Ok, I wasn’t going to comment on Senator Larry Craig. But as I told you in another post I actually worked “cleaned up” on a few of these sting operations. I just read through the arresting officer’s probable cause report and if I were this kid’s supervisor, I’d reprimand him. I don’t know maybe the sergeant was trying to charge up the arrest stats, but this was a bad arrest.

Now before you pile on, I’m not defending Craig’s “weirdness”, or even that he tried to “influence” his way out of it with his ID, but you need a lot more for an arrest on public lewdness and a lot more than this officer wrote about in his report to make such an arrest.

First, the “initiated contact” (foot touching) he had with Craig is - at least where I worked - a violation of department procedure. During vice stings which this feel under touching a subject, either a foot or other part is prohibited and a sure way to get the charges later dropped. Why Craig pled guilty is beyond me, except as he says just because of who he is he tried to get rid of the arrest. Additionally this report was re-edited nearly two weeks after it was originally written. A little strange. Additionally there is no indication that Craig was issued a Miranda warning. If he did, omitting from the report would also be problematic. For the record:

“…The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he or she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says may be used against that person in court; the person must be clearly informed that he or she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning, and that, if he or she is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent him or her.”

Whether he was given an NTA (Notice to Appear) or transported, he still must receive Miranda. Nothing in the report shows anything except coincidence and he said/he said in my opinion, and while other will disagree, in my professional opinion I wouldn’t have badged Craig and made the arrest.