Colorado: Aurora Police Stop and Handcuff Every Adult at Street Intersection to Find Robber
By Tisha Casida | 06/06/2012 | Safety, States | 6 Comments
Photo: westword.com
This week, upon suspecting a robber to be in an area by an intersection, the Aurora police barricaded the area and stopped every single car to search it. While they were searching it, they held these adults who were driving their vehicle unsuspectingly through the intersection in handcuffs (maybe even at gunpoint– I am trying to verify this). Let me repeat myself– the police did not know who exactly they were looking for, so they detained everyone and held them in handcuffs while searching their vehicles. This is unprecedented, this is inexcusable, and this is law enforcement gone wild.
One of the officers actually talking about the incident is Officer Frank Fania: “The actions of the police have been met with some criticism, but Fania said this was a unique situation that required an unusual response.”
Really? The “unique situation” was that they did not know who they were looking for and considered some “tip” to be reliable that this was the area the robber was in, and then handcuffed and detained everyone in that area. Does this mean that if the police get a “tip” that there is a criminal in my neighborhood that they can come, handcuff me, detain me, and search my home since it is in the neighborhood? Is that what we have come to?
This is out of control. Again, there is no excuse for any person from any public service to ever handcuff and detain innocent people while looking for someone thought to be a criminal. If there is a criminal in the area, the last thing I want is to be sitting there handcuffed unable to defend myself. If there is a criminal in the area, I want these people who swear an Oath to the Constitution to protect my life by abiding by the Second and Fourth amendments and by using some more reliable means of catching a criminal other than barricading an entire area and detaining everyone in it.
We should be outraged. Catching “the bad guy” is important, but this never, ever trumps the individual rights of the innocent who deserve to be able to protect themselves– especially in a situation like what happened in Aurora. All of the people who were sitting there, detained in handcuffs, were sitting targets for this criminal if he was on the loose, and it makes me cringe to think of how vulnerable these innocent victims were because of this egregious decision made by the very people who are supposed to “serve and protect.”
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6 Comments
Sara
06.06.2012
Don’t kid yourself. They protect and serve the law not the people. Denver and Aurora are horrible in particular.
hyperion8
06.06.2012
@hyperion8
This is absolutely unconstitutional. I am in constitutional law. Here’s just a few precedents.
The mere fact that someone is present at the place where a criminal may be present can’t provide such probable cause. As the Court held in Ybarra v. Illinois
It is clear that the brevity of the invasion of the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests is an important factor in determining whether the seizure is so minimally intrusive as to be justifiable on reasonable suspicion. United States v. Sharpe
30 and 45 minute detentions did not constitute arrests United States v. Shareef
45 minute detention constituted an arrest United States v. Edwards
90 minute detention constituted an arrest Walker v. City of Orem
As the Supreme Court has noted, it has never held a detention of 90 minutes or longer to be anything short of an arrest. United States v. Place
Handcuffing someone generally requires probable cause to believe that they are guilty of a crime, or — in the context of a brief investigative stop — “particularized suspicion” to believe that the person is dangerous to the investigators. Manzanares v. Higdon
The use of firearms, handcuffs, and other forceful techniques generally exceed the scope of an investigative detention and enter the realm of an arrest. United States v. Cortez
The standard for measuring the scope of a suspect’s consent under the Fourth Amendment is that of ‘objective’ reasonableness. What would the typical reasonable person have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect?”. Thus, as soon as an individual has “an objective reason to believe that he is not free to terminate [an encounter],” he is “seized,”and the Fourth Amendment is implicated. United States v. Patten
Probable cause is based on the totality of the circumstances, and requires reasonably trustworthy information that would lead a reasonable officer to believe that the person about to be [seized] has committed or is about to commit a crime. United States v. Cortez
Similarly, there can be no reasonable dispute that probable requires “reasonably trustworthy information,” not blanket searches. Hunter v. Bryant
Brad R. Schlesinger
06.16.2012
@bradschlesinger
This is a patently unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment, as the SCOTUS has made clear that this kind of checkpoint is illegal. In City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, the Supreme Court held that the use of a checkpoint to discover illegal narcotics was not permissible based on reasonable suspicion. The Court held that never before had a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing been upheld. They further stated that their cannot be checkpoints to investigate crimes in general and that seizing and searching people without warrants in the pursuit of every day crime control activities is an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant clause –everyday crime control activities do not create a special exception to the warrant clause. Police can establish a road block in an effort to gain information about a crime in the area, but they most certainly cannot stop, search, and seize.
Craig D. Schlesinger
06.18.2012
@craigschlesinger
I thought we got rid of the Fourth Amendment, and most of the Bill of Rights, after 9/11. Stop living in the past. Fascism is on the march!
Elizabeth Conley
06.07.2012
I think every citizen quite reasonably wonders why everyone at that intersection consented to having their cars searched. Here’s why:
The police pointed short barrel shotguns directly at the heads of the people exiting their cars. The shotgun barrels were less than a yard to a yard and a half from the terrified victims. They did this to everyone, including children. Here’s a picture taken at the scene of an officer standing a yard and a half from a young teen, pointing a short barrel shotgun at the boy’s face :
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Aurora-brutality.jpg
Everyone complied. Wouldn’t you? I think most people plan to sue. I know I would
John
06.07.2012
This is the society we (and I do mean all of us) have allowed ourselves to evolve into. For many years now we have had no problem with the police trampling on our constitutional rights. In fact, we’ve invited it. We have told the police by our actions and inactions that this kind of behavior is acceptable. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself how you feel about DWI stops. For quite some time we have said that it’s OK for the cops to stop people who have done nothing wrong except to be driving down the wrong road at the wrong time. All this to “protect” people against drunk drivers. We’ve allowed this and many people have encouraged these actions. I have argued for many years that this is unconstitutional. Only to have it fall on deaf ears. Whenever I’ve broached the subject, I’ve been looked at as if I’m crazy. How could I possibly be against stopping drunk drivers. I’ve had statistics thrown at me as to how these DWI stops help society. Well people, this is the next step in that logic. Congratulations, you’ve gotten what you wanted. And it only gets worse from here.