Police arrest 67 at checkpoints

The Mobile Press-Register ^ | 5/31/06 | Nadia M. Taylor

[AzaleaCity5691]

Police arrest 67 at checkpoints Wednesday, May 31, 2006 By NADIA M. TAYLOR Staff Reporter Officers issued more than 1,800 tickets and arrested 67 people over the Memorial Day weekend at several driver's license checkpoints throughout the city, police said.

Most of the 1,834 tickets issued were for not having a driver's license or proof of insurance, according to interim Mobile police Chief Lester Hargrove.

Fifty-four people were arrested on outstanding misdemeanor warrants, and 13 people were arrested on felony warrants, Hargrove said. Most charges stemmed from traffic violations or drug offenses, police said.

One man, Carl Mitchell Washington, 22, was driving with his 2-year-old son when police stopped him at a checkpoint and found about 30 pills, which were believed to be Ecstasy, and $2,775 in cash, Hargrove said.

Washington was charged Sunday with possession of a controlled substance and endangering the welfare of a child and was released on a $3,500 bond, according to the Mobile County Metro Jail log.

Under Alabama law, possession of a controlled substance is a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in jail. Endangering the welfare of a child is a Class A misdemeanor, which can carry a sentence of up to one year in jail, according to state law.

In addition to the weekend arrests, police seized two handguns and towed 53 vehicles as a result of the checkpoints, Hargrove said.

The topic of roadblocks garnered substantial media attention last month after two men were shot to death at a McDonald's drive-through in northeast Mobile. After the April 5 killings, city officials called for more frequent random checkpoints to look for and seize illegal weapons.

The latest round of checkpoints -- which ran Friday through Monday -- was the third weekend since April 28 that police have set up roadblocks in Mobile. Police issued a total of 1,362 citations during the first two weekends, which took place April 28 and 29 and May 5 and 6.

[stands2reason]

You ever get the "You are now leaving New Mexico and you must pay your travel tax" stop?

[LK44-40]

I substantially agree with you, Azalea (except about driving not being a right -- Tenth Amendment and all that).

A lot of the whining cowboy libertarians are carping about tickets for no driver's license (lost it for DWI) and no insurance being the major result in your article. I consider getting these people off the road a very important law enforcement function that perfectly well justifies the method used if they found nothing else.

I would like to see surveillance cameras at every urban intersection in the country! I feel no need for privacy on the public roads. I want safety from traffic scofflaws and punks on the streets doing more serious crimes.

That ought to draw some fire away from you!

[stands2reason]

In a democracy, it would matter if a government action against freedom was popular.


Thank God we don't live in one.

[5050 no line]

As a foreigner, I am just amazed at the whining...

I have been involved in a (minor) RTA with an uninsured, untaxed scumbag. It cost me a load of aggravation and I got the privilege to have to pay for my own repairs.

Get those who have NO LEGAL RIGHT to be driving OFF the road. If it needs a few roadblocks to get the message across, then bring 'em on. In these days of heightened security you never know who else they might just pick up.....

Might just save the world another 9/11 and you are the guys who should really know that....

And I don't give a stuff what Ben Franklin said. Life was simpler then.

[LK44-40]

And I don't give a stuff what Ben Franklin said. Life was simpler then.

As you see here, hearty libertarianism has quite a grip on the fevered minds of many American conservatives.

I, too, am nostalgic for those days when this was a rural country and the government didn't need to do too much more than deliver the mail and hang the occasional pirate. I used to let the independent and self-sufficient spirit of those long-gone days inform my attitudes about how modern government should operate. Unlike most of our companions here, I let go of all that coonskin cap stuff and got serious.

It seems obvious to me that the complexity, the density, and the interdependence of modern life means that our lives must be much more regulated. I worry that often it is someone like Hillary trying to do the regulating and do what I can to elect "regulators" with some sense. I also agree that there are plenty of cops out there who do not deserve their badges and who, themselves, are a menace to public safety and convenience. The solution seems to me to upgrade that profession and hold them more strictly accountable.

Although I live in a good urban area, street crime is a serious reality. I no longer feel safe to go out to a grocery store late at night as I once did. And there are some busy roads in my community -- not in bad areas, just busy with a lot of commercial development -- which I try to avoid completely on Friday and Saturday nights. There are wildly speeding drivers, running red lights and behaving generally aggressively...much, much more so than a decade or two ago. Many of them, I am sure, are drinking or taking drugs. Many are carrying weapons. Many are unlicensed and uninsured. I am not a bit ashamed to say that I'd like it cleaned up. A right to privacy on the road does not mean much to me if I more and more find myself reluctant to use those roads.

We Americans are not that far from our colonial roots and, living in the woods aside, we were a rowdy and independent lot from the start. That's how we happened to be here. And the West has been a continual frontier. There is still open country where you can sit on your porch and shoot at squirrels as one ranter earlier today was wanting to do. But that kind of life is something for the marginal few. For most of us, who live urban lives, it is time to let go of some of this woodsy independence. And, yea, I am also for banning Pit Bulls, the favored pet of hardcore libertarians who have no concept of responsible life in an urban community.

[sit-rep]

Let's keep things in perspective. I did not murder someone. I did not have drugs. I was driving my wife's car, and in that car she carried the same 105grm container of mace she has carried since her father gave it to her over twenty years ago. Legal limit to have on you in Michigan and New York is up to 35grms.

This does not make me a criminal. This makes me a victim of circumstance.

Now, if I went out last week and bought it, knowing it was illegal, I attempted to use it in a uncivilized way, then yes...throw the book at me.

There is a HUGE difference and it surprises me you can't grasp that difference...

[SteveMcKing]

No, it was that foolish quote that is frequently cited as somehow "deep".

I'm OK with checkpoints as much as it's OK to bust down the cops' door and do random searches of them.

[Small-L]

hearty libertarianism has quite a grip on the fevered minds of many American conservatives.

The classic libertarian solution to problems like this is to let the free market society deal with the problem.

I can relate one such story. I live in a small southern town that was a notorious "speed-trap." The macho-cop mentality was alive and well--we were one of the smallest towns in the nation with a SWAT team. Then one night a man stood up in the Chamber of Commerce meeting and announced that he and his family would no longer be doing business in town, no longer eating in the restaurants, no longer going to the movie theater, and no longer buying his clothes at the local stores. Instead, he was going to avoid even going through the town and would instead use the back roads to reach the next town over (about 10 miles). All of this because he received a speeding ticket that he thought was unfounded.

The local newspaper printed his remarks. Within weeks, billboards and signs were appearing just outside the city limits advising those approaching the town to shop elsewhere. The neighboring town businesses caught on to the idea. A car dealership even began advertising that, "We're not in ...". Within a couple of months, local businesses were showing a decline in profits and tax revenues were down.

I'll leave it to your imagination what happened at the next city election and to the local police chief.

The thing that is interesting to note is that once people started shopping elsewhere, businesses in town found it very difficult to get their customers back. Commercial investment started following the shoppers, including a new outlet mall. And one small town in the South was relegated to the backwaters of progress, all because of they were "enforcing the law."

[BlackbirdSST]

Unenumerated rights are a concept that opens doors to things like abortion, affirmative action and other bogus rulings.....

= Freedom SUX! Blackbird.

[Fury]

You write:

"If they ask, you have a right to say no. Oh, they will threaten to get a warrant, but you should call the bluff and say, okay, where do I park while you try to convince a judge your theory for reasonable cause to search my vehicle."

I believe this is the right approach. I cannot think of a reason that I would consent to a search of my house or vehicle, etc.

It's sometimes not easy to say no (e.g. see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/560568/posts ) but it's not unreasonable to say no to a consent to search.

[LIConFem]

LOL!!! You're an incrementalist's wet-dream.

[MileHi]

because you don't have a right to drive.

HorseHillery, comrade.

[razorback-bert]

Although I live in a good urban area, street crime is a serious reality. I no longer feel safe to go out to a grocery store late at night as I once did.

If your area has serious street crime, how can it be considered a good area?

Would being stopped by cops everytime you went to the store late at night make you feel safer?

[Hazwaste]

"It seems obvious to me that the complexity, the density, and the interdependence of modern life means that our lives must be much more regulated"

No, it doesn't mean anything of the sort.

Every generation has lived in their own "modern" times. Life has been increasing in complexity since the beginning of humanity and will continue to do so. This is not a reason to abandon liberty. Liberty is timeless, and is for everyone, not just for people who wear coonskins.

At what point does your creeping incremental descent into tyranny stop? It doesn't, because you've said that we need to be more regulated as life becomes more complex.

[RetiredArmy]

The reason I say this is because my uncle actually did it at a license check road block a few years ago. They were stopping everyone to check to see if you had a drivers licenses, registration, etc. So, they check those, then tell him they want to take a look in his car. He asked why. They said to make sure he had nothing illegal in the vehicle. He said he didn't. The cop said, then you won't mind me taking a look. My uncle said, as a matter of a fact, I do mind. I don't like being treated like a suspected criminal. You stopped me to check drivers licenses, why do you need to search. The cop asked again, and my uncle said no. The cop threatened to hold him till they got a search warrant. My uncle told them, fine, get it. Where do you want me to pull over and park while you get a judge to authorize it? The cop hemmed and hawed around and finally told my uncle to go on, he didn't have time to fool with him.

[RightWhale]

the complexity, the density, and the interdependence of modern life means that our lives must be much more regulated.

Let that remain inside the institution of the corporation. That legal person created under FedGov can be regulated all they want, even beyond the fond dreams of Stalin. Outside the corporate environment life can remain as simple as we want. Skip the cellphone and the cable TV and pay no attention to the MSM. And stay off the public roads as much as possible. Want simplicity? get a PhD and hang out your own shingle, then stay home and stay disconnected as much as possible.

[from occupied ga]

It's a good idea and it should be adopted around the country

Halt - Zeige papieren.

[mc5cents]

Anschlag! Ihre Papiere gefallen.

[Dr. Nobel Dynamite]

This does not make me a criminal. This makes me a victim of circumstance.

I'm sorry, but according to the letter of the law (as you've described the statute) it appears that you did in fact commit a violation.

Now, does that mean that you should be rushed through the criminal justice system and sentenced to the harshest penalty possible? Of course it doesn't. The Court should, and hopefully will, consider the surrounding circumstances and reach the conclusion that a harsh penalty would serve no purpose in this case. But, for some reason, you want the Court to consider mitigating factors in your own case while ignoring similar factors in others.

So let's look at a hypothetical: you're driving down the road, you're stopped by a traffic officer, you agree to let him search the glovebox, but instead of finding an illegal amount of mace, he finds an old, very small bag of marijuana left there by you wife years ago.

According you your proposed system, you should be given a life sentence. Unless, of course, you consider yourself a "victim of circumstance" and the Court is allowed to consider this evidence. That would be logical, that would be fair, and that would be exactly what you don't want to happen for other people.

Do you honestly believe you're the one and only "victim of circumstance" in the criminal justice system and therefore the only one that shouldn't be subject to blind, automatic sentencing?

[BorisTheBulletDodger]

In virginia, if you have a CCW permit, they record that info on your driver's information. I have a CCW but I cant actually GO anywhere because 3 out of the 4 roads leading to my house have schools within 1000 feet of the road. If I were to ever be pulled over and have a firearm in the car, I would technically be violating the letter of the law. However, there is a clause in the CCW laws that allows safe passage as long as my guns are not taken out on school property and I dont stop the car or something like that.
Its just a little disturbing that they'll know i have a CCW at the check point after running my plates.