Posted on 05/22/2009 4:55:40 AM PDT by whatisthetruth
He was NOT crossing the border. He was 100% of the time inside the US. These are internal checkpoints.
>> people are dying left and right from being tased so sometimes it works just as well as a gun. <<
There’s no reasoning with anyone who would make such a statement. If you shoot a guy, you will always cause a severe injury. If you taser him, 99% of the time, you do not cause a severe injury. (A study of 1000 taser victims found three had injuries which required hospitalization and 2 died, although not (necessarily) from the taser.)
There are several cases where people were killed after receiving multiple taser shots. Clearly, however, a single taser shot is not normally lethal. That said, tasers can be very cruel, and that fact needs to be given grave consideration whenever their use is approved.
This guy, however, did everything he possibly could to justify getting himself tasered.
it wasn’t AT the international border.
Uh, no... It’s a border patrol checkpoint. Yes, it’s inside our country, but saying he wasn’t crossing the border is like saying that someone at airport security wasn’t getting on a plane: it might be accurate in a sense (particularly since this seems like a stunt), but deceptive in reality.
They know this because? What does the fact that he is a preacher have to do with anything?
That is correct. Nowhere near the border.
http://www.kpho.com/news/19207871/detail.html
Steve Anderson, a preacher at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, said the incident happened Wednesday night at a checkpoint along I-8, far from the Mexican border.
Anderson said agents stopped him on his way back to the Valley from San Diego. The agents asked him where he was going and if he was a U.S. citizen. Anderson said he wasn’t answering any of their questions and told them he wanted to go home.
It's not supposed to be legal and that is what Pastor Anderson was claiming, of course the BP Agents claim they had probable cause because THEY said they did, and they said their dog was acting funny around the car, of course how can you beat that reasoning?
They all knew Pastor Anderson because he had to travel through their checkpoints for his business and they know he always gives them hassles about the constitutionality of these check-points so I guess they decided to finally teach him a lesson and that IMHO was why he got tased, after all who follows the Constitution anymore?
I take it back. He was NOt at the borde
OK it was a border patrol checkpoint. You still don’t understand. He wasn’t trying to go to Mexico or coming from Mexico. He was driving in the US. He wasn’t trying to cross a border.
Not only that, but at the one on I-15, they pretty much just wave you through as you slow down when it is open. Only one time have I ever seen the BP there actually stop a car and detain people and it was done without incident.
It’s more than that. I clearly saw the BP officer with the taser tasering him through the broken window - FROM INSIDE THE CAR. That means this pastor STILL HAS his camcorder and the footage.
I don’t know what this was all about, but clearly there’s more to this than we know and clearly the pastor HAS HIS CAMCORDER FILM or else he would not have been able to film things from his frontseat AS HE’S BEING ARRESTED AND THEN POST IT ON youtube.
I’m just saying...
Pastor Anderson claims he was tased repeatedly, so if that was the case he did not receive just one taser shot and according to you could've died from it. I still don't get why the need to tase him, he was alone and there was at least 10 of them, he wasn't even acting physically violent.
This incident is well known within the Border Patrol and comments from informed Agents are many and I offer the below as counter-point to the distortions and deliberate twisting of facts that this “pastor” engages in.
Now for facts from sources in the Border Patrol.
The preacher was dragged from the car, subdued, and hauled back to Yuma for arraignment by AZ DPS (not Border Patrol), under state charges. He did go to jail and was released pending trial. (Note: Is was NOT the Border Patrol).
Here is the case info from the State of Arizona's website.
Case Information
Case Number: J-1403-MS-200900009
Title: ST OF AZ VS ANDERSON Category: Criminal
Court: Wellton Justice Filing Date: 04/17/2009
Judge: HONORABLE CORA M ROMINE Disposition Date:
STEVEN LEE ANDERSON - Defendent 1 Date of Birth: 7/24/1981
Citation Count Description Disp. Date Disposition
NONE 1 OBST HWY/PUB LIC THOROUGHFARE
NONE 2 RESIST ORDER CONTROL MOTOR VEH
Case Activity
Date Description Party
04/17/2009 COMPLAINT FILED-PROSECUTOR Defendent 1
04/16/2009 NOTICE OF APPEARANCE FILED Defendent 1
04/15/2009 I/A HELD: FELONY/MISD/CR TR Defendent 1
(None of the charges brought by the Border Patrol).
Here is his REAL job
http://www.andyfire.com/index.html
Here is the doctrine of the church he has founded
www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/page6.html
His philosophy.
www.truebornsons.com/read.html
Narrative of the incident:
The pastor drove up to the Border Patrol checkpoint's primary inspection point and stopped. When he pulled up to the primary inspection point, he had all his car windows rolled up. When the BP agent on the primary inspection point tried to talk to him the pastor just stared straight ahead and refused to give any indication that he heard the BP agent speaking to him.
The BP agent asked him to roll his window so the agent could speak to him and the pastor continued to stare straight ahead and ignore the agent.
The agent then tried using hand gestures to ask the pastor to roll his window down so he could speak to him. The pastor continued to stare straight ahead and ignored the agent.
I have to drive through this checkpoint and every time I go through it there is a BP K-9 handler walking his drug dog along side the vehicles at the primary inspection point and as they approach. That same thing happened with this pastor and the BP drug dog alerted to the presence of drugs.
The BP agents continued to try to talk to the pastor and communicate with him with hand gestures and to direct him into the secondary inspection area. He remained parked in the traffic lane of I-8 with his windows rolled up and continued to refuse to acknowledge any of the BP agents’ attempts to communicate with him.
His refusal to move his car into the secondary inspection area caused a HUGE backup of interstate traffic that grew to over a mile long while the BP agents tried to divert passenger cars through the commercial truck inspection lane.
With the pastor continuing to block the car inspection lane and refusing to move his car into the secondary inspection area, the single commercial truck lane was unable to handle all the traffic and cars and trucks remained back up over a mile from the checkpoint.
This went on for about an hour with the pastor continuing to keep his car parked in the lane of I-8 with it's window rolled up and refusing to acknowledge the BP agents attempts to communicate with him.
While this situation was going on the BP agents at the checkpoint called the Arizona Highway Patrol (AZ DPS) for assistance. DPS was called because of the tremendous traffic backup the pastor was causing and the resulting danger of collisions.
When the DPS officer arrived at the BP checkpoint, he tried to speak to the pastor but the pastor continued to ignore all attempts to communicate with him.
The Highway Patrol Officer then tried to get the pastor to roll his window down so he could speak to him by hand gestures and verbal commands. The pastor continued to ignore the DPS officer and the BP agents and continued to keep his car parked in the traffic lane of I-8.
After over an hour of trying to communicate with this pastor and get him to move his car out of the traffic lane the DPS officer made the decision that he could not continue to allow the mile long back up of stopped traffic on a 75 mph Interstate and he used his ASP baton to break out the pastor's car window. It was after breaking the window that the DPS trooper and the Border Patrol Agents used force to remove the pastor from behind the wheel of his car.
If you have ever had to remove someone from behind a car's steering wheel when they are seat belted in and not cooperating you know how difficult that is and how much force has to be used.
Couple that with the broken glass from the window that the pastor had refused to roll down for over an hour and the real surprise is that his cuts weren't more severe and it only took eleven stitches to close them.
After they got the pastor out of his car and got it moved into the secondary inspection area they discovered the concealed camcorders and microphones.
Those concealed camcorders and mikes in his car along with the pastor's statement that he has done the same thing at other Border Patrol checkpoints several times makes it pretty obvious that he was intentionally trying to provoke an incident so that he could sue the Border Patrol.
The pastor posting an 8 minute video on You Tube right after he got to Phoenix also makes if real clear that his intentions from the beginning were to get as much publicity as possible from any incident he provoked.
As that was his obvious intent, it would not be surprising to find out that he had rubbed some illegal drug on the side of his car to make sure the drug dog alerted. Dogs have incredibly sensitive abilities to smell. There have been many situations in the past where drug detector dogs have alerted to vehicles that had carried drugs weeks before and only trace amounts that you would need a microscope to find were present.
But you can bet how the media is going to handle this. I can see the national media blaring away about the bad, mean Border Patrol and Highway Patrol officers “torturing” an innocent Baptist pastor who was just doing God's work.
Further, please note he was armed with a very deadly weapon: the car itself. In extracting a non-compliant subject, the officers must be prepared for any response. The ‘pastor’ could have gunned the engine when the agents or officers reached inside to apprehend him,. and could have ended up dragging one or both of them all across the highway or into the desert.
He could have had a knife, a pistol, or other weapons handy. He could have pulled a .45 from under his butt, or a knife, or a machete, or a baseball bat, or a sawed off shotgun.
When force was used, they attacked him simultaneously from both sides, in a deliberate attempt to surprise and subdue him, and to make it harder for him to injure or kill either officer.
They pressed his head against the door, because if you control the man's head, his body must follow. By immobilizing his head, he is unable to aim a pistol or a knife if he has one.
How do you know that he was tazed ‘multiple times?” Just because he said so? That's not likely. He was probably zapped once, and the ‘stingers would have stayed in his skin. He was probably asked and told to comply with the officers to get out, and he probably continued to refuse and passively resist extraction.
His head was immobilized again once he was on the ground, again to prevent him from fighting effectively and to prevent injury to the officers. He could not have been badly cut by the broken glass, unless his car had non-standard safety glass. Modern safety glass shatters into ‘pebbles,’ with very minimal sharp edges or surfaces. If he was pressed into a pile of ‘broken glass’ as he claims, his face would have looked like hamburger.
Just facts and info omitted in the reporting.
I checked out the rest of the videos he has on google. I’ll make this concession:
He was NOT at the border. Therefore, avoiding an inspection does NOT constitute suspicious behavior.
Screaming out “Nazis” (as someone else did) before making the case, or making outlandish quotes about tasers (as you did) hurts credibility, and makes this all seem like a cock-and-bull story.
As does the assertion of being “beaten.” But that’s the funny thing. If the guy was tasered multiple times, that’s brutality. In a later video, he claims to have been tasered immediately. If what he is saying is true, that is a severe civil rights issue. It’s unfortunate that what he claims happens on the driver’s side is not visible in either recording of the incident.
I understand that when something is traumatic, all sense of time and proportion are lost, but the video doesn’t seem to support his allegations of being ground into the side of the window for any period of time. He also only shows wounding from one taser shot, and there doesn’t seem much of an opportunity to hit him with several. They quickly pull him out of the car and hop on him. Do I understand correctly that if person A holds down person B while person B is tasered by person C, than person A runs a huge risk of sharing the jolt? If so, his perception of police behavior has to be very distorted (understandably).
Who’s facts?
If the driver of the car won't cooperate, how does the BP know that the trunk of the car isn't occupied? Illegals are transported within the U.S. as well as crossing the border.
I just posted to address most of this, completing the post after you posted this. But I should add this
I don’t believe he was tasered multiple times. I see one what looks like the result of one taser shot (which causes two wounds). If he’s building up a case for police brutality, and he’s been tasered multiple times, why didn’t he show the evidence? On the other hand, just because someone would have been smart to present evidence, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any.
Immigration Checkpoints are law and held to be lawful by the Supreme Court.
As posted on another thread.
The legal ability of the Border Patrol to stop traffic, to question persons, and to search traffic is uncontested. The Supreme Court decision is the last word.
http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1804/Davidson/Davidson.html
http://www.ptleader.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=21651&TM=80391.33
http://www.ccis-ucsd.org/news/Art.%2048.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-435
INA 287 (a) (3) within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States, to board and search for aliens any vessel within the territorial waters of the United States and any railway car, aircraft, conveyance, or vehicle... and within a distance of twenty-five miles from any such external boundary to have access to private lands, but not dwellings for the purpose of patrolling the border to prevent the illegal entry of aliens into the United States;
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