Posted on 12/08/2005 8:55:00 AM PST by JTN
Federal prosecutors have dropped charges against Deborah Davis, the 53-year-old Arvada woman who refused to show her identification to federal police officers on an RTD bus traveling through the Federal Center in Lakewood.
Davis' supporters, at first jubilant to learn Wednesday morning that she will not be prosecuted, were dismayed to learn hours later that officers of the Federal Protective Service still will ask passengers on the public bus to show their identification. The policy applies to all passengers, including those, as in Davis' case, who are traveling through the Federal Center and not getting off the bus there.
Federal officials said the Davis case was closed because of a technicality involving a problem with a sign at the Federal Center at the time Davis was ticketed. The sign was supposed to inform people that their IDs would be checked.
"The policy hasn't changed," said Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, of which the Federal Protective Service is a part. "There are no plans to change our procedures."
Davis' lawyers said the battle is likely to continue.
"We're very pleased that they dropped charges against Ms. Davis," said Davis' volunteer lawyer, Gail Johnson, of the Denver law firm Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, Jordan, Mackey & Foreman. "But sign or no sign, she and other Colorado citizens continue to have the constitutional right to travel by public bus without being forced to show identification to federal agents."
"I think if the government is going to insist on continuing to violate the constitutional rights of our citizens, then they're going to find themselves back in court on this one," Johnson said. "We're not interested in the Deborah Davis exception."
Johnson said lawyers from outside Colorado had volunteered to help represent Davis following nationwide publicity about the controversy, and that other bus passengers who refuse to show identification likely could find legal representation as well.
"There are plenty of lawyers in Denver who would be happy to help people," she said.
Davis had been scheduled to appear for arraignment before a U.S. magistrate judge in Denver on Friday. She could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
Bill Scannell, a spokesman for Davis and an activist who has helped publicize other challenges to government identification requests, said a rally outside the courthouse, at 19th and Champa streets, will occur at 8:30 a.m. Friday as planned.
He said Davis will speak during the rally and she and her supporters will ride through the Federal Center on the Regional Transportation District's Bus 100 - the one from which Davis was removed for not showing her ID.
Scannell called it "a victory ride," even after he learned that the policy has not changed.
"My anticipation is that the victory riders will be fully exercising their constitutional rights to travel freely in their own country on a public bus," he said.
Asked if some or all of the riders might refuse to show their IDs to Federal Center police, he said, "I think that's a fair assumption."
Zuieback, the spokeswoman for ICE in Washington, D.C., declined to discuss how federal officers would respond to any such refusals.
"We never speculate about what our response is going to be to a specific situation," she said.
She said the dispute isn't about the bus or its passengers, but about the security of a federal facility.
"It's not a city bus on a city road," Zuieback said. "It is entering a federal facility."
Two RTD buses, the 3 and the 100, pass through the Federal Center several times a day. Thousands of people work at the Federal Center, and thousands more visit some of its agencies, including a popular map sales office and a heavily used depository for genealogical information.
In addition, the road through the Federal Center leads from South Kipling Street on the east side of the facility to the Cold Spring park-n-ride at the Federal Center's northwest corner, a major connecting point for buses bound elsewhere.
RTD officials have said some passengers have complained in the past about the federal police ID checks, which began after the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City. The bus routes through the Federal Center had existed for many years before that.
"It's clearly not an ideal situation for RTD or our passengers, but it is controlled wholly by the federal police at that site," RTD spokesman Scott Reed said Wednesday.
"We hope there will be some resolution of this, and we are doing the best we can to comply with their regulations while providing a long- standing service to our passengers," he said.
Davis, who routinely rode RTD's 100 bus through the Federal Center to get to her job at a small business in Lakewood, said she first showed her ID to federal police who boarded the bus and asked to see all passengers' identification, but it bothered her.
She then spent several days telling the officers she didn't have her ID with her and wasn't getting off the bus in the Federal Center anyway. Officers eventually told her she had to bring her ID or she couldn't ride the bus.
Finally, Davis refused on Sept. 26 to show her ID and was removed from the bus, handcuffed, placed in the back of a patrol car and taken to a police station in the Federal Center. She was later released after officers issued her petty offense tickets.
Zuieback said the ID checks are only one part of "many layers of security." She would not discuss the other parts.
"Looking at that ID, having that initial contact with an individual, does allow us to know that that person is who they say they are," she said.
Asked how officers know a person's ID is genuine, she said, "We have trained professionals doing that work."
Who are you?
• The Federal Protective Service says its policy of checking IDs of bus riders at the Denver Federal Center has not changed. Here are the RTD bus routes that enter the center on at least some runs (some routes vary with time of day):
3 Alameda Crosstown 5x Cold Springs Express 14 West Florida 100 Kipling Crosstown G Golden/Boulder
All pass through the Cold Springs Park-n-Ride at Fourth Avenue and Union Boulevard on the northeast corner of the Federal Center.
"A perpetual state of martial-law lite is exactly what your are advocating"
Absolutely not at all.. Maybe you should read about martial law...
the hypotheticals can go on ad infinitum, can't they?
get with it dan. No need to be an ass, unless that is how you conduct debate.
"What threat?? Looking out a bus is now a possible threat? "
Read the thread, this question was already asked and I already answered it.
Did Hussein wake up one day and say to himself, I think I'll create a police state in Iraq? Or, did he work his way up through the political ladder of a police state that was already in place?
That absolutely did change on 9/11/01. The overwhelming number of fatalities and injuries in that attack were on civilians.
Recent history, Where have terrorists been most successful, embassies, pentagon, attempt at the white house, etc.....
Do doubt blowing up a shopping mall would be devastating. I am almost surprised it hasn't happened...
From your posts, are you not advocating that we now live in a perpetual state of emergency since we are at war?
BTW, you southern border example isn't a good analogy as the flow of illegals is almost continuous. Terrorist attacks are very discrete events.
What's to stop him if he has an ID?
Not really. If this is a facility that truly needs to be secured, you close it, you search everyone coming in, record their entry and exit times, where they go, have them accompanied if they are not employed there.
Then you are only inconveniencing those who have a need to be on the facility and not harassing those who are just passing through to get home or work.
Then you tell the terrorists that you really mean business about protecting government facilities (extended to borders, planes, etc) Terrorist says: you know, they have xray machines, bomb sniffing dogs/equipment, verify my ID information.
No, I'm in the 'there was no UBL or war in Iraq with islamofascists and the technology for a single person to board mass transit and kill 100's" camp.
Who knows with that guy. The former suggestion would not be unreasonable, I think.
Actually he modeled what he was going to do on Stalin's grip of the Soviet Union...so I would think he did everything purposefully with the intent to take total control by terror..
got it.
For police state examples, Hitler's Germany comes to mind. He didn't one day slaughter all of the Jews. He gradually encouraged the public sentiments to his way. Got the kids into his "public education."
Hopefully she continues to exercise her Constitutional Right protected under the 4th Amendment against illegal search and seizures.
"Which indicates you consider the Constitution a living document"
I gotta tell you that sickens me. I am absolutely NOT one of those. Please refrain.
Absolutely.
Checked for what?
Flashing an ID proves nothing. Even showing an ID proves nothing, especially in this case.
Showing a driver's license to access a typical military installation proves nothing but is SOP.
And as one who EXAMINED ID's at a very secure facility I can tell you there is huge difference between controlling access with IDs and harrassing citizens.
At the secure facility I examined the front and back of each card even of the people I knew because you never knew who or when someone would test you with a dummy card just for the sake of testing security. They used to say that the best way to make E-4 at that place was to arrive as an E-5.
What this article talks about is not security in the slightest.
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