Posted on 11/29/2005 12:32:57 PM PST by CedarDave
Arvada woman said 'no' at Federal Center while on public bus
By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News November 29, 2005
Federal prosecutors are reviewing whether to pursue charges against an Arvada woman who refused to show identification to federal police while riding an RTD bus through the Federal Center in Lakewood.
Deborah Davis, 50, was ticketed for two petty offenses Sept. 26 by officers who commonly board the RTD bus as it passes through the Federal Center and ask passengers for identification.
During the Thanksgiving weekend, an activist who has helped publicize other challenges to government ID requirements posted a Web site about the case, which he said had logged more than 1.5 million visitors by lunchtime Monday.
"The petty offense ticket was issued by police on the scene," Colorado U.S. attorney's spokesman Jeff Dorschner said Monday. "The status of the matter is now under review."
A decision on whether the government will pursue the case is expected in a week or two.
Davis said she commuted daily from her home in Arvada to her job at a small business in Lakewood, taking an RTD bus south on Kipling Street each morning from the recreation center in Wheat Ridge, where she left her car. She said the bus always passed through the Federal Center and some people got off there.
Guards at the Federal Center gate always boarded the bus and asked to see all passengers' identification, she said.
She said the guards just looked at the IDs and did not record them or compare them with any lists.
When she refused to show her ID, she said, officers with the Federal Protective Service removed her from the bus, handcuffed her, put her in the back of a patrol car and took her to a federal police station within the Federal Center, where she waited while officers conferred. She was subsequently given two tickets and released.
She said she arrived at work three hours late. She no longer has that job and did not identify her former employer.
The Federal Protective Service in Colorado referred inquiries to Carl Rusnok of Dallas, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the federal police. Both are part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Rusnok said the federal officers in Colorado told him the policy of checking the IDs of bus passengers and others entering the Federal Center began shortly after the April 1995 terrorist bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.
"It's one of the multiple forms of security," Rusnok said. "The identification is one means of making sure that, whoever comes on base, that you know that they are who they say they are.
"There are a variety of other means that bad people could take to circumvent that, but that's why there are multiple layers of security," he said.
Security 'high priority'
Between 7,000 and 8,000 people work at the Federal Center in Lakewood and between 2,000 and 2,500 people visit it every day, Rusnok said.
"Security to protect the employees and the visitors is a high priority," Rusnok said.
RTD spokesman Scott Reed said federal guards only check IDs of bus passengers when the Federal Center is on "heightened alert," which may not be known to the general public.
"It's periodic," Reed said.
"That is something we don't control," Reed said. "It is Federal Center property, and the federal security controls the ID-checking process. We try to cooperate as best we can and inform the public that this will occur."
Davis is to appear before a magistrate judge in Colorado U.S. District Court on Dec. 9.
"We don't believe the federal government has the legal authority to put Deborah Davis in jail, or even make her pay a fine, just because she declined the government's request for identification," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which has taken up the case.
"She was commuting to her job," Silverstein said. "She wasn't doing anything wrong. She wasn't even suspected of doing anything wrong."
"Passengers aren't required to carry passports or any other identification documents in order to ride to work on a public bus," he said.
Davis also is represented by volunteer attorneys Gail Johnson and Norm Mueller of the Denver law firm Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, Jordan, Mackey & Foreman, P.C. She also has the backing of Bill Scannell, an activist who has helped publicize other challenges to government requirements that people show identification. Scannell created a Web site during the Thanksgiving weekend about Davis' case: papersplease.org/Davis.
"This is just a basic American issue of what our country's all about," Scannell said. "It has nothing really to do with politics, and everything to do with what kind of country we want to live in."
'Rosa Parks'
Some supporters have called Davis "the Rosa Parks of the Patriot Act generation," a reference to the African-American woman who became a civil rights heroine after she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, Scannell said.
Davis said she showed her ID when a Federal Center guard asked to see it for the first couple of days she rode the RTD bus through the center. But it bothered her.
"It's wrong," she said Monday. "It's not even security. It's just a lesson in compliance - the big guys pushing the little guys around."
For a few subsequent days, she told the guards she wasn't getting off in the Federal Center and didn't have an ID. They let her stay on the bus.
Finally, on a Friday, a guard told Davis she had to have an ID the next time. Davis said she spent part of the weekend studying her rights and e-mailing Scannell.
That Monday, when a guard asked if she had her ID with her, Davis just said, "Yes."
"And he said, 'May I see it?' " she recalled, "and I said no."
The guard told her she had to leave the bus, but she refused. Two officers with the Federal Protective Service were called.
"I boarded the bus and spoke with the individual, Deborah N. Davis . . . asking why she was refusing," wrote the first Federal Protective Service officer in an incident report posted on Scannell's Web site. The officer was not identified.
"She explained she did not have to give up her rights and present identification," the officer wrote. "I informed her she was entering a federal facility and that the regulations for entrance did require her to present identification, before being allowed access."
"She became argumentative and belligerent at this time," the officer wrote.
Eventually, one officer said, "Grab her," and the two officers took hold of her arms and removed her from the bus, Davis said.
Davis has four children, including a 21-year-old son serving in Iraq with the Army and a 28-year-old son who is a Navy veteran. She has five grandchildren.
Scotus recently ruled on this issue. You can be lawfully detained when you refuse to show ID when asked to do so, until such time as your Identity can be established.
This gal has no case.
They do make you register your car to "breathe" air. We're next! (Watch out for that tailpipe test, tho!)
Wrong. Only if you're suspected of a crime or plotting a crime. And only if you have a state law authorizing such.
Uh, because that's their entire purpose. They offer legal aid to people they believe are having their rights violated.
Regardless of whether you agree with them, you can see why they get involved every time.
"Doesn't she know that "Papers, please" was ruled constitutional not long ago?"
I think you need to go back and review that case. It ruled no such thing in respect to the current situtation. It ruled that cops investigating a report of a crime could ask for ID. That case does not apply here.
I thought this issue was already decided against We the People? I thought the courts ruled that the people must surrender an ID upon any government official's demand?
"And he said, 'May I see it?' " she recalled, "and I said no."
The guard told her she had to leave the bus, but she refused. Two officers with the Federal Protective Service were called. "
So ... she had the ID ... she refused to show it (because she is special and the rules do not apply to her) so she is asked to leave the bus because she does not abide by the rules. She refuses to leave. Because she refuses to leave, is removed. She should have been charged with trespassing if she refuses to leave when she is told to.
"Rusnok said the federal officers in Colorado told him the policy of checking the IDs of bus passengers and others entering the Federal Center began shortly after the April 1995 terrorist bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City. "
Its reallt simple, she needs to get her own transportation if she doesnt want to follow the rules on that bus.
They do make you register your car to "breathe" air. We're next! (Watch out for that tailpipe test, tho!)
I am not sure the tailpipe test connection will be as bad as the 25 MPH run I am gonna have to do while they run the tailpipe test.
I was thinking more of the general attitude, not legalities. The legalities are that when you go on federal property you have to abide by the set rules. For example, just entering a military post allows them to search you and your possessions without conforming to the legal standards that civilian police must abide by.
UMMM so when police are doing random checks, as in New York recently, how exactly am I wrong? This was a random check that has been done for quite some time. What i said may well need more added to it but it was hardly wrong.
"Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "Asking questions is an essential part of police investigation. In the ordinary sense a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Fourth Amendment."
"Monday's ruling was a follow up to a 1968 decision that said police may briefly detain someone on reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, without the stronger standard of probable cause, to get more information, according to a report from The Associated Press. Justices said that during such brief detentions, known as Terry stops after the 1968 ruling, people must answer questions about their identities."
This gal was allowed to go on in prior contacts without showing ID because she claimed she didn't have any. She was checked again and said she DID have one but refused to show it. THIS action is reasonable suspicion to inquire further.
This case was a set up from the very get go and should be treated as such...I said it before and ill say it again, if you are asked for ID and you refuse it, you can be lawfully detained until such time as your ID can be established.
you are required to register your baby at birth with social security eh?
So if they had no reasonable suspicion to ask her for her ID in the first place, then how does a refusal constitute reasonable suspicion?
Isn't that rather circular reasoning, worthy of the KGB?
I'm no Constitutional expert, but it seems to me that if the Federal Center requires an ID check prior to entry, then the buses should either require an ID check prior to boarding the bus which enters the facility, or the bus should change it's route to bypass the facility.
Quite honestly, I think the city is a fault here.
reasonable suspicion is part of the normal checks they have been doing since ummm the murah building blew up!
Circular reasoning is at play when you want to deny police the very tool they need to do their job. Information. That is what this ruling is all about. Police have to be able to ask questions.
Look for a minute now. This gal was asked time and time again. She knows the rules. They even let her slide. She baited them. She set this up.
Do you disagree that muhammed atta should have had to give up his ID when asked?
That a refusal was cause to detain him further?
How about Tim Mcviegh? He was just driving a car after all....
Do you honestly try to make the case that you have a right not to be Identified by a police officer that just walks up to you and asks you who you are? If you would honestly make that case I would like you to tell me how they could EVER come up with any evidence that could be considered probable cause for a warrant....much less for a conviction.
You seem to seek the ultimate hamstring for law enforcment. In your world it is wrong for a law enforcment official to even ask you your name. So tell me sir, what WILL you allow them to do?
I would bet you hit the nail on the head. The bus route will not change but I could see Everyone having to show ID now. Maybe it will stay as it is, what remains is that this gal has the choice to drive a car or take a cab or use them two feet that were made for walking.
Suppose he did give it up? Suppose Tim McVeigh had done so as well? Apparently they would have just looked at it, checked to see that the picture matched his face, and sent him on his way.
How does that increase security?
Poor, sad law enforcement. Hamstrung by those pesky individual rights that our ancestors killed British soldiers over. So, so sad.
"Interesting conflict of priorities. The right to be secure in your own person vs. requirements to fight the war on terror. Constitutional experts weigh in here..."
Illegals don't have to show an ID....most times the officer doesn't want to stir up a hornets next.....so why should legal American citizens have to provide ID?
TSA pissed me off this week. Boarding at Las Vegas,I did the ritual of taking off the shoes, jacket, belt etc . Then the a$$hole on the other side of the metal detector told me to take off my sweatshirt . I thought he was kidding . I happened to have an undershirt on underneath , so I took it off. If I did not have an undershirt on , I would probably have made a scene BECAUSE I REALLY HAVE A DISRESPECT FOR IDIOTS THAT THRIVE ON AUTHORITY. This is IMHO OVERKILL on their part .
BTW the " hottie " female behind me ALSO had on a sweatshirt and was NOT told to remove it .( WISH SHE DID )
Looks like discrimination to me OR he might have been a MIAMI fan and I had on a Virginia Tech sweatshirt .
I'm beginning to get mad as hell about this crap .
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