Too Close for Comfort

Credit: chase_elliott / photo on flickr

A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, judge has fined Kimberly Bracken $300 for interfering with police officers by watching them make an arrest. Police ordered Bracken, who was about 50 feet away from them, to leave the area, but she refused.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Elizabeth Pittinger, executive director of the Citizen Police Review Board, said officers use their discretion to determine what constitutes a safe distance from a crime scene.

In a situation such as Ms. Bracken's, "You have to put some trust into the police if they are telling you to move along" for safety, and citizens must also use good judgment if they are being told an area is unsafe, Ms. Pittinger said.

Pittsburgh's Citizen Police Review Board is a crackerjack check on police misconduct. Pittinger is in no way a police union stooge.

[Crackers Boy]

And nothing else happened.

CB

[Steve G]

When you wage War on Cops, surveillance forces are every bit as important as the assault forces.

[josh]

i'm not even bothered by trusting an officer to use their judgement about what constitutes being "too close", so long as the review boards of the world use their common sense as a remedy when it's challenged. by all accounts here, they just took the officers word. when an officer has to make a concerted effort to draw someone into a discussion about being too close, chances are they're probably not too close.