Posse Mommitatus‏

An interesting question posed in this Snopes article: “Do you really have to give up your car if a police officer demands it’s use?”

http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/posse.asp

An interesting “what would you do?” question. I always love to take scenarios posed in movies and apply them to real life with the question “what would a normal, rational person do?” It is rarely what the person in the movies does, I assure you. Rational, normal, reasonable decisions do not a good movie make. So, what would you do? A police officer demands that you surrender your vehicle, and states that he is in hot pursuit of a suspect. What do you do?

Me? I don’t really care much what the law says. I’d tell him to go talk a long walk off a short pier – the state does not have the right to confiscate property from private citizens without due process, and this is not due process. If the officer was in dire need of assistance (ie, he was in real trouble and needed help) then I would gladly destroy my truck, and even risk my life to help him out, as I would for any person who needed my help, police officer or not. But I would as soon loan him my truck to chase down a suspect as I would loan my truck to anyone else (just to clue you in, it ain’t gonna happen). This is double true considering the fact that the chances are really good that he is trying to track down a guy for doing something tht I do not consider to be a crime.