I reserve my -1 downvotes not for people with passionate arguments like yours, but for people who - even after being warned - continue in fallacy, especially ad hominem attacks.

I welcome those with whom I can have polite disagreements such as yourself, as I always learn something and sometimes it is that I have misjudged a situation and need to change my mind. I didn't find your posts to be uncivil or beligerent, merely passionate. ;)

1. It's entirely relevant both for him and the cops - it's just inconvenient to the narrative that he's an innocent man. It gives an argument for the prosecution that these cops had it out for Freddy Gray as a frequent offender. It also gives the cops ammunition for approaching him in the first place as an informant.
2. Again, I'm not debating the merit of the law, but the fact that he was a convicted felon in possession of an illegal weapon.
3. Actually, it is ALWAYS relevant. Ask any defense attorney. Running from the police is never advised because it makes you that much harder to defend in court.
4. Red herring. What matters is the outstanding warrant.
5. Did you know that only a few weeks prior to this incident, Freddy Gray had actually undergone back surgery? Having been there/done that, I can tell you pretty plainly that you can barely move the first few weeks afterward, and the doctors give you very strict advise against ANY kind of physical activity outside of therapy until they clear you 8 weeks later because of the risk of re-injury. Freddy Gray's actions were not the actions of someone actively trying to promote his own health. The defense for these officers is going to _hammer_ Gray's own irresponsibility on this matter as a contributing factor to his injuries, make no mistake.
6 - 9. If I failed to mention something of relevance, I appreciate you bringing it out. I was working from memory and obviously do not have all the knowledge of the incident.

Look, I'm not trying to defend the officers and say they were innocent of _any_ wrongdoing. Six trained officers don't just all conveniently forget to strap someone in. All I'm trying to say is that you have already tried him in your mind for the ultimate crime. I'm going to wait until the actual prosecution. All the high-profile cases we've seen in the media recently from Trayvon Martin to Ferguson to NYC to this case have all been attempts at media prosecution rather than criminal prosecution and when all the facts came out, they told a very different story than the one the media led people to believe. So I'm not really inclined to jump to conclusions based on a pushy media.

The evidence is enough for negligence almost assuredly. Failure to follow procedure? Absolutely. They might be able to get them on involuntary manslaughter. But murder charges come with an awfully high burden of proof that I just can't find reasonable evidence for. And the DA's incendiary remarks coupled with her political ties sour her appearance of objectivity. I can't ignore these facts any more than Gray's behavior or his criminal history or his medical issues.

I understand the desire for justice to be served. But I will point again to the other media-tried cases as evidence that I don't think our criminal justice system is so far gone as to justify vigilanteism. Let's wait and see what happens.

Exactly.

Indeed!

I read that this took place at or near a Port of Entry in New York, not North Carolina. Under Border Search Authority, 19 C.F.R. 162.6, which states that, "All persons, baggage and merchandise arriving in the Customs territory of the United States from places outside thereof are liable to inspection by a CBP officer." It was not clear from the article if she was actually entering the U.S. or within the 100 mile border radius. Either way, she and her vehicle were subject to search.

That ruling, and the checkpoints it purports to legalize, are an insult to the intelligence of Americans and need to be resisted.

Indeed, I would argue the 4th amendment bans all checkpoints, even at actual borders.

we're from the government and we're here to help you. -- j
.

I'll see if I can get rockymountainpirate to weigh in. She is a former DEA agent with K9 unit.

Do I get a -1 for my attitude. :)

Please, please, pretty please!!!!!

If it makes you feel any better, I was unaware of the SCOTUS decision on the K9 thing before today. Apparently the ruling took place on April 21st of this year in Rodriguez v. United States. This article is the reason I knew about in the first place. I would suggest that you click the link at the bottom of the Blaze article referenced in the original post by blarman.

As for all the other stuff, everything that happened previously is both addressed in the back and forth between the agents and the woman they tazed.

She was being detained because she appeared nervous when they stopped her at the checkpoint. She asked specifically what crime she was suspected of committing, and the agents replied that they were suspicious of her. For what, they did not say. She made it clear that she wanted to be allowed to go on her way, and they denied her ability to do that, again, without articulating specifically what they thought she was guilty of.

Short version is that the agents failed to meet the requirements for a valid Terry Stop. The reasoning to hold her to wait for a K9 unit also fails due to the Rodriguez ruling. That part should be irrelevant because of the unwarranted detention in the first place, but it does add one more log to the fire against the agents.

The violent actions against her were obviously unwarranted. There is no need to consider anything whatever beyond what is obvious on the video.

The point is that the detention was illegal from start to finish in pretty much every conceivable way. The physical assault and tazing were even more egregious. I do try to look at things like this from both sides from everyone's point of view, but try as I might, there is no way to justify what those cops did.

Let's be honest. Any border patrol roadblock in North Carolina is essentially an extension of a DEA checkpoint. Otherwise, why bother bringing in a dog to sniff the car? Do they train dogs to identify the specific odor of illegal aliens. Barring the obvious and very racist jokes that would follow, exactly what does a Mexican spell like if he's on this side of the border illegally? Would he smell different than a Mexican that is here with a green card, a visa or on vacation with a passport? The point being that a border patrol checkpoint in NC using sniffer dogs is nothing more than a warrantless search program conducted on behalf of the DEA.

So, let's say for instance that she had a "Legalize Marijuana" bumper sticker on her car. Does that justify a detention of indeterminate length while they bring in the sniffer mutt? What about a "F*ck the Police" sticker? How long do they get to hold her because they think that looks suspicious? Maybe she refuses to tell them where she's from or where's she's going. She isn't required to tell them anything, but they might think that is suspicious. Again, how long do they get to detain you without reasonable articulable suspicion of a specific crime as required by the Terry v Ohio rules? Apparently she is a student of SUNY. Does a New York license plate in North Carolina warrant a roadside kidnapping of who the hell knows how long?

Her attitude is irrelevant. Say what you like about treating law enforcement with respect. There is no doubt that is probably the best course of action, but it is not in any way a requirement of law. She would have been well within her rights to tell them to take their roadside checkpoint and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine or to simply remain silent altogether, per the 5th Amendment. None of that matters.

The detainment was illegal and the physical assault and tazing are just flat out criminal. It's really just that simple.

Yeah, sorry about that. I misread the abbreviation.

+1 for your civility and rationality.

First, I appreciate your words of caution. You know where I stand. I will leave it at that.

Your Freddie Grey points:
1. Absolutely, unequivocally irrelevant.
2. Highly debatable at best. Besides, it is not the blade's length that they arrested him for. It was whether it was an illegal switchblade or an illegal spring assisted opening knife, not length. Further, that knife charge was something found after the fact of a what is arguably an illegal detainment/search. In other words, they weren't jackin' with him because he had a knife in the first place. That was just police report fodder added to justify the unjustifiable after the fact.
3. Again, irrelevant. Unless they suspected him of a specific criminal offense, their "suspicion" does not constitute ground for detaining/searching him in the first place.
4. Did they know that before or after they broke his back?
5. The video of the incident makes that point debatable too. It looked to me like he was having a pretty fair degree of difficulty moving on his own after they roughed him up on the ground. Either he wasn't able to move well because they hurt him in the initial takedown or he did the "going limp" thing that toddlers and peaceful protesters do. I don't know which, but your statement of fact on this point isn't as black and white as you would presume it to be.
6. Agreed
7. Agreed
8. Your definition of "immediately" and mine appear to be somewhat different here.
9. Mr. Grey actually died April 19th, a week later. He went into a coma during the transport to the police station, but he didn't actually die until a week later.

I'm curious why you didn't bother to mention the 4 additional stops along the way instead of his immediate transport right up the road to the police station. You also failed to mention the "rough ride" tactic without restraints that Baltimore cops have been doing for years.

You might be able to successfully convince me that those cops didn't intend to kill Freddie Grey, but you'll never convince me that they didn't intend to make his life miserable with the way they treated him both on the street and in the transport vehicle. They did plenty of extracurricular work on that guy in their attempts to administer their own brand of police justice. Intentionally or not, those 6 cops are directly responsible for Freddie Grey's death. You'd have to be an awfully shameless cop apologist not to at least be able to agree with that. To what degree that is a criminal offense is open to debate, but those 6 cops all had a hand in the killing of Freddie Grey.

About the Dagny, Hank, et al point. I will absolutely argue the parallel to how the woman in this article was treated. I will also point out that we know exactly who it was that did it beyond any shadow of doubt. I won't be crying any tears for them if they got the instant karma they have coming to them.

Regarding the Revolutionary War points. I'm with you up to the point where you say, " . . . but not as a retributive action. Revenge is not justice . . ." The point I would take issue with is the notion that all of my words amount only to revenge for this or that. That just isn't the case. I am suggesting that direct action taken against specific targets whose crimes are beyond doubt might be the agent of change needed to address police misconduct all up and down the line. If law enforcement knew beyond doubt that their actions would have steep personal consequences, then perhaps they would give some thought as to just how much force is necessary to really control a situation. I would prefer that the Blue Wall come crashing down on all their heads and the consequences I speak of come from within the system. Absent that, I am OK with the idea that those consequences come from without. Say what you like about the law and the system we have, but I would argue that when it comes to policing their own, law enforcement has been an epic failure. Perhaps we should look to justice from without if they won't clean out the bad apples from within. The whole revenge thing, while not lacking in a certain appeal, is really not the point. It never has been.

p.s. also::: if you search for "NSFW" in Bing, the
top entry is an x-rated site. . oops! -- j
.

this article says Ogdensburg, NY. . what's with NC?

these agents were obviously out of bounds. -- j
.

If the video was the sum total of all I needed to know about the incident, I would come to the same conclusion as yourself; that this was unwarranted overreach on the part of law enforcement. My problem with immediately identifying this as a blatant violation of her civil rights, is that we don't have all the details of what transpired when they initially pulled her over; what was her attitude, why did they specifically target her and what was observed by any witnesses in the area.

Personally, I have a real problem with the authoritarian attitude of many of our "Serve and Protect" police personnel. They seem to have lost the ability to differentiate between members of the community who are trying to live a decent life and the really bad, violent members of our communities. I wonder some times if many of them suffer from some kind of "US against all of them" mindset.

I wasn't aware of the restrictions relating to the K9 units and defer to your information on this, to thanks for the clarification. In any case, I don't feel "beat up" on the issue, since I view these forums as a "search for truth" where we can agree or disagree as long as the truth comes out of the effort.

Respectfully
smichael9

Agreed, which is why I posted this in the first place.

Threats are not protected as "free speech". One can offer one's opinion about justification of things, but as soon as calls are made for physical violence, this crosses the line out of Constitutionally-protected speech. That was my only caution.

Regarding the Freddy Gray thing, I'm sure we'll have all of the facts eventually. Here's what we know to this point:
1. He was a known criminal with a long rap sheet.
2. On the morning in question, he was carrying a knife with a blade of illegal length. Pretty ticky, yes, but fact.
3. Instead of stopping to talk with police, he ran. This immediately puts him under suspicion.
4. He had an outstanding warrant for his arrest stemming from a failure to appear in court.
5. When he was put into the paddy wagon, he was not only still alive, but still able to move.
6. The officers failed to put the mandatory safety restraint (seat belt) on Freddy Gray prior to leaving the scene.
7. The other occupant of the vehicle testified that he could hear loud banging coming from the other cell in the wagon.
8. When the vehicle arrived at the fail facilities, officers discovered severe injuries on Gray. They immediately called EMS.
9. Freddy Gray was pronounced dead sometime later. An autopsy revealed spinal cord damage.

Should they be cited for failure to secure a prisoner in transit? Absolutely. Beyond that, it's a real legal stretch to indict for murder. Negligent homicide maybe, but murder requires the actual commission of the act of death or known inaction.


Now on to the other questions posed. I'll treat them one by one:

"Was it wrong for Dagny, Hank, Francisco and Ragnar to take the law into their own hands when then rescued John?"

Galt was taken and held illegally. He had not been accused of a crime. Failure to cite such meant that his captors were guilty of kidnapping. Further, their actions in the treatment of Galt were blatant attempts at intimidation and coercion, and were conducted extra-legally. Further, standard law enforcement had become complicit, meaning that no appeal for freedom or expectation of impartiality could be appealed to. The actions taken to free Galt were those to restore to him his abridged rights and were therefore justified.

No similar parallel can be drawn between that case and the Freddy Gray case. One can possibly argue its parallel with the woman in the article.


"What it wrong for our founders to fight back against the British during the revolution?"

Remember that our nation's founders specifically petitioned King George for a redress of grievances and he laughed them off. He even imposed even harsher conditions as retribution. The decision to separate did not come at the spur of the moment, nor did it come with mob violence. It came after level heads had examined all their options and explored the legal remedies and determined that their last available course of action. They even took the step of writing the Declaration of Independence to cite those grievances first.

Could there be a reason to take an extreme action to protect our rights? Absolutely, but not as a retributive action. Revenge is not justice - it's an emotional reaction to a perceived injustice rather than a logical conclusion based on the presentation of evidence.

Freddie Grey was arrested and fatally injured on April 12th, 2015. He died from the injury to his spinal cord on April 19th, The 6 cops were suspended with pay on April 21st pending an investigation. Violent protests did not happen until April 25th, 13 days after Mr. Grey was arrested and fatally injured. After his funeral on April 27th, more violent protests and looting. On May 1st, those 6 cops were charged with varying crimes.

Save your "we need time to investigate"/"television show" argument for someone else that doesn't own a calendar. The cops knew what they did on April 12th, and they didn't even bother to suspend those 6 goons until April 21st. If you or I had done what they did to Mr. Grey, we would have been behind bars immediately. It would not have taken a week and a half to open the investigation. It would not have taken 19 days to press charges. A private citizen who did what those cops did would have faced some kind of immediate justice and investigation. I still contend that Baltimore burned because the police dragged their heels. Private citizens and business owners were made to suffer as a direct result of the cops dragging their feet and trying to figure out how to properly spin what they did to Mr. Grey.

There are too many bullies with badges and bad laws that move the borders away from the border. There are far too few peace officers willing to use discretion and disobey unconstitutional orders. I do not believe being nervous is reasonable suspicion. Unreasonable searches, seizures and detainment are running rampant and roughshod on our rights.

The 6 cops were charged criminally immediately after the fact had become clear. This is not a television show, it takes several days for the investigations to be done and the report sent to the prosecutor.

The rioting happened before the prosecutor got the report on April 30.

While I appreciate the wisdom of your words, I will continue to exercise my First Amendment rights to speak. If I am free to speak, then I will do so. If I am not, then we are farther down the road to oppression than even I realize.

Frankly, we are duty bound to speak up when this kind of thing happens, as far as I am concerned. Cowering in a corner and staying silent when government does this kind of thing will only embolden them to do it more. Waiting for years on end for a court system to render an impotent verdict/judgement that individual cops will never have to actually pay themselves does no good. I said in my previous post that I was prepared to live the fact that I am evil if my sin is in calling for violent retaliation against specific police officers whose guilt is obvious. Nothing has changed on that front.

I also said in the Freddie Grey thread previously that retaliatory violence (the rioting that took placer) would have been unnecessary if those 6 cops had been charged criminally immediately after the facts had become clear. The same can be said in a case like this. The facts are crystal clear. Throw those animals in a cage where they belong. Justice delayed is justice denied, right? If they aren't charged with a crime by the criminal justice system, then why shouldn't those two face violence on the streets in response to their actions? Again, and eye for an eye.

As for your Baltimore paragraph, I am going to ignore the whole thing. Freddie Grey was alive. He was detained and arrested for something that is not even a crime. He died due to some violent action against him while in police custody. He was denied prompt medical attention. Those are the facts of the case. They are black and white. Any other black and white race card talk is irrelevant in my opinion. Everything else you said may or may not be true, and I couldn't care less about any of it. Mr, Grey was alive. He was detained/arrested for something that was not a crime. He died from a traumatic injury received in police custody and was denied medical attention. That's it. End of story. Somebody needs to be held responsible for his death. Save your race card/political machinations for someone else. They do not matter one iota to me. Even if what you were saying is true, it does nothing to address what was done to Mr. Grey. Those 6 cops should be tried and face whatever consequences they must for whatever crimes they are found guilty of by a jury of their peers, i.e. average citizens. All too often, cops are judged by their "peers" meaning other cops, and their actions are found justified when you and I would do hard time for the same things. If those 6 cops are truly innocent, then let them face their actions in court. It's no different than what we would have to deal in if we did what they did.

I'll pose another question that I really want an answer to. In your first paragraph, you said, "we have to maintain level heads about the matter - not take justice into our own hands." Was it wrong for Dagny, Hank, Francisco and Ragnar to take the law into their own hands when then rescued John? What it wrong for our founders to fight back against the British during the revolution? At what point does maintaining a level head mean accepting violence, however repugnant, as a viable, justifiable alternative to submission?

I'd be really careful about posting things like this, because they can be construed as threats against law enforcement officers. While we can understand the angst, we have to maintain level heads about the matter - not take justice into our own hands.

I'd also be really careful about conflating this incident with the Maryland thing. From everything I've read, those charges are a real stretch legally and the police have brought a conflict-of-interest case against the DA who filed the charges because of the appearance of politicization and conflict of interest. I think that one is unlike the other cases we've seen - especially since the race card is getting played in a city run by a black mayor, the DA is black, the police chief is black, and half the police force is black.

You said, "Well, having only read the article and watched the video, it would be hard to make a judgement call . . ."

Why would it be hard? It couldn't be simpler. It is obvious what was going on. It is obvious that the cops didn't have "reasonable articulable suspicion" of a specific crime as is required in a Terry stop. She made it clear that she wanted to go, and the only thing they offered was that she was suspicious because she seemed nervous.

SCOTUS has made it blatantly clear that detention while waiting for a K9 unit to show is not legal.

She did not assault the officer at all. He assaulted her, then one of the officers tazed her after the male cop assaulted her in the first place.

I am dying to know how this could possibly be considered a case where in your words, "it would be hard to make a judgement call . . ." IMHO, this is a slam dunk if ever there was one. There is nothing difficult about assigning blame in this case at all. It just couldn't be any clearer.

I promise that I am not trying to beat you up with this. I just really want to know why you think this case would be hard to make a judgement call on. Please expand on your thinking with that remark.