the way people on the street use the word arrest.

When most people use the term arrest, they use it to mean a person was charge with a crime, which is not the legal defination of "arrest".

The legal defination of an "arrest" is when a person is being detained by the police and the person is not free to go.

That's it. The word arrest in a legal sense means you are being detained by the police and not free to go.

When you are stopped by the cops and written a traffic ticket you have been "arrested" during the time the cop wrote you the ticket and forced you to sign it.

Even thought the cop let you go after you signed the traffic ticket, you had been "arrested" while the cop was writting you the ticket.

When Chandler police officer G. Pederson stopped me I intentionally asked him I was under arrest because I knew if he said "no" I was free to leave.

However Chandler police officer G. Pederson lied to me initally and told me I was not under arrest.

Once you have delt with cops a few times you will find out they are habitual liars.

After I told Chandler Police officer G. Pederson that since he said I was "not under arrest" that I was leaving he changed is lie and told me I was under arrest. Even though he didn't say it in those exact words.

In this case Chandler police officer G. Pederson told me that I was being detained because he wanted to question me and that I was not free to go. That meant I was under arrest, even if it was a false and illegal arrest.

And of course I pointed out to Chandler police officer G. Pederson that he lied to me when he said I was not under arrest.

For an arrest to be legal the police must have either "probable cause" or "reasonable suspicion".

Defense attornies and prosecutors can argue about what "probable cause" and "rasonable suspicsion" are for days, because there is not cut and dried defination of the terms.

But here is some quick nutshell definations of the terms.

"Probable cause" means the cop saw you commit a crime. Or someone told the cop that he or she saw you commit a crime.

The key here is the person had to SEE you commit the crime.

If the person says "Joe is a jerk and he is the only one who could have possiblly commited the crime" that doesn't cut it if the person didn't see Joe commit the crime.

The cops did not have "probable cause" to arrest me, because they did not see me commit a crime.

If they did I would have been take to jail and charged with whatever crime they were accusing me of.

"Reasonable suspicion" means that the police don't know if you committed the crime, but that you match the description of the person who committed the crime. And you are near the crime scene, around the time the crime happened.

Say an hour ago a man wearing a white t-shirt and white pants who was 5 foot tall robbed a Circle K a half mile from where you were stopped by the police and you just happened to be 5 feet tall, and wearing a white t-shirt and white pants.

Well the police would have "reasonable suspicion" to arrest you and determine if you were the person that committed the crime.

Time and location are important in determining if the police have "reasonable suspicion" to make an arrest.

If the time was now 2 days after the Circle K robbery the would would no longer have "reasonable suspicion" to stop the person.

In this case Chandler Police officer G. Pederson told me that the crime occured on June 5 or over 3 weeks ago.

If G. Pederson told a judge that he had "reasonable suspicion" to stop me for a crime that occured 20 days ago or almost 3 weeks ago the judge would have laughed him out of the court room because too much time has elasped.

Location also is important. You have to be near the location of the crime for the police to have "reasonable suspicion" to arrest you.

If you were stopped not a half a mile from the Circle K robbery, but 50 miles from the Circle K robery the police would not have "reasonable suspicion" to arrest you.

Last but not least when it comes to "reasonable suspicion" there are a lot of grey areas that are open to interpetition on what is and isn't "reasonable suspicion".

One judge may say the police have "reasonable suspicion" to stop a person 20 miles from the crime scene, another judge may say that is too far away for the cops to have "reasonable suspicion".

One judge may say the police have "reasonable suspicion" to stop a person 4 hours after the crime occured while another judge may say that too much time has elapsed for the cops to have "reasonable suspicion".