playing by the rules

First, the disclaimer: I am not one of those folks, so prevalently found on the gunblogger side of the cortex, who believes that all/most police officers intentionally and willfully exploit their power and position just because they can. I firmly believe there are some who do that, and I also believe that those indivduals manage to screw up the situation for all of the other police officers in the country, but I am hard-pressed to believe that the majority of law-enforcement officers are power-hungry jackasses.
However, the power-hungry jackasses that are members of police forces do tend to make lives miserable for not only their departments, but also for citizens everywhere. For example, in this particular instance, three men were arrested, one was maced, all were effectively assaulted, one mobile home was torn apart in a pointless search for non-existant drugs, all were detained for almost 12 hours, and the individuals were all fined… for what? Well, the story started with pulling over an RV for illegible temporary plates, and then after arrests, detainments, confiscations, and impounding, it finally developed into charges of “disordly conduct”, “possession of beer in a dry county”, and “resisting arrest”.
Granted, I almost certainly would not have behaved or spoken like the three individuals did in this particular story, but, by the same token, these men were detained in jail for 10 hours without ever knowing of their charges, and without ever being read their rights. Their property was forcibly searched without probable cause being expressed, and their vehicle was impounded for something that should have been nothing more than a courtesy check with the officer telling them to unscrew their license plates as soon as possible.
Why did the first officer call for backup? Why was this not a five-minute conversation to establish the situation, correct the deficiency, and everyone go back about their lives? Why did the police go spastic over the video recording of the situation (well, that much is obvious, but still a concern)? Why was one man maced when no one had indicated that they were threats, or would be threats? Why was the second man handcuffed for no apparent reason? Why were the police officers so intent on getting into the RV, to the point of threatening to tear off the door, even after their K9 did not trigger on anything? Why did a police captain show up, and not inform the officers executing the arrests that what they were doing was absolutely absurd (the police department is going to have problems, given that the chain of command apparently approved of this event)? Why were the police officers speeding when taking the men to the detainment facility (not that police officers speeding for no apparent reason is uncommon)? Why were they never charged until, coincidentally, their bond was paid and they were released? Why were their rights never read to them (though, this is not always a hard-and-fast requirement, but the situation would have allowed for it)?
By the same token, were the Motorhome Diaries folks as polite and personable as they stressed throughout their accounting of the event? One should never judge a book by its cover, but based on their webpage and writings, it might seem as though these are the types of individuals who err on the side of pissing people off when it comes to exercising their personal freedoms. Am I saying what the police officers did is right? Of course not. But it was rather unnecessary to point out that drug dogs can be taught to trigger on command, and other comments they made, depending on how they made them, could have been construed to be equally confrontational. Defending your person and property is one thing; being antagonistic to be antagonistic (something, again, not uncommon when police officers are involved) is another thing entirely (however, antagonistic or not, their attitude (or lack thereof) does not excuse the police officers’ actions).
Which brings us to a second example of abuses of power today. Apparently some pastor in Arizona has been itching for a fight with the Border Patrol down there, and finally got it, complete with a tasering and all. To be clear, he was stopped at a state border-crossing checkpoint – not an international one. He says he was about 75 miles west of Yuma when stopped, which would put him in the Octillo/El Centro region of Kalifornistan, and while there was not a checkpoint there last time I drove that stretch of 8, but there were Border Patrol checkpoints around the Salton Sea last time I was out there. Anywise, for those unfamiliar with the territory, that would put him about 10 miles from Mexico, or less.
This distance is important – back in February, the Supreme Court gave the Border Patrol an exception to normal Fourth Amendment procedures, allowing them to set up checkpoints anywhere they deemed necessary within 100 miles of any international border.
Moving on, this pastor has a history – he has apparently been passively defying the checkpoints for months now, and finally his defiance caught up with him. He refused to allow his car to be searched. He refused to acknowledge that a drug dog triggering gave the police officers probable cause (and it is hard to imagine that the dog actually triggered, given that the search of his car yielded no contraband). He refused to move his car when requested, despite blocking up a lane of the Border Patrol checkpoint.
And then the Border Patrol agents / Department of Public Safety troopers broke a window in his car, tasered him (possibly repeatedly), dragged him out of the car, and forced him down onto the pavement and broken glass, resulting in 11 stitches. As an aside, it is hard to determine which agency did what, and I am further confused by the presence of Arizona DPS agents at a checkpoint over 50 miles from the Arizona border.
Now, bear this in mind – the Supreme Court says these checkpoints are acceptable (though not necessarily Constitutional, given that the checkpoints were given an exception – any Constitutional Law types want to weigh in on that?), and, futhermore, a drug dog alerting on a vehicle gives immediate probable cause, which allows law-enforcement types to search whatever the dog triggered on, with or without your permission or consent.
So, all this said, where do I stand on the situation? Let us take these one at a time… how do I feel about the checkpoints? The idea of having to go through a checkpoint while travelling through the United States (not into another country) is horrifically distasteful. Personally, I have no doubts that such facilities violate the Fourth Amendment, simply given that it is not reasonable to search someone simply because they are driving through a certain location. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court (and other courts) disagree with me. However, the fact that the highest court in our land has decided that Americans do not have the freedom to move about our country as we see fit… yeah, that worries me a bit.
How do I feel about what the pastor did? Oof. First off, he should have moved. If he is making such a big deal about free travel in the US, he should have gotten out of everyone else’s way, gone to the secondary inspection point, and had his Little Round Top there. Second, you have no legal standing to challenge a drug dog’s triggering at the scene. Think of how that would work if you had to prove, to the suspect’s satisfaction, everything you were doing, as you were doing it. Yeah, that is going to work well. If you have concerns over how your situation was handled, you are going to have to settle them in court – arguing the points at the scene is only going to aggrivate the situation. Third, if you are going to take those kinds of stands in those kinds of situation, acting surprised when what you knew was going to happen actually happens is kind of sad. If he had decided to start challenging these inspections, he should have read up on the laws surrounding them – as previously mentioned, these checkpoints are currently legal, and the use of drug dogs to establish probable cause is legal. Whether he is willing to admit it, he broke the law by not yielding the vehicle to the Border Patrol agents to search, and, just with the gentlemen in the motor home, I have to wonder just how antagonistic and confrontational he was about it.
And given his previous, toolish videos, I am really starting to doubt how he handled this situation.
I certainly agree with his sentiments – we should be allowed to move freely about the country, as we see fit, without having to yield to inspections simply because we are travelling from point A to point B. But fighting the battle against the current governmental restrictions on doing so is going to have consequences, and he either carefully staged those consequences for the publicity he is receiving, or was intentionally ignorant of the consequences. Neither is acceptable in my book.
How do I feel about what the law-enforcement agents did? Oy, where to begin? Tasering him was unnecessary. Tasering him for as long as they did was absolutely unnecessary (listen to the video – that clicking noise is the taser sending impulses down the wire). Standing on him, and forcing him into the glass they broke, while they handcuffed and detained him was unnecessary. And, as previously mentioned, while these checkpoints are upheld by the Supreme Court, they hardly seem Constitutional in light of the Fourth Amedment. As also previously mentioned, no contraband was discovered in his car, indicating that either the agents lied, or the dog needs to be recalibrated. And, above all, the Border Patrol agents should have answered his questions – granted, they do not have to, but just as not being belligerant helps the situation from the suspect’s side, being polite and clear helps the situation on the law enforcement officer’s side too.
If he was under arrest (and he was), I can completely understand removing him from his vehicle and detaining him. The method, however, is significantly lacking. Break the glass, sure, but then unlock the door, open the door, unbelt the pastor, and drag his happy ass out of the car – tasering a non-violent, non-threatening, passive protestor is excessive, at the very least.
However, even so, with that understanding expressed (and based on the legal framework surrounding these checkpoints), explain to me again why there are checkpoints going from state to state? Why are there locations within our own borders where your Fourth Amendment-protected rights no longer apply? Explain to me why we are expected to consent to a search of our vehicles/persons just because we happen to be in a particular location? Why are we, as law-abiding, peaceful, private citizens, expected to automatically obey the orders of law-enforcement officers for no reason other than the fact that they told us to do something (apart from the “they are the man with the gun” argument, and I am not sure if the government wants to go down that path)?
So here we are with two examples of “Papiere, bitte.” One was blatantly unnecessary, even if the Motorhome Diaries folks were sarcastic/antagonistic/confrontational (and I have no proof they were), and the other is a blatant infringement on our rights as guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment… but also currently legal, according to the highest court in the land. Both situations are far from being cut-and-dried, and both of them have the possibility of both sides of the arrest being in the wrong, multiple times. And in both cases, our rights are being infringed, abridged, and outright denied just because some individuals in uniforms with badges think they can/should (and, worse, some old guys in black robes are agreeing with them).
We know where this road ends.
Both these events were pointed out to me by Conservative Scalawag.