Practical case law analysis, officer-safety guidance, and legal updates written for today's law enforcement professionals.
231 articles
Hello my friends, it’s Anthony Bandiero here, attorney and senior legal instructor for Blue to Gold Law Enforcement Training, bringing you a roadside chat. This one comes from an officer in California. A call comes in of a man with a gun standing on a street corner, and when the officer arrives he sees the
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Editor’s note: This was written in January 2025, after the oral argument in Barnes v. Felix but before the decision came down. It is a prediction of how the Court would rule, and it reads in the future tense throughout. The Supreme Court has since decided the case. For what the Court actually held, read
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Today’s question comes from an officer in Missouri: Can officers go onto curtilage to check the VIN of a potentially stolen vehicle? That’s the general question, but let me give you a bit more context. When I teach curtilage, I use something called the Curtilage Color Codes. I won’t go into full detail here, it’s
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Today, I want to share the difference between open view and plain view, two legal concepts that often come up in law enforcement. What is open view? Open view occurs when you are in a non-protected area and observe incriminating evidence. It’s called open view because it typically happens in open fields. Now, what exactly
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A roadside chat from the studio. This one comes from an officer in Texas, where they call domestic violence family violence, and it has a few moving parts in it. Can we order domestic violence suspects out of their home? I m going to call this question: can we order domestic violence suspects out of their
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Can You Enter a Locked Bedroom to Arrest a DV Suspect? Today’s question comes from an officer in Washington. Here’s the scenario: The domestic violence (DV) victim is outside her home, while the suspect is inside, locked in a bedroom. There is probable cause (PC) to arrest the suspect for DV. The victim indicates that
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This questions comes from an officer in Nebraska, and the topic is: What is entrapment? Let’s break it down. Entrapment occurs when law enforcement officers engage in behavior so extreme and over-the-top that they essentially harass someone into committing a crime. However, simply giving someone an opportunity to commit a crime is not entrapment. Courts
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This question came from an officer in Texas who wanted clarification on knock and talks, and in particular whether police can do a knock and talk at odd hours of the night. The answer runs through a First Circuit case that had been decided just a few months before this was recorded. Can you do
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Recorded on the road in Addison, Texas, where Blue to Gold was training the entire police department at the fire station. The question came from an officer in Iowa who was already familiar with Georgia v. Randolph and Payton v. New York. Can you go into an apartment to arrest the husband for domestic if
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