair amount of people. If anyone else is confused after we're done talking, talk to one of the people who just raised their hands. They'll explain. My name is Jim. I am a criminal defense attorney. I've been practicing here in Vegas for the past three years or so. Eric is but a modest hacker and was mining his own business one day about two years ago when he found himself arrested by the Seattle police department. So what I'm going to do then is I'm going to talk a little bit about search and seizure law, when the police can stop you, when you can be searched, what the law actually is, and then we're going to see from Eric's experience how the law is actually applied by the police and you might see a little bit of a difference between the two. And we want to have time for questions at the end. Hopefully we will have time to have questions in here. If we don't have time in here, we'll be in the Q&A room over there. 113. Thank you. After this. Okay. Oh yeah, I have to give my legal disclaimer. Because I'm a lawyer, I have a legal disclaimer, which is that you should not take legal advice from some guy talking at DEF CON. If you actually get arrested, hire a lawyer or get the public defender or whatever, but don't take my advice as the gospel truth. I only have 20 minutes to instruct you on law that took me at least three or four months of law school to learn. So I'm not really going to cover everything, okay? And don't try to play gacha with me either. I know I'm leaving stuff out, okay? I speak from experience with hackers. Okay. All right. Now, search and seizure law is mostly based on the federal constitution, the Bill of Rights, the 4th, 5th and 6th amendments. This is stuff that they really should have taught us all in high school. Instead of telling us about the bill on Capitol Hill, they probably should have told us what to do when police stop you and when police can stop you. Because honestly, that's the interaction most of us have with the police or the government more often than passing bills and the executive branch and blah, blah, blah. However, they don't teach us this stuff in high school, so that's why I'm going to give a little primer, give you a little framework to understand what happened to Eric. So there's basically three different levels of when the police can stop you. There's the voluntary stop, the investigatory detention also knows the Terry stop and getting arrested. And that's going from least serious to most serious. All right. So the first one is the voluntary stop. And that's a fancy legal lawyer way of saying police officers, hey, can I talk to you? And you say, sure, why not? Ta-da, you've had a voluntary encounter with a police officer. This is when both of you are agreeing together to have a conversation or at least that's the way it's framed. The officer is going to say you're both agreeing that you're having a conversation. Maybe you're kind of a little bit intimidated into having a conversation. Now, this can last as long as either one of you want it to. And there's completely obviously legitimate reasons to talk to the police officer. It's not all you might get in trouble. You know, everyone's had a situation where they actually call the police and want the police to help them. So it's, it basically lasts until you've both decided to stop talking to one another. And the way you know it's a voluntary encounter versus something more serious that we'll get to is that you are free to leave at any time if it's a voluntary encounter. If you ask the police officer, hey, you know, I'm basically done talking. Is it okay if I leave? I have some place to go. If they say no, then you're being detained. You've been seized by the police officer. This almost isn't a seizure, but officers can use a lot of tricks to keep you kind of intimidated where you'd like to say, I want to leave or, you know, I'm kind of done with the conversation. But you know, they're police officer. They have shiny badges and uniforms and guns and things. So they might try to tell you, you can stick around, that you should stick around, but you have a right to walk away from a conversation if all it is, is a voluntary encounter. And my advice to you is to be polite to the police officer. Be helpful if you want to be helpful. You don't have to be. But at least be polite. Don't turn on full asshole mode at the beginning. If you're walking by and the cop asks you what time it is, don't be like, oh, am I free to leave, officer? Are you detaining me? Just be cool with the officer. And you know, they're people doing their jobs too, all right? They might have a different outlook on some things than your I do, but they're doing their jobs. And they might be having a bad day. Just play it cool and hopefully you won't escalate to the next level of a police encounter. Which is an investigatory detention, which is also known as a Terry stop for the famous case Terry v Ohio, which says the police can stop you when they have reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred and that you're somehow involved. And as you'll hear from Eric, this is pretty much the situation when they first showed up on the scene in his case. Arguably. I saw you're about to argue with me, don't. And basically, the cops get a call. In Eric's case it was these guys are screwing around with golf balls and they hit somebody and they show up. And at this point, they're investigating whether a crime has occurred. They don't really know. I mean, someone calls 911. But, you know, they don't know if a crime actually occurred. If it's a prank call, if it's something serious, not serious, they don't know what's going on. So they're showing up and trying to figure out, is there a crime? Is that guy involved in the crime? What's going on? So they're allowed to hold the person there until the suspicion is confirmed or the suspicion is evaporated or dissipates or whatever fancy word you want to use. Dispelled. Sure. That was geeky. All right. So they can stay there and basically they investigate and if they decide after some investigation that they got the wrong guy, they're supposed to let the person go. And at that point it goes back down to the previous level, the voluntary encounter. I mean, if they're letting you go, you can stick around if you really wanted to. Or you can leave. Or it gets escalated to the next level, which is you got arrested because they confirmed the suspicion that there was a crime. So this is kind of in between place. And because of that, your rights during this time are pretty unclear. You always have, your rights, we'll talk about later, the Miranda rights, like to remain silent and have a lawyer, you always have those rights. Those are constitutional rights. But it's not really clear if you have any special rights. They don't have to remind you of them at this point. They don't have to read you your rights at this point because they're just investigating. It's also unclear how long they can keep you in this kind of twilight zone of investigating but not charging you with anything not arresting you. The courts take it on a case by case basis. They can't, I think it's usually like if you go past an hour or two of standing on the side of a road, the courts are kind of like, yeah, you should probably let you go. Or they should, you know, they can always come find you later if they need to. There's also a question when they're investigating whether or not you have to identify yourself to police. And this is especially true in Eric's case, which is why he's here to talk today. The answer to that is it depends what state you live in. There was a Supreme Court case called Hibble that was out of Nevada. Nevada has what's called a stop and identify law, which says if you're being stopped and investigated by police for some crime, you do have to identify yourself. And the Supreme Court said that law is fine, but it's up to the states. So here in Nevada, if they're investigating something and ask you to identify yourself, you do have to identify yourself. In Washington state where Eric was detained, there is no such law. And he'll talk about what'll happen because of that. But there is no such law there. If there's about 15 states that have stop and identify laws, you can Wikipedia it later. I don't have a list in front of me, but you have to check on whatever state you're in as to whether you have to identify yourself to police. When you get stopped in this way before you get arrested, so you're not arrested, you're stopped by the side of the road. They can only pat you down for weapons if they have a reasonable suspicion or idea that you have some kind of weapon on you. They don't just get to search you if they've stopped you like this. They can search you only for weapons, only if they have some suspicion that you have a weapon, maybe the 911 caller says, oh, I thought he had a gun. Well, then they can pat you down. But they can only pat you down to make sure you do or don't have weapons. They're not allowed to go into your pockets. They are not allowed to feel something and say, oh, that feels like a wallet. I wonder what's in there. Let's take that out. No. They basically get to feel you up. If it feels like you have a gun or a knife, they can take that off of you, but that's it. They don't get to search anything else. They don't get to look inside things, nothing like that. They can always ask you on this level or the previous on a voluntary encounter, they can ask you for permission if you want to let the officer search you you can, of course. I wouldn't recommend it. And this, of course, leads to many police reports where they claim that the person let them voluntarily search. Whether or not that actually happens is in question many times, but you have a right to not be searched basically up until this point. And again, this level is very vague. This investigatory detention is very vague about your rights and what you should do. Again, just remain polite, remain cool and calm, as you'll see Eric doing for the most part throughout his encounter. And try not to get arrested, which leaves us, oh, come on, open office. There we go. What was that? What's a weapon? It's something that can be plainly identified as a weapon. So if you have some crazy like ray gun or something, then probably, if it feels like a gun, then they get to take it away. If it feels like a knife, they probably get to take it away. Something you can hurt people with. That's going to look ridiculous. They could probably like, if you have a big ass hammer just hanging off your belt, they probably yes, could just put it over on the side for a little while. Stuff like that. All right. Yes, yes. All right, it's not lawyer gotcha time. Let me continue. You can annoy me about what's a weapon during the Q&A. All right. Level three is arrest. They get to arrest you if they have a warrant for your arrest, big shocker. If they actually see you committing the crime, then they get to arrest you, of course. And if there's probable cause that a crime has occurred, do not ask me to define probable cause that will take too long and will be here all day. Probable cause is more than reasons for suspicion, excuse me. If they show up, let's say to a scene, not a one caller says, oh my gosh, there's a bank robbery, a guy with a black t-shirt and camouflage shorts just robbed the bank. They show up and I'm still standing around and 10 people from the bank says, that's the guy right there. Obviously the police didn't see me commit the crime, but at that point they have probable cause because 10 people are all pointing at me and saying he robbed the bank. Whether or not I actually robbed the bank is the question for the trial, which is way down the road. Right now we're just dealing with the police. So basically once you get arrested they get to keep you as long as they want to. You have to be charged within a certain amount of time, that's a different thing. And they basically get to keep you until you're charged with a crime, not charged with a crime, and if you're charged with a crime then bail has to be set, etc. You do get to be searched when you're arrested and that's a full-on search, your pockets are going to get emptied and they're going to take an inventory of everything to make sure nothing gets stolen or you don't accuse them of stealing anything. Right? Alright. And if you're driving your car when you get arrested there's many many rules about what part of your car gets to be searched. I'm going to say the short version is if you get arrested while you're driving your car yes they can search your whole car. So if you're carrying around your weed in your car, bad idea. They will find it if you get arrested. They also obviously get to search you and they get to search anything within basically your your arms reach around you. They get to search if you're arrested in your house. What are your rights at this point? It's your Miranda rights and I'll go into more detail in just a second. I'll just do it. And then my advice of course is for you to shut up. But there's a caveat to that. Once you're arrested you have these rights. The right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. And the other ones in parentheses are special. If you're a kid under 18 you have the right to have your parent present at any questioning. And if you're not a U.S. citizen you have a right to someone from your home country's embassy or consulate. You have a right to have them come help you come talk to you. But anyway the main two are the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. So this year the Supreme Court decided one of their stupidest criminal decisions in a long time. Because previously the way you exercised your right to remain silent was you were silent. And that makes a lot of sense if the police are talking to you and you're sitting there not saying anything and they keep talking to you keep talking to you. You're not saying anything you're quiet. Well clearly the person's choosing to remain silent they're exercising their rights. And the point of that is at some point the police need to stop asking you questions stop being intimidating let you remain silent because that is your right and leave you alone. What the Supreme Court said this year I don't remember the case name but they said this year in order to exercise your right to remain silent you must tell the police officer that you want to be silent. So what you have to do is once you get arrested you must say I want to remain silent and then remain silent and then that'll work and then they have to leave you alone and not question you about what's going on. You also have the right to an attorney and you should have you have to say I want to talk to my attorney or I want to see an attorney and then stop talking. If you put any qualifiers on it like I probably want to see you an attorney I think I should see an attorney it's a good idea it doesn't count. There's many many cases on this it doesn't count if you put any kind of qualifying language all you have to say is I must see my attorney or I want to see my attorney the end. So you have to actively invoke your rights there's no more passive courts assuming that you want to exercise your rights you actually have to step up and invoke your rights so if you ever get arrested please step up and invoke your rights they're there for a reason they're there to protect you. All right you ready? Yeah. All right. So now that's the basic framework the three different ways the police can stop you and as you'll see Eric's experience was we kind of start out when investigating the crime and he ends up in jail whether or not he should have is. Well currently being debated. Still two years later. Yeah. Just a moment while I steal the video here. Yeah yeah. Sorry in the meantime there he got arrested because he and a bunch of people some of whom are here in the audience. I don't know if they want to hide or say they are a bunch of people were playing what's called urban golf in Seattle. I don't know. Is your laptop. Oh that was because it's dual view. So if you could tell us what urban golf is really quick. So yeah urban golf divide are you in the room. No son of a bitch. It's organized in Seattle by the student divide and pretty much the deal is it's a it's a prearranged organized event open to the public kicks off here various different locations that was Cal Anderson Park Capitol Hill neighborhood anyway. What the organizers do in advance as they go around and they put little Astro turf greens out on various street corners around the neighborhood and you tee off from each of these greens and you play through you know alleys and sidewalks and parking lots to little holes that have been set up in advance and just so happens that each hole is approximate to a drinking establishment. And so by the ninth hole you know which incidentally is where the incident took place. It's you know it's been a fairly lively and engaging experience. So yeah it's a great time. Yeah go for it by the way how are we for time. We're fine for time don't worry about that. All right so I have a little set up here now is the time I'm gonna hit a golf ball into the audience who don't want to get hit by a golf ball move their foam they're not gonna hurt you. Yes we're recreating the real event for some reason we were listed as a demo on the website. So I decided I should do a demo. You want to get me arrested you got to try harder than that. I'm kind of debating how much you know how much I want to ramble about all this so how I how are we for time. Okay ramble so I'll start I'm actually I'll tell the story in flashback format and I'll start with at the point that I got arrested and then I'll circle back to how it all went down. So at the point in time where the officer decided to arrest me you know did the predictable thing put me in cuffs it's me down on the curb does this thing for a while. Eventually he throws me in the back of a squad car there were a bunch of squad cars on the scene he turns the little in car video camera that was facing out the front of the car to face me in the back of the car to record me bad behaving badly if I should have chosen to do so and probably also to provide evidence that he wasn't you know beating me up in the squad car. I don't know hold me off to the precinct house when we got to the precinct house you know they made me stand with my feet you know my toes on a little line of black tape while they took my picture and I forgot to mention also they did search me incident to the arrest when they first put me in cuffs search incident to arrest you know he basically turns your pockets inside out. I remember you know when I finally found myself in the holding cell at the station I'm sitting there still in cuffs with my pockets turned inside out and you know just noticing a little camera on the ceiling in the holding cell and this big metal gnarly metal hook embedded in the cement floor I'm like wow how do you get yourself attached to that you know and you know having been you know participating in urban golf earlier I'd you know I'd been consuming liquids and you know I still had a fair amount of liquids on board and it was getting fairly uncomfortable and I was waging this private battle with the police I was not gonna ask to use the bathroom and thereby give them the satisfaction of confirming that maybe I had in fact had a couple of drinks but you know so it was you know at a certain point to start to wonder like how long hang on to me here you know they're like I'm gonna have to use my phone call to have somebody feed my cat you know what's going on it it wasn't too traumatic they threatened to hold me over the entire weekend but that turned out to be a bluff they cut me loose after about 45 minutes and you know much later I was charged and I think if there's time I'll ramble about that as well but yeah so circling back to the incident itself I think I'll just roll the tape so you know actually I had a rant for a second before I roll the tape the the police by the way when I went and asked for the tape during my criminal trial produced no tape after the case was dismissed I filed some public records acts requests for the tape I was told oh well we had a tape but we erased the tape I thought that would have been a violation of SPD policy since I'd read the policies at that point and so then I did some research turns out that the system they use creates activity logs for all the tapes I was like wow I want to see who erased it and when so I got the activity log turns out they had the tape the whole entire time so this is that tape they just forgot so I'll ramble during the first minute of the tape about the technical aspects of digital in-car video systems used by the police here the cop cars just parked because the police have been interviewing the complainant that is the person who called 911 because he got hit with a nerve ball and at a certain point they see a bunch of golfers at the other end of the block and the complainant goes look golfers and so two of the cops jump back in their squad cars and turn the squad cars around and go and you know initiate the contact and that's what's happening here officer Emily is turning her car around and there's the bar that was the ninth bar in the course and the complainants here in white sneakers and there's another cop standing there he's going to walk over in a minute this is silent because this is the cameras in so-called pre-event mode it continuously records everything that goes on but only when it's activated does it start to retain the video and so it gets the 60 seconds before it's activated by the officer turning on the overhead lights as the one up front does also notice that they park at an angle that's to get the best possible view for the camera right through the windshield and all that good stuff and we'll get audio now because officer Emily has just turned on the microphone that over there keep walking there sure sure sure are you with them are you with them I'm not giving you any statements are you with them yes or no what's that about a statement well to answer your questions that would be a statement I'm not answering questions so so what's that he's not giving any statements so cool would we get to arrest him and let him know it's great head over there now I don't know if you can hear what he just said but that cop just walks right up to her she says he's not answering any questions he says cool that means we get to arrest him and hold him for the weekends he looks at his watch and says that's it you're not gonna see a judge until Monday and all I've done is not answer questions can you do that yes can hear actually arrest you for that no not in Washington where there's no stop identify law and besides you're just minding your own business they want to ask you simple questions so you can refuse to answer can he threaten to arrest you and you know take your first born child and all that kind of stuff yes he the police officers allowed to lie to you and generally intimidate you into saying things but you also have a right to resist that so well that's I mean that's pretty brutal like so if I assert my rights he can totally just like threaten to violate them left right and center is waiting to get me to wave them well he up to a point I mean if he takes out his gun and points at you and threatens you yeah he's crossed the line but can he just be can he be generally mean to you to make you to try to trick you in answering questions yes he can't yeah we don't really have the audio of my conversation with the officer here because the girl with the mic she's walked away with that help you deal with this hey if you put your hands in your pockets one more time I get to you really no the police's favorite words are furtive movements which basically means anything they want to mean and they try to turn that into a way to search you because they're like oh we kept edging his hand toward his pocket so maybe as a weapon there that's why he's doing it right instead of just you know someone's really nervous because they got pulled over by a cop so they're fidgeting so but no obviously at this point you're not under arrest for anything there's been no claim you have a weapon other than a maybe a golf club which you're not holding and he has no reason to search you so no he can't search you right now that's now on video I'll just let the tape roll and some things happen minute she just called me a joker so I guess it bears mentioning what else where with the microphone it's during my conversation with the officer here I was careful to ask am I being detained he's like yeah that's like so I'm not free to go he's like no why he's like we're investigating an assault this is the first I've heard of any assault but in my mind's eye I'm like great somebody drunk with a golf club just totally went to town this is also the usual the police getting the law half right because they're cops they think they know of the law 100% they're usually half right someone got hit with a golf ball is a battery not an assaults genius but getting hit by any object by a person like okay I'm going to put that's a battery you can get arrested for that technically hitting any other person against their will with any object is a crime and so they have a right to investigate that why don't you address intent because I mean the guy who hit the dude with the foam golf ball didn't mean to we believe that gets into technical legal jargon but basically I suppose in technically he didn't intend to hit the guy but he's at least a little liable for hitting the guy and yes civil liability yeah it's a pain and then he's probably still creamy liable I mean if you're hitting golf balls in downtown Seattle what do you think someone's not gonna get hit once in a while we want to be very careful by the way it's insane nerve balls or nerf golf balls of course balls so sorry yeah no you do not have to show you are injured further to be a battery like literally this is a battery I'm not joking sorry now they're just screwing around with me but in a minute they're gonna start trying to figure out what to do about this whole situation because they're kind of defunded themselves also a character's about to enter from camera right that will be the complainant again in the white sneakers and he's going to be tipping them off to the fact that he just saw the complainant just you know they said so do you know which one hit you and the complainants like he's a bit thicker like my height with a stocking cap also notice I'm right there so this is legally relevant because well well should they still be detaining me at this point no because he just showed up and said that's not the guy that hit me they asked I or they didn't exactly said but they asked who's want to hit you and you're standing right in front of his face and he pointed you and say yeah that's him so really at this point they should probably let you go and also hmm this is have some is this possibly the reason why this tape went missing for a year or so we can only speculate I don't know you're now conferring among themselves we got him to be able to identify doesn't have a class as you said they don't even have an ID on their suspect and give them another few seconds to roll before I cut it actually so yeah instead of turning me loose what do they do they decide to gather up the IDs of everybody on the scene including people who couldn't possibly be the silent because they're the wrong gender wrong race I don't know if everybody could hear that he asked me to take my ID out and I kind of thought about it for a second like how do I answer this you know because he already threatened to throw me in jail for the weekend and some kind of like I'm very nervous this you know I'm like this guy like I'm walking the spine line like I want to assert my rights here and not be pushed around or you know I have a messing with me but at the same time you know now he's getting really assertive with me and so I said well if you have the legal basis and authority to remove my ID from my wallet I will not resist so of course you know a little a little overwrought of an answer and I wouldn't know if you want to bust out the legalese every time you might just want to be like no yeah now a reminder to something Jim said earlier don't try this in the state of Nevada or any of the 23 other states that have stop and identify laws where provided the officer has reasonable suspicion which this one doesn't with respect to me anyway not now because earlier yeah but anyhow you said it's great for the camera I love it so yeah despite the fact that cameras rolling he's got you know his colleagues standing right freaking there you know also despite the fact that he had no qualms about searching the incident to the arrest five minutes later he's now telling me that I need to search myself for him otherwise I'll accuse him of stealing stuff from me well no he one wonders yeah yeah well again this is the cop half knowing the law because he knows that okay if he's not under arrest yet I can't actually go into his pocket so I'm gonna ask him to do it for me but at the same time he's like feeling up your pocket and stuff which he's not supposed to do anyway because he doesn't think you have a weapon so again he kind of half knows what's going on but not really yeah we can play your game as much as you can I am making a legal request of you to remove your ID from your wallet I have removed your walk from your pocket for your request I'm not gonna dig into your wallet because I'm not comfortable with that given your demeanor if you don't want to remove your ID from your wallet I will take that as a refusal to identify yourself you are now informed of that it's on reporting so if you refuse to give me your ID is now in your pocket you refuse to give me your ID go back over there then right now I'm requesting your ID give me your ID you refuse to give me your ID hey we can always take him down and he could go to the fingerprint section and that's all she wrote so what were you eventually charged with exactly yeah so I'm just gonna let the tape run with the volume turned down now so yeah the aftermath here is they they charge me with obstructing which is really broadly written law I'm not gonna play the lawyer with a lawyer actually sitting here but I have to know the Washington State obstruction statute by heart as a result of this experience and that is any willful act where which has the effect of hindering interfering with or delaying an officer in the discharge of his or her official duties is a misdemeanor and so you know to read that statute at face value it's almost like you don't have rights it's almost like you know refuse to answer questions that's a hindrance don't let them search your car that's a delay and that's exactly how the police department will you know likes to interpret these statutes and they have obstructing statutes like this in a lot of states and you know to a great degree it's it's like Jim says you know the cops they kind of have no the law you know they're not they don't have the entire you know American court system in their brains to sit there and untangle these conflicting statutes that have these inconvenient rights that kind of you know work at all you know at different purposes right and that's I mean that's not their jobs but unfortunately it can have some really bad side effects obviously like Eric went to jail for how long were you in jail for I was only held for about two hours oh okay but I mean you could have been in there I mean who cares I wouldn't want to be in jail for two hours I wouldn't want to be in jail for a couple minutes up your Friday night yeah and I mean I mean you're did you bail yourself out of the release you they release me hey it's at least they're nice enough to that but I mean a lot of people can't get released a lot of people can't afford to bail out and you know it's not their job to know exactly what the law is that's my job it's the court's job it's other people's jobs but it can take several months of sitting in jail before you go to a trial or have a hearing that decides what the law is and what whether what you're doing was right or wrong so that takes a long time and it's a pain in the ass and so it would be nice if the police were a little more informed on the law instead of just construing everything in their favor funny you put it that way oh so about informing the police of the law I guess since there's time I'll talk a little bit about the aftermath of the experience so the first thing I did is I went home and I located the Washington State case that cleared up the ambiguity of the situation all the way back in 1982 Washington State Supreme Court in a case called State v. White said that quote a detainees refusal to disclose his name address another information cannot be the basis of an arrest and so I took the case citation and I emailed it to the Seattle police department's office of professional accountability 10 days after the incident and said hey you guys have tape you've got the facts here's the law don't be arresting people for this and the Seattle police department took my opinion into due consideration and decided to go ahead and charge me with the crime of obstructing so they're like who cares what the law says your and that's when the situation got really really actually kind of frightening because you know at the time of my arrest emotionally I was I was okay you know I'm kind of like alright well this is a fun little civics experiment isn't it you know sitting in handcuffs riding around in the cop car fairly comfortable in the knowledge that I'm innocent except that then when it's time to actually review the facts and the law the system started to go sideways on me and now I'm like oh my god I'm actually being charged with the crime this is now on my record they almost didn't let me into Canada when I tried to go up for Kansak they you know then of course there was the whole thing of like you know crap what if I'm convicted there goes my career they offered me a deal they would drop the charges if I did a bunch of community service and I was gonna say other people arrested that night too you weren't the only one who's rested yeah so other people right yes I'll come back you know so yeah also let's go let's go down that road for a second so yeah two other people were arrested one more for obstructing that was a totally bogus arrest as well allegedly the guy walked away from an officer after being ordered to stop despite the fact that they'd already arrested somebody else for the assault and that somebody else who they arrested for the assault was not as the complainant described a bit thicker about his height wearing a stocking cap and white that so actually you do you mind being singled out right dude it's a real killer so actually talk oh there is yeah here's here's Hikari who had the extreme unpleasant experience of being arrested for assault with a Nerf ball he also got charged and I'm sure it wasn't any more fun for him than it was for me his case was dismissed as well when basically the half-dozen people who were with him the whole entire time informed his lawyer that we didn't see a damn thing and anyway it was a nerf ball so at that point the city decided to drop his case city did it city press my case all the way to the brink of trial we told the city attorney's office repeatedly about the law and they just kept ignoring it and ignoring it and ignoring it until finally the morning of the first contested hearing which is when you actually go and get in front of a judge and argue something and that's when the city attorney said just kidding drop in the case I was out like I said bite you didn't drop the case they dropped the case yes so at that point I was out several thousand dollars for my attorney's fees and so my attitude at the time about the the decision to exercise my civil rights was a somewhat doubtful one and I was like well that was a very expensive learning experience but like I said later on I asked for the tape I started thinking about suing the cops I am suing the cops for false arrest and various other claims that case it's it's it's going I actually I guess it bears mentioning just just this week settled a related case for their failure to turn over the tapes and the experience at this point has been educational and expensive for them so I think on on that note I guess now is about the time turn it over to questions and well before we do that you want to hit golf ball in the audience yeah this time he won't get in any trouble for hitting the golf ball all right heads up fools okay go ahead though that is true the question was are you required to provide identification if there's a stop and identify law or identify yourself there's no requirement in the US except Arizona for you to carry your papers on you so you have to identify yourself give them probably your name in your birth date if you lie you will be in trouble that is a crime at that point so don't try to do shenanigans if they ask you if they have right to ask you you need to tell them the truth alright so the short version of the question is if a cop approaches you to ask you a question should you just say nothing or should you say I'm exercising my right not to talk to you I would just say um somewhere in between I would say no politely say you know I'm not going to answer a question I have somewhere else to be and I'm walking away see you later if you want to stop you and try to escalate it at that point then he's probably going to have some explaining to do I'm depending on state all right junk is going to die if you don't answer the question what yes yes all right so that the question is the question is if you know because in Nevada there's a law that you have to post the trespass notice on the place first so yes if you if you manage to accidentally go on the roof of the Riviera they can kick you off the property right right I'm just saying hypothetically they can certainly eject you from the property because they don't have to let you be here but no that's not trespassing anyway okay let's go the yellow shirt and then the gray shirt thanks question is if you're in an interrogation room you've been arrested at that point is there some golden time limit before they have to stop questioning you the answer is no not really however the longer it takes the more likely a court is going to say that's not cool and kick out whatever they get at some point hopefully you evoke your right to be silent or to have an attorney and that should end it sooner but no if you hold out for 24 hours it's not like there's some magic limit where they have to stop questioning you they have to give you water in bathroom I'm sure at some point yes the answer is that but okay before we go to the person in the gray shirt we've just been told that time is up and we need to continue this discussion in room 113 all right gracious thank you everybody