Another Rights Post

[Charon]

Here is an incident that happened recently in California. In this case, apparently this person's rights ended where someone's feelings began. One for the "If you have nothing to hide..." set.

I was detained at school today on suspicion of carying a concealed weapon.

Today has been an odd day for me, I was sitting in my physics class at Santa Monica College trying to remember calculus from five years ago when a very polite officer came into the class and asked me if my name was (insert my name here) and if I could please come outside with him.

I hurried after him immediately worrying that something had happened to my wife or my grand parents, or father or close friends who may have me as an emergency contact.

Outside there were about five uniformed officers arranged in a semi circle with their hands close to their weapons, which I thought was odd for an emergency notification.

The officer who had come in for me introduced himself and explained to me that someone had observed me on an internet chat board (here at calguns) while I was sitting in a school computer lab, and apparently I was posting messages on how to bypass laws and illegally obtain firearms and hide them and I was making some kind of threat against the student body, and apparently somehow this translated to me being a threat to the school and under suspicion of carrying a gun.

I explained that I hadn’t posted any such thing, and while I might have explained to someone what they need to legally purchase a pistol in CA I have never advocated breaking the law in any way shape or form. (I actually posted about the utility bill requirement a while ago, but under a little bit of stress I couldn’t recall if it was the day before or a few days prior, it just seemed like the only post that could even remotely be misconstrued)

They then searched my person with my consent (I didn’t want the officers to feel ill at ease while I was standing there, and as I understand it an officer safety search is completely constitutional and I don’t have a problem with them feeling more comfortable around me)

They explained that after the VT and columbine things people were at a higher state of paranoia and they were obligated to follow up on any credible report, and explained to me that they needed to search my backpack to make sure that I didn’t have any weapons in it.

I replied that I did not consent to a search and did so on the grounds of privacy and a strong belief in the fourth amendment, I offered to show them all the internet posts that I had made so that they could judge for themselves whether or not this was a credible report.

They explained to me that based on my statements and the report they had from the female individual they had plenty of probable cause for searching my bag, but my consent would considerably speed up the process.

I declined further and they had the sergeant and chief of police (I believe) who were nice individuals and very courteous and professional come and talk with me while they called in for a telephonic warrant. It took them a considerable amount of time (20-30 min) and I began to inquire how long I had to stand out there and at what point it became unlawful detainment. They stated that since I was a suspect under investigation being detained that I could not go back into the classroom, nor could I take my things and leave campus.

I then called my wife and asked her to call T.M. and have them give me a call (I didn’t have the phone number on me for some reason… It might have been in my wallet but my wallet was being held onto by one of the officers.

Speaking of my wallet, the officers took a special interest in it, I have an old police wallet that has space for a badge, I don’t carry a badge, I’ve never carried a badge, I’m not a policeman wannabe or mall ninja, I just appreciate high quality leatherwork and when my old JC penny wallet wore out, I purchased a badge wallet that was on sale at the local shooting range/police supply outlet. It is a nice lattago leather that is well stitched and has held up so well for the last seven years that I don’t think I’ll ever need another one.

I don’t really understand why it was of such interest to them, but it was, and I guess they have to deal with a lot of wannabe cops impersonating an officer.

They obtained a warrant, searched my bag, determined that unless I was planning on throwing my physics notes at someone (which reminds me I left a notebook on the desk in class…. I’ll have to get it tomorrow) I had nothing that was illegal in my bag.

They apologized to me for the inconvenience, chatted about competitive shooting and ca law a bit and sent me on my way.

I was a bit shaken and class was almost over so I left to go get a cold soda and go home (I only have one class on Thursdays)

My wife was really distraught over this, and has all but forbidden me from discussing guns in public or chatting on calguns while at school. I don’t blame her, it’s a hard phone call to get, “hey babe, I’m being detained on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon please contact T.M. for me”

Chuck called me on my cell phone shortly afterwards and I explained to him what had happened, and why I took the pre-emptive step of contacting him. (I didn’t feel that some unsubstantiated report constituted probable cause for violating my privacy or treating me like a criminal, and what if a single round of ammo was lodged in my backpack somewhere from a range trip three years ago? Its happened before (I only found out when I had to get on an airplane and they x-rayed my bag), or if I had an exacto knife from one of the art classes that I had forgotten about and had wound up in with my pens…

I just feel uncomfortable allowing people to search through my possessions, and I didn’t want to allow for an accidental empty brass casing or something to cause me to get expelled from a school that I’ve worked very hard at (3.87 GPA, I’ll be graduating with two AA’s this quarter and transferring to a new school next year)

I also felt a little embarrassed that my bookmark for my recreational reading is one a friend made me that features the land-o-lakes girl and has a little flap that you lift to make her show her breasts… I don’t mind you guys knowing about it, (hey its just guy bawdy talk) but pulling it out at school and discussing it would be inappropriate, also in our PC world I didn’t want to get kicked out of school for having something like that. (I hadn’t thought about it being inappropriate until they asked to search, It wont be accompanying me to school in the future)

I didn’t want to make the officers jobs harder by not granting consent for the search, I just value my rights and I don’t want doodles of guns or notes from my polysci class to ruin the education that I’m working so *&^%# hard to get. Part of me also distrusted the fact that they actually had P.C. for a search, it just seemed that if they had it, they would have gone ahead and gotten a warrant for it prior to pulling me out of class. I guess schools are a different sort of environment, the warrant was obviously granted via the telephone.

C.M. is going to be sending me a few cards and a magnet, he was very understanding and having access to him incase of something like this was a huge relief. Apparently (according to my wife) mentioning calguns brought immediate recognition and action. It actually brings a tear to my eye thinking that you guys are out there and organized and I’m not just one man that has to stand alone (ok it’s a bit melodramatic). Seriously, just the though of it meant more than you can know.

I’m not sure who reported me as a dangerous guy, (maybe it was the local news? I sent a commentary letter to them yesterday from a school computer discussing the RKBA) I don’t really care who did it, though its saddening that this is what our society has come to, reporting ‘suspicious activity’ instead of just talking to the ‘suspicious’ guy about what’s going on first.

I just wanted to let you guys know about it, It feels good to get it out so I’m not just thinking about it. (I was a little shaken up buy the whole thing, I’m a big advocate of following the rules to the exact letter of the law, and to be accused of being a criminal actually hurt)

To T.M. thanks for being there,

To the officers (who I’m sure are reading this, I encouraged them to come and find out what the site was all about) Thanks for being professional and courteous about the incident, I’m sorry for making your jobs harder.

To the rest of you guys, be careful where you look at Calguns, people are snoopers and even if you are a clean cut professional looking upstanding individual with no prior history of anything, you too can be a suspect based on the word of someone who disagrees with you politically, or misreads an email you write to the newspaper.

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=67652&page=22

Personally, I would be looking to find any legal avenue possible to create a putative counter to this behavior, against both the "informant" and the school. That's frankly what I have noticed the Supreme Court recommending in some of these cases like no knock, where if enough of the wrong people get killed then the liability will "correct" the problems  

Charon

[DYNAMITE]

While I regret this guy had to go through all that.  (It totally sucks!)

I don't hold anything against the police "informant."   More than likely she was just being vigilant and misunderstood what he was up too.  I hate to say it, but nowadays, you can't be to careful. It didn't sound like it was malicious (though i suppose it could have been).

Sorry the guy missed his class.

[Charon]

A follow up post

An interesting update..

I went in to the campus police station today to begin the process of requesting a copy of the police report and warrant along with any accompanying documentation. The staff were polite and courteous, and the nice officer who came into the classroom was actually there working on something and came out to say Hi.

Apparently it takes seven to ten days for a police report to be submitted and filed so that I can request a copy. They said that they will have a copy for me when it is completed.

The interesting part of the trip was the response to my request for a copy of the warrant, at first they just stated that telephonic warrants do not have face sheets, and after talking amongst themselves for a minuite or so in back, they informed me that when they called in for the warrant "that service was not available to us at the time" but they assured me that it would all be explained in the narrative of the police report.

I did not ask any follow up questions (the obvious one being "Did you actually get a warrant or did you do a search without consent and without a judge giving you the ok" The reason being that I didn't want to cause anyone to review and 'revise' the report before I was able to get a copy of it in my hand.

They did not actually state to me that they had asked for and received a warrant at the time of the search, they just went off on the telephone and came back and performed the search after telling me that they were going to go get a telephonic warrant.

I'm curious to see the report and find out what the actual story is. I'm beginning to suspect that they performed the search based on nothing but the presumption of probable cause which I do not feel was substantiated.

If they did search me without a warrant, its completely unacceptable, and given that I was waiting for a callback from legal representation (which I stated plainly in front of them), to proceed with the search before I was able to obtain legal council just seems kind of shady to me.

I don't want to get too far offtrack with wild speculation (its possible that they did indeed obtain a warrant and simply were referring to the fact that a manner of printing or transmitting a written copy was temporarily unavailable)

but........

It still remains to be seen just how far the rabbit hole goes... now we just have to wait 10 days... but hey in CA us gunnies are used to it...

[Charon]

While I regret this guy had to go through all that. (It totally sucks!)

I don't hold anything against the police "informant." More than likely she was just being vigilant and misunderstood what he was up too. I hate to say it, but nowadays, you can't be to careful. It didn't sound like it was malicious (though i suppose it could have been).

Sorry the guy missed his class.

Doesn't sound to me like they acted on anything more than one person's opinion. Just how far are you comfortable with letting them violate the 4th Amendment. Perhaps a follow up search of your house? Questioning your employer? Maybe this "nut" just left his illegal mass killing machine at home that day? After all, the informant apparently provide a great deal of detail that other posters at the site in question (and a search under his name would likely confirm) say never existed.

Maybe it was just someone with a political agenda, doing her thing for the cause.

Charon

[Hortlund]

TEH SKY IS FALLING!!!

[Charon]

TEH SKY IS FALLING!!!

So I take it where individual rights are concerned you lean more towards giving the government broad powers to infringe those rights with little actual evidence required to trigger such an infringement?


Charon

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Charon
So I take it where individual rights are concerned you lean more towards giving the government broad powers to infringe those rights with little actual evidence required to trigger such an infringement?

Charon

What rights were infringed here? Someone thought he was armed. At campus, that is a bad thing. Cops came to check it out. They got a warrent. Turns out he wasnt armed. End of story.

[Charon]

The whole 4th amendment thing.

"I saw Hortland discussing child sodomy on a message board, and I could tell he takes part in that type of thing from those nasty posts I think I saw." says random citizen. [edit: maybe even the person you pissed off by taking his usual parking place that morning.] "Perhaps we should drag him in for questioning and confiscate his computer for a week to check for child porn." says police official. Well, if that works for you  

Charon

[Charon]

1. The informant was not part of whatever discussion she thinks she saw. He didn't articulate a threat to her directly, and apparently he didn't in writing to others either.

2. The informant was the sole source.

3. There was no arm seen by anyone. No direct evidence. No printouts of posts. No effort to check his posts. And, he directly countered her contention. Her word vs his, yet somehow his word didn't count.

4. No previous record of behavior to suggest a threat.

5. Perhaps she was just being politically vindictive? No recourse?

Charon

[cav58d]

When I was in college there was a group that went by the name of "Environmental Fundamentalist".  They were extremely anti government, anti usa, and supported and justified at the time, the killing of US troops in Iraq.  They were extremely vocal, and too be honest it scared me.  The final straw was when the chairman of the group told me, "I think everyone of us has a person deep down inside of us that is willing to strap an IED to his chest and blow him self up".

At the time I was doing an internship with Connecticut's Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

I alerted my boss about it, and proper action was taken.

Sure it is their right to say that crap, but I don't see myself at all different from the girl who reported this to the police.  Sure, my case is a lot more extreme, but guns are a very sensitive subject to some people, especially on campus following Virginia Tech, and I see no problem with her reporting what she thought she saw....Reporting something could mean the difference between two different situations, 1 which could end with a very chitty outcome.

That said, I also don't think it would be to bad for this girl to try and contact the guy she reported and tell him it's nothing personal, she thought she saw a threat and acted accordingly, and hope he understands.

[DYNAMITE]

Originally posted by Charon


2. The informant was the sole source.


Charon

As I recall, there was only one source in the NJ terror cell that was broken up by the guy at Circuit City... but he's a hero.  She got it wrong.  There's no doubt.  But at least she had the stones to do something about what she thought was going on.

I don't think it's fair to assume she was acting to bolster a political agenda or to be malicious.  

To me it seems like she suspected something... she notified the authorities, they investigated, and it is now over.

As far as the dudes after post about the telephone warrant, well we'll see how that pans out.  But as far as the "informant" is concerned... I don't think she did anything wrong.

[2bighorn]

Originally posted by cav58d
When I was in college there was a group that went by the name of "Environmental Fundamentalist".  They were extremely anti government, anti usa, and supported and justified at the time, the killing of US troops in Iraq.  They were extremely vocal, and too be honest it scared me.  The final straw was when the chairman of the group told me, "I think everyone of us has a person deep down inside of us that is willing to strap an IED to his chest and blow him self up".

At the time I was doing an internship with Connecticut's Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

I alerted my boss about it, and proper action was taken.

Sure it is their right to say that crap, but I don't see myself at all different from the girl who reported this to the police.  Sure, my case is a lot more extreme, but guns are a very sensitive subject to some people, especially on campus following Virginia Tech, and I see no problem with her reporting what she thought she saw....Reporting something could mean the difference between two different situations, 1 which could end with a very chitty outcome.

That said, I also don't think it would be to bad for this girl to try and contact the guy she reported and tell him it's nothing personal, she thought she saw a threat and acted accordingly, and hope he understands.

snitch

[Curval]

Originally posted by 2bighorn
snitch

I think Cav is Udie.

[cav58d]

whats udie

[Shamus]

What happens after ulive.

shamus