Fast food delivery might be more within their field of competence.
Posted on 03/18/2008 8:27:25 AM PDT by Lester Moore
Randy Dean Sievert drew ire from Manatee County sheriff's deputies as he aimed his cell phone camera at undercover investigators executing a search warrant in his neighborhood.
A deputy confronted Sievert, demanding that he destroy any photos of investigators and their vehicles.
Sievert was not a welcome observer of the drug raid. Authorities called him a "known drug dealer" based on a couple of past arrests. Taking photos of undercover officers jeopardized their lives, deputies said.
Sievert refused to remove his hands from his pockets and step away from his car after he was confronted about the pictures. Deputies forced him to the ground. The 20-year-old unemployed Bradenton man was arrested on a misdemeanor obstruction charge.
Investigators could not access the images on the phone. Sievert "finally" gave up a code that allowed deputies to find and destroy a photo that showed two undercover vehicles, according to reports. The phone is in evidence but not the photograph.
Sievert's obstruction case is attracting criticism in the legal community. Some defense attorneys say Sievert was unlawfully arrested and forced to destroy a photograph authorities had no grounds to erase.
"While they may not have liked what he was doing, it was not against the law," said Sievert's attorney, Charles M. Britt III.
If the police do not want undercover vehicles identified, they should not bring the cars and trucks when they execute search warrants, Britt said.
The vehicles are nondescript, blending in to allow officers to secretly monitor suspected criminal activity. Undercover officers routinely wear masks in public when participating in searches.
Britt filed court papers challenging the arrest, and a hearing is scheduled for next month. Ultimately, the state could decide Sievert did not commit a crime and abandon the case.
But an assistant state attorney, addressing the merits of the charge at a hearing Thursday, called Sievert's photograph "egregious."
Prosecutor Angel Colonneso argued to keep Sievert locked up on a probation violation charge. Sievert was on probation in a drug case when he was arrested on the obstruction charge in late February in the 6000 block of Seventh Street Court West.
Sievert refused a lawful command to erase the photographs, Colonneso said. That "reasonable request" was to protect undercover officers.
Assistant public defender Jennifer Joynt-Sanchez called the arrest "beyond belief." Joynt-Sanchez, representing Sievert in court, said Sievert had a right to resist unlawful police detention.
Joynt-Sanchez wanted Sievert released from jail on his own recognizance. But Circuit Judge Debra Johnes Riva ordered Sievert held.
Obstructing the execution of a search warrant is a rare charge. In most cases the charge is applied to a person who is at a house -- and connected to the criminal investigation -- during the raid.
Britt said he is not aware of any law that makes it a crime to snap a photo of an undercover officer in the performance of his or duty.
State laws allow law enforcement agencies to black out the names of undercover officers in police reports, protecting their identity. But their names are often included on witness lists for trial. The officers cannot hide their faces in court.
At a recent trial in Bradenton featuring two undercover detectives, the prosecution sought and received a court order blocking the media from taking pictures of the officers in court. But, during breaks, the detectives congregated outside the courthouse -- where anyone could have snapped a photo.
Sievert's mother said her son was foolish to take a photo, but the picture taking did not justify a confrontation with police.
"It was something stupid, but they had no reason to do what they did," Leasa M. Pauli, 50, said. "They just ran up on him and slammed him for no reason. I think it is unfair."
During the raid, deputies seized a box of ammunition and a checkbook but did not find any drugs. Sievert was the only person arrested that afternoon.
What Sievert planned to do with the photos - if anything - remains unknown.
Public Servants had better just get comfortable with being photographed.
Smile! You're On!
‘Sievert refused a lawful command to erase the photographs’
WTF?
Sorry ‘bout that Randy. We shouldn’t have arrested you. You can go home. By the way, we lost yer phone.
I thought it was bad when these guys were wannabe-SEAL; now they're wannabe-Batman.
That's hard to dispute. If someone is "undercover," then they've clearly uncloaked if they're participating in the execution of a warrant as an obvious member of the police force. They have no grounds to claim that their cover was blown.
I'd say they're trying to use the Valerie Plame defense, if you know what I mean (and I think you do)!
Have a nice day sir.
Guilty!
This is still the money line:
"During the raid, deputies seized a box of ammunition and a checkbook but did not find any drugs. Sievert was the only person arrested that afternoon."
Assistant public defender Jennifer Joynt-Sanchez called the arrest "beyond belief." Joynt-Sanchez, representing Sievert in court, said Sievert had a right to resist unlawful police detention.
Joynt-Sanchez wanted Sievert released from jail on his own recognizance. But Circuit Judge Debra Johnes Riva ordered Sievert held.
It seems there is a difference of opinion between the defense and prosecution on the applicable law and the judge is siding with the prosecution.
That said, it seems that the sensible precaution against such loss of secrecy would be to have the warrants executed by uniformed officers in marked cars, or if a certain amount of stealth approach is needed, by detectives other than the undercover officers in unmarked vehicles other than the ones directly used in the undercover operations.
Given the state-of-the-art capabilities of photo-shop and virtual editing programs, I don't think any of us can be ‘comfortable with being photographed’ by persons with hostile intentions.
If they appeared in public with their faces visible on a drug raid, then they blew their own cover, and anyone can take their picture.
Fast food delivery might be more within their field of competence.
I wonder if he had a chance to send it somewhere?
That would be my take on it too.
Seized a box of ammunition? Why? Was it illegal to possess? We better start closing every Wal-Mart in America then.
Comes back to the War on Drugs, which is as silly today as prohibition was then. If anything, I'm willing to bet the house they raided was, at best, a low-level stash. But it was cool to get dressed in war paint, break out all the toys, and just generally play swaggering tough guy. (I'm probably getting a little carried away...)
What, actually, did they accomplish? Arresting a guy for taking photos of public servants doing their work? On the pretext that he was “obstructing” the raid? How can he possibly be obstructing?
“It’s fairly clear that this is a very one-sided article. The opinions of this man’s family member and paid advocates must be taken with more than a grain of salt. For a criminal (he had a record) with prior involvement with drugs to be on the scene of a raid by narcotics detectives, taking pictures, leads to the reasonable suspicion that the pictures were intended to be used to “blow the cover” of the undercover officers, which would have endangered their lives.”
All that is irrelevant, it is how the police choose to eliminate the problem that concerns us.
Sometimes when the police run into a problem with our freedoms, they need to solve it internally by altering something within their way of operating, or in some cases such as right to bear arms, they just have to live with workplace reality.
They cannot just take the first obvious solution that pops into their head.
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