CDing is legal in California - but it does get you extra police scrutiny. Obviously you don't want to drive drunk or carry drugs, especially while dressed.
The soliciting-for-prostitution thing is trickier, being a judgment call. If the cop observes you in any posture or interaction that s/he thinks suggests solicitation, they can arrest you and let it get sorted out later. Don't loiter on street corners, talk to people in cars when on foot, or talk to people on foot when driving. Better still, just don't talk to anybody when you're outdoors, especially after dark. And keep moving.
If you are arrested, the cops can have a lot of "fun" with you - like throwing you, dressed, in to a tank with a bunch of lowlifes and looking the other way.
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Originally Posted by Chrissycd
Sadly, this has always been true, everywhere. If you have 99 good cops and one bad cop, the bad one is the only one most people ever encounter. It very much depends on locality. Everywhere you go, local folks know of places where it's just not safe for anybody to go. Sometimes because of the gangstas, sometimes because of the cops.
But, I would be astonished if a officer being filmed for “Cops” failed to mind his/her P’s and Q’s.
I was taught when growing up: “Never place a cop in a position where he has to prove his authority”. (There weren’t female cops then, just “police women”.)
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Originally Posted by jjjjohanne
Nothing they do in Texas surprises me. Sometimes I’m not even sure that they have written laws there. There are bar fights everywhere, but in Texas, everybody has a gun. *shiver*
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Originally Posted by Elysia
Only if for purposes of criminal activity or "deception". Otherwise, everyone who goes out on Halloween would be subject to arrest.
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Originally Posted by veronica
I’m not sure you could get the DMV to issue you one. Some of us have taken to carrying a laminated ID with boy pic and info on one side, girl pic and name on the other. Worthless by itself, but it helps deal with the fact that you don't look like the picture on your drivers' license.
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Originally Posted by veronica
Not quite. If you fail to produce ID on demand, they may choose to detain you until they determine your true identity and that you aren’t a fugitive or anything. But lots of forms of ID will do – out of state DLs, passports, military IDs, etc..
If you have no ID and are still in your teens, how do they know you're 16? Actually there's a curfew here for minors under a certain age, but most cops have better things to do than give kids a ride home.
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Originally Posted by DonnaT
Archaic laws, never repealed, are the bane of our system. It gives them a pass to shake people down. We got rid of most of the California laws like that in the early 70s, thanks to Willie Brown.
New York used to have some really old ones, like criminalizing “fornication” and prohibiting stores from opening on Sundays. New York being New York, you just had to give the beat cop some money when he came by.
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Originally Posted by DonnaT
Anti-discrimination laws have almost nothing to do with it. People are arrested, then released, all the time without an explanation or an apology. You can file a complaint and/or sue the police if you have $50,000 or so to spare – but most of those cases lose. Plus, if you do that, you usually have to leave town – sometimes the county – forever.
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Originally Posted by niya blake
No, I know people who have been pulled over for that recently. It's a "probable cause" thing for people whose looks they don't like, and whom they wish to examine more closely.
I have even gotten differing legal information from different lawyers!
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Originally Posted by niya blake
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Originally Posted by niya blake
No, but they can make your life so miserable that you can't stand it there anymore. Especially in localities where it's a sellers' market, and there are no rent control or tenants' rights protection laws.
[size=3]I'm not making any of this up. It has all happened here to people I know in recent years. And I didn't have to take their word for it.[/size]
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[size=2]Around here, most of the cops are nice enough about CDing - but then, this is one of the most T-friendly places in the world! I don't know about other states, or other parts of California. That's why I live here. :)[/size]
