The Troubling Pro-Criminal Legal Standard of the St. Petersburg Times

By Spartacus Thrace

“The wicked flee when no man pursueth” (Proverbs 28:1)

The ultra-liberal members of the editorial board of the St. Petersburg Times believe that criminals who run from the police should be allowed to get away with it, notwithstanding United States Supreme Court precedent and the law passed by the Florida Legislature.  That is the import of  the December 20, 2009 Times editorial titled, “A troubling double legal standard.”

Logo of the St. Petersburg Times

What bothers the leftists at the Times is that police operating in a high-crime area are constitutionally permitted to pursue and detain individuals who engage in headlong flight upon the approach of the police, and that in Florida persons who do flee from the police can be charged with the midemeanor of Obstructing or Opposing an Officer Without Violence.  In other words, the editors at the Times do not like the fact that the police may take into consideration that the neighborhood is infested with individuals engaged in criminal activity in deciding to pursue someone who flees from them, and that the police can criminally charge a fleeing individual with obstruction.