Littering With Gun

That place sounds screwed up.

From the article it appears to be nothing burger.
A 17 & 18 y/o has a pistol with them, tossed it when the lights came on, and they weren’t involved with a criminal act. In their mind, probably a good way to not get shot.
 
I understand the officers coordinating with the DA's office but not allowing the DA to pick and choose which charges are filed when. That would get you an empty muster room where I come from.... oh, and a lot of empty patrol cars in the parking lot....
 
Doesn’t the DA decide what charges to pursue anyway in every jurisdiction? Seems that this approach would be less rigorous and certainly less costly. From a public or officer safety perspective it seems largely irrelevant, there are so many petty criminals that locking them up for a few days doesn’t change the calculus at all. Besides, if the criminals know that they aren’t likely to get arrested for petty crimes won’t they tend to choose to remain reasonable during the interaction vs getting violent?

It is contrary to current policing methods, and since the current methods do produce a good result, folks are hesitant to change them. But those same methods result in an excessive taxpayer burden, and so I wouldn’t discourage creative thinking and experimentation.
 
Doesn’t the DA decide what charges to pursue anyway in every jurisdiction? Seems that this approach would be less rigorous and certainly less costly. From a public or officer safety perspective it seems largely irrelevant, there are so many petty criminals that locking them up for a few days doesn’t change the calculus at all. Besides, if the criminals know that they aren’t likely to get arrested for petty crimes won’t they tend to choose to remain reasonable during the interaction vs getting violent?

It is contrary to current policing methods, and since the current methods do produce a good result, folks are hesitant to change them. But those same methods result in an excessive taxpayer burden, and so I wouldn’t discourage creative thinking and experimentation.


Threw a gun out the window...
 
Do we have the whole story here?
Is it even illegal for an 18yr old in Texas to have a pistol? They never really said what weapons charges the prosecutor declined to press.
This story is weird enough as it’s told that I suspect I’m being misled.
 
Do we have the whole story here?
Is it even illegal for an 18yr old in Texas to have a pistol? They never really said what weapons charges the prosecutor declined to press.
This story is weird enough as it’s told that I suspect I’m being misled.

No but the driver was 17. In my head that complicates things since the driver is usually considered in control of the contents of a vehicle and the gun was on the floorboard. So the 18 yo passenger was not in possession of the gun per the driver. What I can't find mention of is prior history on these two. I wonder if that plays into this? I only read about half the article so maybe that's at the end.
 
Do we have the whole story here?
Is it even illegal for an 18yr old in Texas to have a pistol? They never really said what weapons charges the prosecutor declined to press.
This story is weird enough as it’s told that I suspect I’m being misled.
From what I read, they wanted to charge him with possession. The interviewee admitted twice on body cam, in two separate field interviews that the gun was his.

I wonder if this is part of the same, reduce crime by under reporting thing that happened in FL.
 
Once again the gun is the focus, and not the actual reason for the stop or the subsequent crime and victims. Until it stops being the absolute focus, it's only gonna get worse. At least they didn't toss bullets out the windows at 1200fps.
 
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