County

Man Jailed for Silent Abusive Calls to 911 Sunday

By Chelsea Reinhard cschmid, Sep 8, 2014
 

Twenty individuals were jailed on Sunday, among them one put behind bars for making silent abusive calls to 911. Four more were confined four public intoxication, as well as three for DWI, two for evading arrest, two for walking with the flow of traffic and two for theft. One person was jailed for possession and one person was jailed on a warrant for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. 

Twenty-three inmates were released on Sunday. 

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What is with all these arrests for "walking with the flow of traffic"? Surely people are not being thrown in the hoosegow for walking down the wrong side of a residential street. Besides, at the worst, wouldn't this warrant an everyday traffic ticket, not an arrest? Tex. Transp. Code § 552.006. USE OF SIDEWALK. (a) A pedestrian may not walk along and on a roadway if an adjacent sidewalk is provided and is accessible to the pedestrian. (b) If a sidewalk is not provided, a pedestrian walking along and on a highway shall if possible walk on: (1) the left side of the roadway; or (2) the shoulder of the highway facing oncoming traffic.
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Val1, Mon, 09/08/2014 - 18:10
Gotta agree with Sam on the arrests for walking with the flow. I'm still dying to know who got busted last week for littering & what did they throw down. It seems like they could find something a little more serious to throw folks in jail for. Next it will be all the people who double & triple park to pick up kids at school. No tickets for them just a trip downtown!
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These "walking with the flow of traffic" charges deserve more investigation, and here's why. These stops should last no longer than it takes for the officer to inform the "lawbreakers" that they need to switch sides of the street. But I have a feeling that they are being forced to answer questions, provide ID, etc...Unless the officer recognizes the person as wanted, there is no valid or LEGAL reason to run their ID through the system or to check for warrants. Ultimately the "perpetrator" will get frustrated for being stopped and will end up being charged with Failure To I.D., or Resisting Arrest, and that quite frankly is bullshit. IF the SAPD is using this pedestrian traffic law to detain people solely to ascertain identity, that is a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. How is society being served by these stops?
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Given the high number of comments the last time someone was arrested for walking with the flow of traffic, I did a bit of research and made some calls to find out what the deal was. Turns out, in the previous instance, the guy was taking a stroll down a relatively busy street and refused to leave the roadway when asked by police officers. He then had to be escorted out of the road.

Although it's not true in every case, a lot of these walking with flow of traffic charges are accompanied by something else, ie. possession, a warrant, paraphernalia, etc. Some of them are booked solely on the walking charge, but the ones I've called about so far generally stem from non-responsive or non-compliant behavior of the person committing the offense or other criminal activity. On the other hand, the information available is somewhat limited depending on how detailed the officer is in his report. It varies case by case, so it's fairly difficult to pinpoint a specific reason a person was jailed on that charge.

When I write the crime reports, I tally the number of offenses in each category, leaving out things like failure to appear and other "minor" infractions. The littering guy actually had a few warrants. Since I hate littering and you don't see many jailed for it, I included that one in the report. 

I'll see what additional information is available on the walking charges, and if there's anything conclusive, write a follow up article to share my findings. 

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Thanks Chelsea. It just seems as charges that were unheard of are being used more and more by our officers. "Walking on the wrong side of the Road", or the "Riding a bicycle at night without a light" I always felt these were safety issues, not laws. Now we know.
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Whatever happen to.... LOL Julio, you are thinking about american towns around 1955. Ever since the advent of word processors, city officials love to copy and paste absurd regulations from a neighboring city into the local ordinance books. The fact is you will find it difficult to obey all the rules in US towns if you simply live and breathe.
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