Missouri: Police Roadblock Harassment Caught on Tape.

TheNewspaper.com ^ | 12/30/2006 | Brett Darrow

[The KG9 Kid]

Missouri: Police Roadblock Harassment Caught on Tape
St. Louis County, Missouri threaten to arrest a teenager for refusing to discuss his personal travel plans.

A teenager harassed by police in St. Louis, Missouri caught the incident on tape. Brett Darrow, 19, had his video camera rolling last month as he drove his 1997 Maxima, minding his own business. He approached a drunk driving roadblock where he was stopped, detained and threatened with arrest when he declined to enter a conversation with a police officer about his personal travel habits. Now Darrow is considering filing suit against St. Louis County Police.

"I'm scared to drive for fear of being stopped at another checkpoint and arrested while doing nothing illegal," Darrow told TheNewspaper. "We're now guilty until we prove ourselves innocent to these checkpoint officers."

On that late November night, videotape confirms that Darrow had been ordered out of his vehicle after telling a policeman, "I don't wish to discuss my personal life with you, officer." Another officer attempted to move Darrow's car until he realized, "I can't drive stick!" The officer took the opportunity to undertake a thorough search of the interior without probable cause. He found nothing.

When Darrow asked why he was being detained, an officer explained, "If you don't stop running your mouth, we're going to find a reason to lock you up tonight."

The threats ended when Darrow informed officers that they were being recorded. After speaking to a supervisor Darrow was finally released.

"These roadblocks have gotten out of hand," Darrow told TheNewspaper. "If we don't do something about them now, it'll be too late."

A full video of the incident is available here. A transcript is provided below as the audio is at times very faint.

[Don Joe]

Yikes. I didn't catch it.

No one caught it. VERY slick operation, doubtless planned to the nines prior to deployment. He "just happened" to have recording equipment going? He "just happened" to be -- a 19 yr old kid -- able to act as if exquisitely coached, with the "right" reply to every possible statement right at the tip of his tongue? He "just happened" to say the Magic Word to set it all in action?

I'll be that thirty seconds into this game, even the cop forgot that the kid said he was high! The reason I suspect this? Because NONE of the police raised it as an issue! This kid must have had their heads spinning.

I would not be surprised if the kid was "wired" in both directions. There are near-invisible earpieces, really tiny, subminiature wireless jobs. he could have been prompted every step of the way, by a pack of ACLU lawyers sitting in a car a mile down the road.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

That is correct. He did not give an accounting...and he was on his way.

You kind of left some stuff out from the middle. He was not free to go on his way immediately; indeed, he was threatened with arrest for not being sufficiently subservient to the cop.

Once upon a time, a police officer could get disciplined for using foul language when arresting a suspect. Now, otherwise law-abiding citizens have reason fear that they will be arrested for solely for annoying a cop.

When you fear for your freedom solely because you're in the presence of a government agent, that is not a free society.

[trisham]

No one caught it. VERY slick operation, doubtless planned to the nines prior to deployment. He "just happened" to have recording equipment going?

*************

It did seem odd to me that he had the camera rolling before he "saw" the roadblock.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

Cops are allowed to conduct sting operations against the citizenry. Surely they can have no objection whatsoever to having the favor returned? After all, if the police are obeying the law, they have nothing to fear, right?

[supercat]

Can someone please tell me what was so unconstitutionally offensive about the officer's initial question?

At times there may be good and legitimate reasons for not wanting to tell cops where you're going. For example, someone who is driving to the campaign office of a candidate opposing the local boss might well prefer not to tell the police his destination.

While it's doubtful that this driver was on this occasion going anyplace he wouldn't want anyone to know about, requiring drivers to always state any non-controversial destinations would inherently flag any controversial ones. Imagine someone asked the following questions in court:

Q: Did you sleep with Mrs. Smith?
A: No.
Q: Did you sleep with Mrs. Jones?
A: No.
Q: Did you sleep with Mrs. Johnson?
A: No.
Q: Did you sleep with Mrs. Reardon?
A: That's none of your business.

The witness' willing answers to the first three questions effectively forced him to answer the fourth even if he was not compelled to answer. By contrast, had he answered "That's none of your business" to the first question, the lawyer would not have been able to extract information that was none of his business.

[rednesss]

Bingo. How many times have I read on this thread that "if you aren't doing anything bad, then you have nothing to hide" BS. Well if the cops aren't doing anything illegal then they won't mind having a video camera trained on them every second that they are on duty. People have to remember they work for us dammit.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

Work harder, damnit, welfare recipients and government employees need your money.

[rbmillerjr]

"You kind of left some stuff out from the middle."

I didn't leave anything out of importance. After his response the officer requested that he get out of the car, he ran his information and allowed him to leave.

"He was not free to go on his way immediately"

He doesn't have that right. He was at a DUI checkpoint and didn't answer questions. Very abnormal behavior for a citizen. Officer often pull over suspicious individuals at DUI checkpoints. From stop to go it took 15 minutes. It could have been 5 minutes but he wanted to play ACLU games.

"When you fear for your freedom solely because you're in the presence of a government agent, that is not a free society."

That is simply hyperbole or paranoi. You have free will to leave any time you wish.

[ellery]

Shure it's a violation of the 4th. However the founders didn't even have the slightest inkling of multi ton vehicles being driven at speeds unimagined by intoxicated citizens.

I hear this line of reasoning a lot from gun-grabbing libs. I tell them that the founders had every inkling that our needs might change over time, and consequently provided for a way to amend the Constitution. If you don't think the 4th Amendment works for today's problems, the founders gave you a Constitutional solution: amend it. Merely ignoring it is not an option. And if it is, then don't complain when the libs want to ignore the 2nd.

[supercat]

It did seem odd to me that he had the camera rolling before he "saw" the roadblock.

Of course it was planned. The driver thought that police had a tendency to respond in illegal fashion to perfectly legitimate behavior, and he wanted to document and expose such tendency. Taxpayers have a right to know what their servants are up to.

The behavior of bad officers contributes to a generalized distrust of police which in turn makes it harder for good officers to do their jobs. I wish there were more good officers willing to stand up to them.

[Don Joe]

---

[Emphasis added]
I just don't know how this place has changed as much as it has in the years since I first joined. I barely recognize the place compared to how it was then. Back during Clinton I's years in office, our mission was to 'roll back a half century of government abuse' and lift the weight of the crushing force of government pressing down upon us and holding bureacratic tyrants accountable. Anyone else remember those days?

Now we have far too many Freepers that are a bunch of weepy hand-wringy ninnies who think that the Hubble Space Telescope should have been employed to search for the comically-inept James Kim family, welcome police abuse from our blue-uniformed overlords, and dismiss all attempts at rectifying government fraud, cronyism, and monumental waste by quoting something from their bible about 'rendering unto Caesar' and how these earthly things are not of His kingdom so who gives a crap if the country goes to shit because it will just help us die faster so we can go to everlasting paradise with Jesus.

---

You make me sick.

Thank you.

(I pinged a few others I think may also appreciate being made sick :)

Seriously, thanks for putting in our faces that which cuts so clearly against "the flow" these days. I've been bucking it myself and catching a ration of flack from the baaaa baaaa battalion.

Long term though... I think we're screwed. The Bend-overians have gained critical mass. They have found a "leader" to focus their agenda, and he's "found favor" with the statist machine. The ol' one-two. Stupidity has gained traction. Who knew?

Dang. It was a fun coupla centuries. Kinda sad to be handing this mess off to our progeny.

[rednesss]

I know I shouldn't be wasting my productivity here arguing with people that would feel more at ease in Soviet Russia. The gall of us serfs to assert our rights. God given rights mind you.

[The KG9 Kid]

There goes more of that 'If you don't have anything to hide, citizen, you have nothing to worry about. So, if you have nothing to hide, you surely won't mind me searching through your belongings while you sit over there on the curb' mentality.

In your eyes, someone videotaping encounters with the police is doing something wrong, yet police who are throwing up roadblocks and asking citizens 'Your papers, please' are doing something right.

Thanks for posting, Captain America.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

I didn't leave anything out of importance. After his response the officer requested that he get out of the car, he ran his information and allowed him to leave.

Again, you left out the threat of jail time for being insufficiently servile to the cop.

He doesn't have that right. He was at a DUI checkpoint and didn't answer questions. Very abnormal behavior for a citizen.

SFW if it was "abnormal?" It did not reach the level of "probable cause." You, on the other hand, do reach the level of "serf."

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

[ellery]

He didn't refuse to talk to the cop. The cop just didn't like what he said. The cop chose to divert resources from drunk drivers to getting into a p!ssing contest with a lawful citizen. Misplaced priorities by the cops.

[supercat]

This is no bid deal. Routine stops save lives.

How so? What evidence is there that the number of lives saved is higher than the number of lives that would be saved if the same number of man-hours were directed toward other more useful pursuits that interfered less with law-abiding citizens?

Which is apt to catch more dangerous drunk drivers--a cop who pulls over one car every few minutes while ignoring the rest of the cops on the road, or one who watches multiple cars per minute going around a curve to see which drivers have poor control of their vehicles? Bear in mind that the public value of catching someone with a 0.20BAC is far greater than the public value of catching someone with a 0.08.

[rednesss]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

[Don Joe]

I haven't listened to the audio, just read the transcript. The kid was being an ass, but it's the trooper's job not to lose his cool.

IMO it was a set-up. A sting. Looks to me like it was very carefully planned, to maximize the "piss him off" potential, and, to start the ball rolling by giving an answer indicating that the kid was high -- but doing it in a very Clintonian "plausible deniability" way (high/hi).

So, the cop screwed up, but it was due to some heavy duty "bear-baiting."

This kid ain't no poster boy for the Bill of Rights. (And I'd really like to know who he's sock-puppeting for. ACLU? Soros? Something stinks really fishy about the whole thing.)

Obviously the police set themselves up for it too, if for no other reason than being there. All this "papers, please?" crap is an open invitation to all sorts of abuse, from all directions. It's bad, period. It does NOT belong in a free country.

[The KG9 Kid]

The witness' willing answers to the first three questions effectively forced him to answer the fourth even if he was not compelled to answer. By contrast, had he answered "That's none of your business" to the first question, the lawyer would not have been able to extract information that was none of his business.

You make a compelling point in your #565.

The police are trained to extract these little confessions from people they encounter and see if it fits the demeanor, profile, and physical evidence at the scene.

[Charlespg]

This thread has really bought out the sleeper trolls,and CINOS (Conservatives in name only)