When Edgewater police officer Daniel Rippeon charged Paul Wert with resisting an officer without violence, it raised a lot of questions.
Wert, 22, was arrested May 10 shortly after 10 p.m., minutes after the CVS where he worked closed. He was sitting on a bench waiting for a ride when Rippeon pulled up. The officer shouted: “ID CARD. Something with your name on it,” according to body camera footage.
Wert didn’t offer it up and said: “I didn’t break the law, sir.” When his ride pulled up, he got up and said, “That’s my ride, I’m going to go ahead and go.”
Rippeon replied, “No, you’re not.”
Wert sat back down and repeated that he didn’t break any laws. Rippeon pointed his taser at the young man and reported on his police radio that he had “one resisting.” The officer threatened to tase him and said, “If you move, you’re going to get dog bit.”
When a policeman demands ID, can you refuse?
One of the first questions that came up after this story came out was whether or not you have the right to refuse to provide your ID to a police officer. Can you be arrested for that? Is that considered resisting?
Another question that popped up, what do you have to do to be arrested or convicted for resisting an officer without violence? What does “resisting” mean?
Were Paul Wert’s rights violated? Here are some answers.
When do you have to give your ID to a policeman?
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, in Florida, you are only expected to identify yourself to Florida law enforcement officers when you are stopped on suspicion of a crime or a traffic violation.
Frank Rubino, a defense attorney, says on his website that “an officer cannot demand ID without reasonable suspicion of a crime. Simply walking in public, sitting in a park, or shopping does not require you to provide identification.”
OK, so what does ‘reasonable suspicion’ mean?
According to MuscaLaw.com (a Florida network of defense attorneys), reasonable suspicion applies when an officer observes suspected criminal activity. It can also include “unusual behavior.”
That might be “behavior that is inconsistent with the ordinary activities of law-abiding citizens.” For example, a person loitering near a closed business, trying to conceal an object, or looking into parked vehicles may trigger reasonable suspicion.
Rippeon said he questioned Wert because he saw him “hiding behind the pillars of a closed building,” though that wasn’t caught on camera.
What if the subject meets the criteria of reasonable suspicion?
According to LawInfo.com, if there is reasonable suspicion, an officer may stop a suspect on the street, frisk the person without probable cause to arrest, detain, and investigate the person
What is the difference between reasonable suspicion and probable cause?
LawInfo.com puts it this way: “Reasonable suspicion exists when the likelihood of criminal wrongdoing is apparent to a trained police officer. Probable cause exists when the likelihood of criminal wrongdoing is apparent to any reasonable person.”
It takes less information to demonstrate an officer had reasonable suspicion than probable cause.
What is resisting an officer without violence?
According to the defense firm Hussein & Webber, P.L., in Florida, resisting an officer without violence is “any non-violent obstruction of a law enforcement officer during the execution of a legal duty, including arrest.”
Florida statutes says whoever shall “resist, obstruct, or oppose any law enforcement officer in the execution of a legal duty, without offering or doing violence to the person of the officer, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree.”
What ended up happening in the CVS incident?
After Wert was arrested on May 10, he was taken to jail, where he spent three days, according to jail records. The News-Journal received a copy of the body camera footage on June 3 and posted the video and wrote a story.
On June 4, the State Attorney’s Office filed a “no information” with the court, dropping the charges. That same day, Rippeon was placed on administrative leave.
“Following the arrest of Wert, a formal internal affairs investigation was initiated. Officer Rippeon has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation,” the Edgewater Police Department said in a Facebook post.
On June 5, Rippeon resigned. His resignation paperwork said it was a “voluntary separation not involving misconduct.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Was Edgewater policeman Daniel Rippeon’s arrest of Paul Wert legal? Here’s what we know.
Reporting by Colleen Michele Jones and John Dunbar, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
