Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in Virginia

Well, undeniably the police officer was wrong. I would guess that he might have imagined that you were part of a crod gathering and did not realize that you lived on the property you were standing on.

For soem reason, police around the country seem to think that it is their right to order people nto to take photographs or video and not to be around. It is their "responsibility" (to a point) to keep people away from danger, avoid a crowd gathering that might create some problem, etc., etc. Btu they go way too far.

When you say can you do "something," I think yo ushould clearly raise this with the leadership of the Sheriff's office.

In Virginia, you have th eopportunity to go to County Board of SUpervisors meetings and give public comment on any topic at all (at least in my County). So you could go and take 3 minutes to tell the Board of Supervisors what happened and ask them to look into it. You could contact your Supervisor and ask him or her to look into it.

But can you do "something" legally?

Well, the problem as often comes up is that you (fortunately) were not actually injured. He threatened you. But in fact he did not do anything to you.

So you could try suing for a violation of your civil rights. In some ways it woudl actually be a pretty clear lawsuit.

But when a person files a lawsuit, they have to ask the court for what damages you want to have paid back to you or a remedy for the harm.

The problem you have is that there was really no harm.

There WAS a wrong. But the harm did not produce any wrong.

This is like someone who is swerving on the road but does not actually hit you. A wrong was committed. But fortunately you were not actually hit.