That Word . . . I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Police officer causes traffic accident. Higher up police officer gives him a ticket for breaking the law. Even higher up police officer voids the ticket. Why, you might ask?

"In the interest of justice," of course. When asked to explain his comment, he refused to answer.

4th Amendment Takes Another Hit

Every time I think they couldn't possibly weaken the 4th any more than they have already, something like this comes along.

So the cops have a suspect for a burglary and want DNA evidence, but they don't have enough to get a warrant, so what do they do? Well, they just stop him under the pretense of administering a DUI test, and then keep the saliva he leaves on the machine as "abandoned" property. Certainly, a court we see straight through this sham and reprimand the police who tried to pull the stunt, right?

Nope, California Court of Appeals says such a tactic is just fine.

So the police can't order you to give them a DNA sample directly, but they can order you to do something that gives them a sample indirectly, even if they order you to do it merely to get said sample. Make sense? Thought not.

It's Not About Safety, It's About Power

Washington D.C. cops are now arresting people who are caught driving with expired tags. Does forgetting to pay your yearly protection money "tag fee" constitute a threat to public safety, or merely to authority?

That's a rhetorical question.

Maybe next they can start seizing the cars through civil asset forfeiture too. You know, for more "safety".

Funny How That Works

You know how we desperately needed the Patriot Act passed, so that law enforcement officers could act to protect us from the big, bad terrorists without bothering with little things like warrants ahead of time?

Via New York magazine, here's what they are using that new-found power for:
Funny how that works, isn't it?

Unbelievable

Via Radley Balko comes this unbelievable story that can only be summarized as follows:

1. Cop has suspect for fraudulent charges on her husband's credit card.
2. Cop stages a takedown of the alleged perpetrator with fellow officers.
3. Cop uses police truck to push the suspect and his car into fellow officers.
4. Fellow officers respond with deadly force against the suspect.
5. Cop lies in sworn statement, claiming suspect tried to run over fellow officers.
6. Video surfaces showing the story to be bald-faced lie.
7. Attempted murder charges dropped. Man still charged with "eluding" the police.
8. Officer will receive no punishment. Police department sees nothing wrong.

I'm pretty sure that if I rammed a car through a line of police, the police then shot the driver of that vehicle, and then I lied about my actions under oath afterward, you'd never see me again. But for a police officer? Don't worry! Her friends have done a thorough investigation and decided she's squeaky clean.

Nothing to see here, move along!

Ohio Police Tase, Pepper Spray, and Beat Mentally Handicapped Kid

More heros:

Hooper "apparently took Jesse's speech impediment for disrespect ... [and] began yelling at Jesse after Jesse attempted to communicate with him[.] Jesse, being a minor and mentally challenged/handicapped, turned and rode his bike back to his home in an attempt to ask his mother, Ford, to help him communicate with defendant Cooper," according to the complaint in Montgomery County Court.

On the way, the mom says, "A neighbor attempted to communicate with Officer Hooper about Jesse's disabilities and was told to go back into his home, or he would be arrested."

As Ford opened her front door, she says, Hooper and co-defendant Officer John Howard, "fired their Tasers, striking Jesse in the back with both probes."

"Once inside the house, defendant Hooper and defendant Howard began to struggle with Jesse, who was standing against the back door with his hands up in front of his face, saying 'Please quit, please quit.'

"On numerous occasions, Ford and a family friend, Christopher Peyton, informed Officer Hooper that Jesse was mentally challenged/handicapped, and that Jesse did not understand what was happening," the complaint states.

But the mom says the cops continued their assault: "Officer Howard utilized his Cap-Stun pepper spray and sprayed Jesse ... [and] struck Jesse with a closed fist in the upper chest area.

"Officer Howard utilized his ASP and repeatedly struck Jesse in the upper left side of his left thigh.

"Back-up units were requested to Jesse's house, wherein upward of 20 police officers from different jurisdictions were present. "At no point, even after being advised of Jesse's mental challenge/handicap by Jesse's family and numerous bystanders, did defendant Hooper, defendant Howard, or any other police officer present, attempt to communicate with Jesse or explain in terms he could understand as to why Jesse was being chased.

"Jesse was handcuffed and hogtied before being placed in the back of a police cruiser. "Jesse was charged with assault on a peace officer, resisting arrest, and obstructing official business."

Good job Ohio; the founding fathers would be proud to know you are keeping America's streets safe from the peril of speech impediments.

State Police and Feds Collude to Steal from Gamblers

This is insane. Every time I think the government couldn't sink any lower, I am amazed at the new scams they come up with.

Maryland Police teamed up with the feds to create a fake online poker payment business, and then simply kept any deposits made, totaling $30 million dollars. The trusting souls who desposited their money with the fraudulent agency won't get their cash back:

"The government is not going to give the money to gamblers."

Well there you have it. Setting up a fake business to scam customers is okay as long as you are the police, and they are merely "gamblers".

Even Police Dogs Have More Rights Than You

Based on the increasing number of police stories I'm beginning to accumulate here, it may seem obvious to most that police officers are entitled to (or at least believe they are entitled to) many more rights than your average citizen. It may surprise some people to learn, however, that even police dogs are members of that elite and privileged class.

If you so much as make a noise the dog doesn't like, you might be facing up to 60 days in jail:

Stephens, 25, faces up to 60 days in jail if convicted of a charge of teasing a police dog when he allegedly got the dog riled up early April 3 when police were investigating a car crash outside the Mason Pub on Reading Road. [...]

"The defendant's words and actions created 'a clear and present danger' to the well being of the police dog as the dog violently attempted to exit the car, (and was) a danger to anyone who entered the car and a danger to anyone outside the car if the door or window had been opened," she wrote in a motion opposing Stephens' request to dismiss the charge.

You'd think a question of your free speech rights vs. the rights of a dog (whatever they are) would be an open and shut case, but then again, this is a police dog we're talking about. Normal rules need not apply (Presumably "teasing" a non-police dog is not a crime; non-police dogs being the proles of the canine kingdom).

And as for your dogs? Well, let's just say they are in mortal danger if they are on the scene in any way when the police show up.

Life Imitates Art Imitates Life

Via this story about a police officer who feels he was retaliated against by his department when he arrested a DA for drunk driving comes this gem:

Zinstein was later told in a visit from a Personnel Bureau lieutenant "that the department wanted to do right by him," sources said.

"He was told to figure out where he wants to work," one source said. "The lieutenant said he would make it happen for him."

As a fan of The Wire, my first reaction was "For God's sake, tell him you really, really want a job in the harbor patrol!"

Debt Collectors Haul Father Out of House at Gunpoint

Heavily armed debt collectors break down a man's door, haul him outside in his underwear, throw him to the ground, plant a knee in his back, and in front of his three kids, demand to know the whereabouts of his estranged wife, who owes them money. Call the police, you say?

They were the police; a SWAT team run by the Department of Education, in fact. The man's wife had defaulted on her student loans. Even after they determined that she was not present at the location, the man and his three children spent six hours handcuffed in the back a police cruiser.

If this is how the DoE treats the innocent, woe to the person who gets on the wrong side of the Department of Fish and Wildlife's SWAT team.

UPDATE:

The DoE has responded to the story and insisted that the SWAT raid was not performed because of a loan in default, but instead because of loan fraud (you know, because that makes sending in a SWAT team and holding an innocent man and his children in a squad car for six hours so much more rational).

I Have No Words

Marine Survives War in Iraq, Killed in War on Drugs

Jose Guerena, a 26-year-old marine who had completed two tours of duty in Iraq, was gunned down by a SWAT team in Arizona. His wife had told him she had seen someone lurking outside his home, and after he told her to hide in the closet with his child, he grabbed his rifle and went to to investigate. Outside, an officer with an itchy finger and poor trigger discipline accidentally fired a round into a door frame, which caused the rest of the team to rain gunfire down on the man to the tune of 71 bullets. Out of safety concerns, the police waited for an hour before they let the paramedics in. He had already bled to death by that time, his rifle having never having been switched off its safety.

The sheriff refuses to say if they found any contraband in Guerena's house, but does that really matter? Sure, sometimes you leave a soldier who served his country bleeding to death on his kitchen floor, and maybe his kid grows up without a father now, but at least we can breathe a sigh of relief that (possibly) less people are getting high in Arizona tonight. And isn't that worth it? Doesn't that make you feel safe?

"You Have No Right to Challenge Me"

This video says it all. A Philadelphia officer draws his gun on a man walking down the street merely because the guy has a pistol holstered on his waist (which is not illegal in Philly if you have a permit, which he does). The guy puts up his hands, speaks in a respectful tone, attempts to engage the officer in conversation to let him know he's wrong on the facts, and in return is verbally abused and detained by police officers while they verify that they are ignorant of their own rules.

The justification given by the police officer for this treatment?

"You have no right to challenge me."

As a bonus, after posting the audio to YouTube, the DA came back and charged the guy with "reckless endangerment" and "disorderly conduct", which is only an "interfering with a police officer" charge away from the "Contempt of Cop" trifecta.

I guess that's where our "Land of the Free" is these days. Obey or else.

4th Amendment Takes Two More Hits

Police are supposed to need a warrant to search your house, but the courts have previously carved out an exception for "exigent circumstances", where (for example) the police think that a person inside may be destroying evidence (as immortalized in the 4th amendment text, which reads "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, unless the police really want in."). That gap was widened quite a bit this week when the supreme court decided that the police can use exigent circumstance to search a home, even if they're the ones that created the exigent circumstances in the first place. Police in the case claimed they "heard movement" behind the door after they had knocked and shouted "Police!", and therefore feared the occupants were destroying evidence. Apparently, the appropriate thing to do to preserve your rights when the police knock on your door is to stay perfectly still, make absolutely no noise whatsoever, and hope to God your neighbor in the next apartment doesn't flush his toilet.

And in a second blow, the Indiana Supreme Court decided that you don't have the right to resist police when they illegally enter your home, under the argument that even if it's an illegal entry, you can always sue them later rather than resist them now (lawsuits against police misconduct being so easy to win, of course).

So there you have it. The police can easily manufacturer themselves a reason to enter your house without a warrant, but even if they don't bother, there's nothing you can do to stop them anyway. What's does the 4th Amendment actually guard against anymore?

City of Aurora Steals $190,000 From Citizen; Refuses to Return It Even After Court Order

Link

Jesus Martinez, 27, was carrying $190,040 when his pickup truck was stopped by an Aurora police officer about 8:30 p.m. Oct. 18 near Indian Trail and Timberlake roads.

The police officer confiscated the cash, and the city has informed Martinez and his brother, Jose, 34, that Aurora will seek to keep it through civil forfeiture, a procedure that allows police agencies to seize property where the legal standard is lower than proof needed in a criminal forfeiture.

The brothers are home remodelers. Neither has been charged with a crime in this case, and neither has a criminal record, according to Kane County court records.

"I've never seen anything like this in 30 years of practice," said Aurora attorney Patrick Kinnally, who is representing the brothers.

A month after the stop, Kinnally filed a complaint arguing that Aurora had no right to keep the money. Eleven days after that, Kinnally and lawyers representing Aurora appeared before Kane County Circuit Judge Michael Colwell.

"Their lawyers basically said the city was going to file for forfeiture," Kinnally said. "The judge asked on what basis. The lawyer said, 'We don't know,' and the judge said: 'This is America. Give it back.'"

The judge ordered the city to return the $190,040, along with a month's interest and costs. But Kinnally said that when he brought the order to Aurora, the city refused to turn over the cash

Maybe they just really needed a new rec room at police headquarters . . .

Arrested for Videotaping Police: Round 2

This time, the man was in his own house while he recorded police officers who were "subduing" a college student outside who had allegedly pushed a police officer. The police arrested the camera operator for "disorderly conduct" for his "failure to disperse". No word on exactly where they wanted him to disperse to, since he was already in his house.

Just because what you are doing is perfectly legal doesn't mean they won't arrest you for something.

Illegally Confiscating Property and Detaining People is Okay . . .

. . . says Philadelphia's Lt. Fran Healy, as long as "officers' safety" is involved.

Nice to see Philadelphia's police force "protecting and serving" themselves at the expense of the citizens. I'm sure the city will sleep easier knowing that their police force is spending its time and resource cracking down on such miscreants as uniformed security officers carrying perfectly legal concealed weapon permits.

More "Heroic" Police Videos

Police gun down a chained, subdued dog, then cite and fine the owner for failure to muzzle the "vicious animal" that "attacked" them:



Police tell grandma to put her dog in the bathroom while they search her house, then open the bathroom door and gun the dog down anyway:



Quiz time: Which of the following are vicious attack dogs, requiring police officers, when confronting the dog, to use immediate deadly force?

A.

B.

C.

D. All of the above.

SWAT Raids Revisited

The second "Related Reading" link on a previous post (SWAT Teams: Non-Proportional Response) about the increasing militarization of our nation's SWAT teams contained a situation where a SWAT team on a "drug raid" showed up in force at a family's house in the dark, went in guns first, shot the family's two dogs (one of which was caged, and the other was a Corgi) in front of the couple's children, found only a small amount of marijuana, and still had the gall to charge the parents with child endangerment when all was said and done.

A video of the raid is now available on YouTube:



I have to say that if I had the choice between having either the potheads or the SWAT team members as my next door neighbors, I'd take the potheads. They're much less likely to break into my house in the middle of the night to discharge automatic weapons into my harmless family pets in full view of my children. What heroes.

(And then there's Detroit, where a SWAT team set a 7-year old on fire with a flashbang grenade, then fatally shot her in front of her grandmother. A video crew was with the police there too, but given how protective law enforcement is of video evidence showing off their colossal screwups, I have my doubts as to whether or not it will ever see the light of day.)

On-Duty Officers Have Expectation of Privacy When They Pull You Over . . .

. . . but you don't. At least, that's the theory being proposed by Maryland officials. And that expectation of privacy is the difference between a legal videotape that embarrasses the police and a 5-year felony charge for illegal surveillance.

While Anthony Graber was videotaping (via helmet cam) his reckless motorcycle stunt driving, a man exits a vehicle, pulls out a gun, and rushes at him. As it turns out, that man was a plain-clothes police officer, though it takes him a while to identify himself.

If you think it seems like a bit of an overreaction to pull a gun during a traffic stop, so did Anthony. He posted his helmet-cam video to YouTube. In a normal world, perhaps the police would have used this as a teaching moment to instruct their officers in how not to make a traffic stop. In bizarro-world Maryland, however what the police do is raid your house at 6:45 in the morning, turn it upside down, and arrest you for felony eavesdropping.