David French on Crime

Don't prosecute police for wrongful arrests; intent matters

Baltimore veered dangerously close to essentially arguing that there are only two kinds of stops: lawful arrests and assaults. That's not to say that arrests should be a zone of immunity for police, but rather that intent matters. Police officers chase fleeing suspects all the time, and if they can go to prison for chasing a man, searching him, handcuffing him, and arresting him after finding what seemed to be an illegal knife, that "chill wind" they feel will become a lot chillier.