Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 16, 2009

The public is increasingly exposed to scenes of unnecessary violence perpetrated against innocent people by police.

Many of those incidents are the product of a mind-set in which anything other than instant and unqualified submission to police orders is treated as justification for the use of force. Police in such circumstances often arrest their victims for the supposed crime of resisting arrest.

One police officer from New Jersey explains that police are trained to perceive such thing as ?Refusing to obey verbal commands, stiffening your body, putting your hands in your pocket, lowering your center of gravity, [or] possessing a menacing demeanor on your face? as ?resisting arrest.?

Police should be able to detain legitimate criminal suspects, but they shouldn?t have the power to criminalize involuntary reactions. Treating the act of resisting arrest as potential grounds for a sentence enhancement, rather than a crime in itself, would be a helpful corrective.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.