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| When the good guys become the bad guys... |
And this is worth repeating: How to properly refuse a police search.
Update:
Hot Air and Radley Balko...
U.S. Marshalls lose encrypted radios...
American Power has this post on police brutality being protested in Anaheim...I am for reminding law enforcement of their Constitutional obligations when appropriate.
TOM has this story (tied into Donald Douglas' post at American Power above) but not all victims of police overreach are criminals. Innocent people sometimes get swept up in it too.
The rise of the warrior cop...
Agree 100%.
ReplyDeleteWe've got the US Marshals acting like the RSD.
And kudos to our friend, Darleen from TOP, for an excellent column.
I am not just knee jerk, "the police are always wrong." But the Marshall Matt Wiggins was absolutely not right. Wiggins was wrong to do a search like this without a warrant. Wiggins was wrong to use language that would make one question it was a legitimate policing agency making the inquiry . And Wiggins was wrong to get defensive about a questionable search.
DeleteIt's not a question of going back to the hippie, "Cops are pigs", business, but, as Balko notes (RTWT) There are too many organizations that have SWAT outfits when they really don't need them.
DeleteThe odd part is that, in the case of places like Gotham, it's Lefty politicians like Nanny Bloomberg that are the most gung-ho about them.
The really disturbing part to me was the scope of the federal effort...they were SWAT-Team searching an entire complex of multiple homes looking for one suspect, with no more probable cause than a telephoned tip. A tip that obviously did NOT have an address short of pointing out a city block or more. That should scare us all, not to mention Marshall Wiggins conclusion the victim has no business discussing this with the press or anyone else.
DeleteI had several friends on the absconder and capture squads in a large dangerous city and no way in hell did they ever resort to what these guys did pointing guns at everybody, barging in everywhere. There are a couple reasons they didn't:
1. The noise of barging in to one dwelling after another tips off the suspect wherever he's hiding, giving him/her the advantage of knowing the cops are there and the cops not certain if he/she is there.
2. When all you have is a complex or block of houses in your tip, you put it under surveillance until you see you suspect moving about...then you have the element of surprise, not him or her.
Where did these guys learn their craft...damn sure wasn't in the infantry military.
As for the deny search permission bit...sometimes yes, if you are courteous...and there is only one officer present, and it's night, deny it. Then they will call for a detention of your vehicle and tow it to a place they can search it with search warrant. You find your own way home.
ReplyDeleteIf there are at least two cars with different officers at your stop, consider letting them search if you are dead certain there's nothing to hide and nothing unknown to you in the vehicle. With multiple officers present you are less likely to get "flaked" by any one of them.
I've been stopped for DWW..."Driving While White" in downtown Detroit in the early morning hours in an area that looked like I might have been shopping for drugs or hookers or both. The flat out said, nobody drives around here in a suit at this hour. Well I did as I'd left my office in the federal building and gone to a friend's bar to help him one night, and then I closed the place up and set out for home. I got about 100 yards..;..then two cars with 4 cops cut me off on the freeway ramp. I let them search and showed my military ID, etc.
However, the basic guidance is the truth...if in doubt, don't say yes to a search.
I've had to courteously deny officers the right to search anything of mine and made it as difficult for them as they try to make it for me. Everything from asking a supervisor to conduct the search or asking at every opportunity if I'm free to go. You give back as good as you get while asking after every sentence if you are free to go. Fuck them. Seriously. I won't go out of my way to be a dick, but I won't be a push over either. Want to take my car under a warrant. No problem. You'll hear from attorney and get the bill for the time and trouble of finding nothing even under your warrant. I can live without the car for a while, but I can't live without my god given constitutional rights.
DeleteOT: EBL, the book "Influence" arrived promptly, and my better half, aka Judi, grabbed it to read just as promptly. It was one of those "can I read this when your done" moments when she already had the book in hand and was heading upstairs to her office, passing mine. I will read it shortly when Judi Two Shoes is finished. Thanks for the reference and link.
ReplyDeleteIt is one of those works that you can apply to almost anything. I read it the same way (I inhaled it).
Delete"Goldsberry wasn’t arrested or shot despite pointing a gun at a cop, so Wiggins said, “She sure shouldn’t be going to the press.”"
ReplyDeleteActually I agree with Wiggins, she should be going to a very good, very aggressive trial lawyer, her state and federal representatives and Senator. Then, after she's done that, she needs to be going to the press.
AZfederalist
I wrote extensively on the ongoing militarization of police forces nationwide over at TOP and how and why cops should be prosecuted for their misconduct especially in cases like this. No-knock tactics, warrantless searches, SWAT actions without proper identification. This really is becoming a police state and real detective police work is going the way of the DoDo bird. Also the tactics that police employ to entrap and endanger people under suspicion has gotten worse and worse. The 4th Amendment died a while ago when SCOTUS deemed many decisions that were police favored rather than citizen favored. Things like random DUI checkpoints, Stop and Frisk, No-knock raids coupled with prosecutorial overreach to pad prosecution conviction rates with plea bargaining as a means of lazy prosecutorial efforts coupled with mandatory minimums. You as a citizen have had your rights diminished and curtailed for decades. It's only going to get worse.
ReplyDeleteI am having more and more disrespect for cops and their jobs based on how they conduct themselves towards the public. It is highly evident that police and sheriff's departments nationwide have made the calculated decision that your citizenship is no longer up for respect and you are now views as nothing more than a burden to be watched over until you trip up and they catch you in their net. A net you will never, ever get out of. Once you enter into the criminal justice system by hook or by crook, you stay there. Even if you are acquitted, you will always be on the books. There is no clean slate, tabula rasa in police department/prosecutor land.
These people are aggressively trying to find ways to fuck you over, trip you up, lie to you, or downright find excuses to shoot and ask questions later because they will have prosecutorial immunity in almost every regard in almost every county in the country. That needs to change. If a cop thinks for a second he may be criminally or civilly liable for trampling on your rights as a citizen, he may think twice before acting like a murderous adrenaline filled dick bag and PD's nationwide will have to change their tactics. Until that day arrives, you are in the zoo violating the law simply by breathing as far as I'm concerned at this point. Good luck.
Giving cops heavy handed powers rewards the thugs and disses the skilled detectives. Law abiding people do not want to be victims of crime, but being the victim of the law is in many ways even more disturbing--because who do you turn to then?
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