Thursday, April 02, 2009
WP: ACLU Alleges Police Wrongs in Raid
The Post reports that the ACLU has filed suit on behalf of a woman whose home was raided by police seeking evidence tying her son to a shooting at 15th & F NE. The son did not live with the mother, and the ACLU says police did not do enough to determine whether he lived there before obtaining the warrant. The ACLU alleges that police violated DC law by failing to get the required special permission from a judge to execute the warrant at an early hour (inhabitants awoke at 4:30am to the sounds of breaking glass, and flash bang grenades). The house that was raided is in the 1300 block of Queen Street (Trinidad).
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9 comments:
Police had a warrant to search the property and were seeking "firearms, ammunition, holsters" and other items that might connect the woman's son to the killing of a 19-year-old man in the 1500 block of F Street NE on July 16, records show...but the ACLU says officers did not seek permission from a judge, as required under D.C. law, to execute the warrant at such an early hour.
Big fan of ACLU here, and I'm glad for the work they do...but DC really, really, really needs to get to work repealing some of the more FUCKING IDIOTIC laws on its books.
Release prisoners from Reservation 13 at midnight? No problem.
Serve a legitimate warrant, signed by a judge, to look for illegal firearm cache and a guy wanted for a murder?
Weelll, OK, so long as it's not at an inconvenient time in the morning.
Perhaps one of our more bleeding-heart councilmembers can sponsor legislation that requires the MPD to call first.
Somehow it never ceases to surprise me how much toxic shit there is to unwind in DC legal code.
I guess there were no dogs they could shoot before holding the woman at gunpoint.
I'm a member of the ACLU but disagreed w/ their beef w/ the MPD over the blockades, which I supported. The MPD has done great work in Trinidad IMHO, including last Summer when this happened.
But I'd say the law requiring the judge's permission is on the books to protect against this very sort of abuse. So the judge can use some common sense about whether military-style raid is needed--like maybe ask if the bad guy has actually been seen at this house, like ask if you don't actually see the guy go in the house are you still going to kick the door down and use flash bangs on the sleeping woman at 4am before you search for things that *might* be in the house?
The more stories like this I hear, the more I think they just want excuses to play with their high-powered toys.
But I'd say the law requiring the judge's permission is on the books to protect against this very sort of abuse
Could you be a bit more specific? What abuse occurred that would have been prevented by serving the warrant at 4:45 AM?
When the cops are serving a valid search warrant in a felony murder case, I don't give a crap when it's served. The more inconvenient the better.
Military style raids in the middle of the night on innocent citizens' homes where a small amount of surveillance would show there is no danger to the police officers' lives is abuse of authority.
The police had no reason to think the suspect was in the house and could easily have had every reason to believe he was not.
He didn't live there, they didn't see him go in the house. Is the woman a dangerous criminal because her son is alleged to have committed a violent crime?
You're saying the warrant was valid, but it was not valid under DC law for the early morning search. You don't like the law, I'm sorry. My opinion is that the law is there for a good reason and that's been demonstrated pretty vividly here. If the cops had gone to the judge w/ evidence that the suspect did sleep in that house at night and the judge denied the early morning raid then that would be a travesty. In that case I say bring the flashbangs to give the cops the advantage. But they couldn't do that here and likely that's why they circumvented the judge ...and that's the point.
Well, since MPD won't comment on the case, we only have the ACLU's version of events.
As it is, if a judge signs a search warrant and illegal weapons are thought to be involved, I want the police to execute the warrant at the *least* opportune time possible.
Given the difficulty in obtaining a warrant in this town, the idea that idea that this was some rogue operation outside any legal framework is ludicrous.
Anyway, if it increases officer safety marginally, and the safety of the other folks in the house, then it's worth the cost of the occasional lawsuit.
You still haven't explained the apparent circularity in your argument:
"the law requiring the judge's permission is on the books to protect against this very sort of abuse."
What abuse?
"Military style raids in the middle of the night"
So the law against early morning raids is on the books to protect against early morning raids.
Excellent.
Not to beat a dead horse, but Young-Bey sounds like a real piece of work:
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/960/960.F2d.148.90-5117.html
Nice, tried to kill a corrections officer with a shiv. Boy, I wonder why the MPD went in heavy?
They also have laws prohibiting the use of excessive force during arrest, and the admission of illegally obtained evidence. I'm pretty sure they're meant to protect against the use of excessive force and the admission of illegally obtained evidence. The basic idea is that you don't use more force (or at an unnecessary hour) than necessary. The police really should have done their homework here. Chances are that if they really didn't MPD will be liable for the damages to the house.
Here's a story to consider, a neighbor of mine (a childless single female in her late 50s) answered a day time knock at her door only to find cops pointing guns at her when she opened the door. The had bad info, or the wrong address. That kind of thing could trigger a heart attack.
I was personally awakened at 7am on a Saturday by loud knocking. I thought my roommate had knocked himself out. I answered the door and found four officers (I was later told by a neighbor that there were more out back). They had come to execute an arrest warrant for a prior occupant. When I opened the door they were like "Oh, let me guess, you are a new tenant." I explained that I had purchased and lived in my house for more than 5 years. Sometimes the police don't even bother to do ANY research.
why do people ignore facts that hurt their argument?
the key fact "the ACLU says officers did not seek permission from a judge, as required under D.C. law"
so why does IBC respond: "Serve a legitimate warrant, signed by a judge"
The crux of the ACLU's allegation is that warrant was NOT signed by a judge and was thereby illegitimate under DC law.
police have to follow the laws on the books. that's what separates us from a police state.
IBC then returns to ask, in response to Rob: "Could you be a bit more specific? What abuse occurred that would have been prevented by serving the warrant at 4:45 AM?"
the abuse that occurred was an innocent woman was frightened half to death when police came in with an allegedly deficient warrant for someone who didn't live there. the woman is a citizen. if they went to a judge, the judge would ask questions like "do you have probable cause to believe the suspect is in the house?" to which the police would say "no" because they neither saw him enter nor had reason to believe he lived there, which would mean no warrant would issue and no innocent woman would be terrified by an early morning, allegedly illegal raid on her home.
i don't see how this is hard to understand. the judge is part of the process so an impartial party who understands the law can evaluate whether the proper police work has been done to assure, as much as possible, that the wrong house is not entered when no suspect is present.
It sounds like the warrant was signed and valid. Based on what the article says, DC has a requirement that police also get special permission from the judge to execute the warrant at such an early hour.
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