Posted on 09/22/2012 9:42:59 AM PDT by Altariel
A dog, confined within his own yard, was shot and killed by an Eldorado, Ill. police officer who had mistakenly arrived to the wrong house to investigate a report of a stolen ladder.
According to Wednesday's publication of WSIL TV, the shooting took place on Sunday evening, when an officer arrived to the home of Jason Robershaw.
Robershaw claims that he heard a knock at his back door, followed by gun shots.
Those shots took the life of his 6-year-old German shepherd, "Smokey."
The grieving owner describes the horrific scene outside of his back door:
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Addresses, public records, published phone numbers, and other matters readily accessible to the general public enjoy no Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy.
Either myself, the Police, Ronald McDonald, or Billy Bob the giant Redneck could find out anything that they wanted about you from public records, and then post your name and address all over the internet, and there isn’t anything that you could do about it.
You really shouldn’t take people who claim that “administrative warrants” are required for internet searches at face value.
Glad don’t have a dog anymore. Be on him like he was a rotiserrie chicken with a diamond ring inside.
Where did you get the idea that in a situation where there may be potentially be a real criminal case down the road that you can start by gathering information surreptitiously?
In this instance ~ a question of what address relates to what person, there is no general federal record to reference for that purpose ~ but there are private records, e.g. a phone book perhaps.
The question was why cops end up with bad addresses and there's your answer ~ they don't look ~ and they don't look because virtually every readily accessible source they could use is privately held.
You and I both, sir. No one shoots a member of my family under these circumstances and lives. No one.
USPS has information regarding who receives mail at a specific address ~ and if you look inside your box you'll see a tag with a barcode, and a surname ~ maybe two surnames. That's a link to their information about who gets mail at that address.
But they won't tell you ~ you'll need to go to court to get an order to find out that specific information, and in any case it still doesn't tell you who is a resident and who just gets mail, so that data base is of little use to cops after a specific guy ~ and, besides, THEY need to go to court to get access to the information ~ and that's an administrative warrant to see the information sought on that file.
It gets even more complex if you want to find out personal information about the residents at a specific address ~ HEPPA is just the latest in a string of federal laws that make it harder and harder to get your hands on that information if you're a cop. You can get it with a court order ~ and again, that's a warrant.
There are more laws on the matter but the final result is your ordinary street cop just isn't in a position to do a quick turnaround on verifying an address from a separate source ~ without going to the magistrate to get a warrant so he can do that.
In this case all the cop was going to do was go out to answer a claim that a ladder was stolen.
He went to the address he was given. It was the wrong one. He encountered a dog and shot it.
The person who dispatched him should have verified the address first ~ whatever that might have required.
I have no doubt that his police friends were more than happy to get him to collect constitutionally protected information on their behalf.
That is the attitude which disturbs me—the notion that one believes it acceptable to decimate constitutionally protected information to the police simply because one is also a government employee.
Apologies for not making that clearer.
Except the information is not constitutionally protected.
His claim was that you need an “administrative warrant” to verify addresses on the internet, and that police went to him/her because they couldn’t do it otherwise.
His claim is categorically false.
I think your natural reticence is inhibiting you from expressing your true feelings on the subject.
:)
True, but he scenario is different.
An alert Freeper is more likely to be aware of an officer’s presence on his property than the average law-abiding non-Freeper.
The gentleman and his fiancee were not aware of the intruder until their dog lay dying.
His willingness to provide constitutionally protected information* to the police in order that they may bypass a needed warrant is *very* concerning.
Would you not agree?
*Yes, I am aware that publicly listed addresses are not constitutionally protected information, however, I am discussing principle.
VOORHEES TWP. —A township police officer has been charged with using the state’s motor vehicle data base to look up personal information about a woman motorist and then attempting to “friend” her on Facebook.
Jeffrey M. Tyther, 44, of Voorhees, is charged with computer theft and violating the motor vehicle record law, Camden County Prosecutor Warren W. Faulk said Monday. Tyther was released after being issued a summons. The 14-year veteran of the township force is suspended without pay, a spokesman for Faulk said.
Tyther is accused of using the state police NCIC motor vehicle database on Sept. 9 to obtain personal information about a female motorist he passed in Voorhees. Use of that database is specifically limited to law enforcement purposes only, meaning it can only be used to further a criminal investigation, a spokesman for Faulk said. Tyther did not stop this motorist, issue her a ticket or witness her engage in any criminal behavior that would have warranted accessing her personal information through that database, spokesman Jason Laughlin said.
Tyther was on duty in a marked police cruiser when he saw the motorist pass him. He pulled up behind her, then pulled next to her and waved at her. At no time did Tyther or the other motorist stop their vehicles or speak, Laughlin said.
Tyther used the motorist’s personal information to find her on Facebook. He attempted to “friend” her within a few days of seeing her on the road. When she didn’t respond to the friend request Tyther emailed her, identifying himself as the officer who waved at her earlier that week, Laughlin said.
The woman told a co-worker about the incident and the co-worker contacted police.
“An alert Freeper is more likely to be aware of an officer’s presence on his property than the average law-abiding non-Freeper.”
While I’d like to be able to claim heightened awareness, truth be told, he knocked. I was armed because if I’m not expecting company I *always* pick up a weapon on the way to the door.
Can’t say what manner of justice I might unleash if I ever found a cop standing over my dying dog. Probably a good thing I don’t have any pets right now.
So do you advise your police clients to acquire evidence without warrants?
All I said is the cops use the addresses they have ~ and they had an address ~ but the guy wasn't there and they shot the dog anyway.
The question is about why the cops didn't get a different address ~ and as you've guessed the internet may well have that information. So go there, get a different address, guy isn't there either, shoot a different dog ~ and the damages are going to go even higher.
Plumbers go to many different houses with dogs. Sometimes they go to the wrong house. How come they don’t shoot dogs? Maybe we should only hire plumbers to be our policemen.
Hmm...I like the way you think. ;)
This story is sickening, and happening all to often as we all know!
kitkat, let me tell you a story about Police going to the wrong address.... In my city of 70thousand, the police went to a home and broke in the door. They made the man and his daughter stay outside on the doorstep for 3 hours while they searched the home. They took his computer and arrested the man.
It turns out that they had been investigating “child porn” and about 5 men in town were arrested. This particular man was later released because his computer was using an unsecured wifi system and others had used it to store porn!!
He was proven completely innocent but I’ll bet there will always be those who consider him guilty. It’s a shame.
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