I have written several blog posts about the rather incomprehensible obsession that almost every single police officer in the United States seems to have about demanding people's IDs, and being astonishingly insistent about it, often in situations where they don't have the legal right to do so. (The United States is one of the few countries in the world where the police actually needs a legal reason to demand people's ID, and can't demand it willy-nilly, just because they want to. This is a direct consequence of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.)
Examples of previous blog posts about the subject include a cop threatening to arrest a suspected victim of an assault if he refuses to identify (and speaking to him like he's being suspected of some kind of crime), a cop mistaking a woman for a 10-year-old girl from behind and then handcuffing her when she refused to ID, for absolutely no suspicion of any crime, and another cop mistaking the cane of a legally blind man for a weapon and then proceeding to arrest him when he refused to ID... again even though he was not being suspected of any crime whatsoever. He was arrested solely and merely because of refusing to ID and nothing else, even though the state law did not support such an arrest at all.
While those are some of the most egregious and incomprehensible examples, there are of course myriads and myriads of others.
I find this example exceptionally telling. That's because it really shows how obsessed American cops are with ID'ing people.
A guy is traveling by bike at night when he gets a flat tire, so he goes to a gas station to see if there's an air pump there. Two cops arrive and start demanding his ID, just like that. No suspicion of any particular crime, they just want ID. The man repeatedly asks them why he needs to show ID, what he's being suspected of, and the officers just refuse to answer, or allude to very vague "there have been robberies" there (which has been ruled many times, even up to the Supreme Court, as not being enough of a reason to ID or even detain someone.)
What makes this case particularly telling about their obsession is that eventually there are a whopping 7 police cruisers and a whopping 9 police officers at the scene... only and solely to demand the man's ID, and nothing else. Several officers keep repeating over and over how the only thing they want is to identify him, after which he's free to go. And they need a whopping NINE police officers on the scene, arguing with the guy for half an hour, just for that. Just to ID him and let him go afterwards, and nothing else. Seven police cruisers and nine police officers.
It's also very telling when you listen to what the officers say. They almost seem like lost children who don't know what to do, and are completely puzzled by this guy refusing to ID, and don't really know what to do about it, and just keep arguing with him that the only thing he needs to do is to ID himself and everybody can go home, as if him ID'ing himself is of such paramount importance that nine officers need to be there to make sure it happens before they can go their way.
In this another example a guy is driving at night and stops at a church's parking lot to sleep in his car. Police arrive and demand his ID because, according to them, he's "trespassing on private property".
There are many things wrong with this. Firstly, the police can't just go demand people's ID for "trespassing on private property" when they are on a parking lot that's clearly marked as public access. Like the author of the video says, imagine if you park on the parking lot of a convenience store and the police would then come and demand your ID because you were "trespassing" on the store's private property. Sure, the parking lot may be private property, but that's not how the law works. You can't be automatically trespassed from a place that has been clearly marked as publicly accessible, such as the parking lot of a store open to the public.
You can be trespassed from such a property, but it has to be done explicitly by the owner of the property (or someone given the authority to do so by the owner), and you need to be given the opportunity to leave the property before any charges or ID'ing can be done.
There are some situations where a private property owner can have a deal with the police that people can be automatically trespassed from the parking lot out of business hours, but even then the "trespasser" needs to be given notice and the opportunity to leave. That's not what happens in the video. He's immediately detained and not allowed to leave, and demanded ID, even though he hasn't committed any crime.
And, like with the other video, what's particularly telling is that they aren't actually suspecting him of any crime. They just want his ID and he'll then be free to go. The cop in the video very explicitly says that, ie. that "the only thing you need to do is to present your driver's license, and you'll be free to go."
This, even though that's not how the law works. He has to be given the opportunity to leave first and only if he refuses can then he be arrested for trespassing. There is no law that says that if someone is trespassed he has to show ID before he can leave.
But, of course, American cops have an ID fetish, so they just need to have it.
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