Duty to rescue injured police officer during traffic stop? [USA] Hypothetical here. Suppose Alice is pulled over by Officer Bob. Bob gets out of his car, and on his way to Alice's car is struck by vehicle C, sending Bob to the ground. Bob does not rise immediately, so Alice decides this is her lucky day and drives away, without alerting anyone as to what transpired. The police later catch up with Alice. What will she be charged with? Link to a similar question, where the person in the officer's custody was struck
The answer by @Digital fire is not always correct. Some states have passed general-purpose "duty to rescue" statutes. The one I've been trained about is Vermont's (Cite as: 12 V.S.A. § 519) § 519. Emergency medical care (a) A person who knows that another is exposed to grave physical harm shall, to the extent that the same can be rendered without danger or peril to himself or herself or without interference with important duties owed to others, give reasonable assistance to the exposed person unless that assistance or care is being provided by others. The statue goes on to provide good Samaritan protection and state the penalty for violating the statute: a fine of not more than $100. Digital Fire does refer to the Wikipedia article about a duty to act/rescue, but the lead of that article says it is referring to torts, that is, whether the person who wasn't assisted (or his/her estate) could bring a lawsuit against the person who didn't help. But the Vermont statute creates an offense with which the suspect could be charged in a criminal trial.
It depends. The police and only the police decide what are and are not police matters. However, although it might not be a police matter, you still have lots of options at your disposal. For example, does your jurisdiction (city, town, municipality, etc.) have an animal control division? i.e., City dog catcher. Most do. If so, I would call the animal control division and file a report. They might possibly do a field visit and take the animal into custody if the animal is still roaming loose. If you sustained bodily injuries, you should get checked by a doctor and have those injuries documented in a medical report. If possible, you could drive by the property and take photos of the unchained dog roaming loose. Then, armed with your evidence consisting of: police report medical injury report animal control report and photographs of the scene You could (with the help of a licensed attorney) file a civil suit against the pet owner. You might be able to win an award for damages, pain and suffering and possibly punitive damages as well (check with your attorney). Also, your attorney could advise you if you might have a cause to move for an enforcement action against the dog and/or its owners that might or might not include having the animal removed from the owners custody or in extreme cases of negligence and bad behavior possibly "put to sleep." Your suit might focus on collecting from the homeowner's insurance policy of the pet owner and you could potentially collect a lot of money with the right set of facts and evidence on your side. You might want to look for an attorney who specializes in personal injury. Most PI attorneys work on a contingency. Meaning they don't charge an up front fee and will only get paid if you win your case or settle. In which case their fee is typically about 1/3 of what you get awarded in settlement or judgment.
Charlie is not a party to the contract between Alice and Bob Alice and Charlie have no contractural relationship and Alice cannot require him to do anything nor is he liable to Alice in any way. Alice’s issue is with Bob who has clearly breached his contract. Alice can sue Bob for damages and may be able to end the lease. There is no trespass because Charlie is there with the permission of the leaseholder. From Charlie’s position there is no reason to believe that Bob does not have the authority to give this permission so Charlie is not in breach of the law. The police will see this as a civil matter and won’t intervene.
Depends on where you are, and what law would be broken and why. In germany, there is the concept of rechtfertigender Notstand (justifying emergency). If there is a present danger to a Rechtsgut (legally protected interest), one can take necessary and proportional steps against another legally protected interest. Say I walk through a winter landscape and there is a person who has broken through the ice of a lake (a present danger of the loss of life). Nearby is a yard with a ladder leaning on a shed. I would be allowed to enter the yard (normally trespas) and take the ladder (normally theft) in the rescue attempt (life counts for more than a ladder, using a ladder is necessary/appropriate for an ice rescue). The details are, as usual for Law SE, complicated.
The legality of the stop may be somewhat up in the air, but it would seem that the vehicle is not in the Texassure database, so it is reasonable to think that the person driving is not insured, and therefore is breaking the law. And that is all that is required: that the suspicion is reasonable. Until someone makes a sufficiently persuasive legal stink about this, it is probably a legal stop. This article gives some legal discussion. One applicable case is US v. Broca-Martinez, a Texas case where a person was pulled over for being "unconfirmed" w.r.t. the insurance database: the court held that this was a reasonable suspicion. Thereafter, a charitable interpretation is that you misunderstood the request in providing your sister's information when he asked for your license and insurance: but you are expected to understand that when they request your license and proofs of insurance, they mean you the driver, and not the car owner. That they is even more suspicious, although I understand your confusion. At your hearing you cane explain why you didn't comply with the first officer's request, and the judge may they chalk this up to a simple misunderstanding rather than intentional deception. The problem is that you are expected to know – whether or not you've ever been pulled over before – that you have to provide license, registration, and proof of insurance. You will have a hard time making it believable that you didn't understand what the officer told you and what the law requires.
What is the correct way to handle this situation? Strictly speaking, each driver exceeding the speed limit is in violation of the traffic sign even if everybody else also infringes it. Thus it is completely valid for the police to pull &amp; fine anyone from among those drivers. Statutes like the one you mention are intended for scenarios where a driver departs significantly --and for no apparent [lawful] reason-- from the speed limit, such as driving at 20 mph in a 55 mph zone. Typically a driver would not get pulled over in the scenario you mention (driving at 62 mph where everybody else drives at 65 mph). The exception would be some police department(s) requiring its cops to meet a quota of fines per week, but that would be quite a questionable practice having nothing to do with the legislative intent. Speed limits are supposed to represent normal and reasonable movement of traffic. If informed consensus is that a particular speed limit is inconsistent with that principle (for instance, where limit is artificially low and raising it would not compromise safety), then a request could be submitted to the Oregon Department of Transportation.
It's called police and prosecutorial discretion to discern when to arrest and prosecute; and that situation in particular is also the result of a decision of the jury of the court of public opinion. Permits are required to sell on the street in Oakland. But not everyone who sells has a permit, and not everyone who is confronted about not having a permit is arrested and prosecuted. There are simply too many potential cases to prosecute. And, the police officer has the discretion to ticket or not. When you get pulled over while driving or riding a bike, you don't always get a ticket, since the officer has the option of discretion. When the officer responded and found an eight year-old selling water, he obviously was aware of the fact that it was a violation. But he was also aware of the court of public opinion. What is it going to look like if he arrests an eight year old and their parent? Allison Ettel was right, in a purely legal sense, to make the report. And technically, the child (and adult) needed a permit. And could have been ticketed and prosecuted. But it was Ettel was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion, and she lost her case. Happens a lot.
None No law requires police to keep people apart when making statements. Doing so is good police practice. In some police organizations internal regulations or procedures may specify that officers should do so. But those are not laws. In some cases witnesses may have had a chance to confer and agree on a story before police arrive, the police cannot prevent that. The trier of fact can take into account that witnesses had a chanc to agree on a false story.