You can certainly argue with this, but I think the operative item was: “Immediately following the robbery, police closed the intersection of Iliff and Buckley after reports the suspect might have taken hostages.”
If the officers were polite, and explained why they were handcuffing all the adults, then I think they at least had a good excuse for what they were doing. They likely didn’t have enough officers to watch and question all the cars’ occupants at once, and if they didn’t do something like this, they risked having a hostage killed.
Ordinarily, I would be mad as hell if this happened to me. But I would put up with it if it was explained that innocent hostages might otherwise die before they had a chance to search the cars and question everyone.
NO!
If you “put up with” constitutionally illegal police tactics today because “innocent hostages might otherwise die”, then the excuse tomorrow will be that maybe the guy will run and kill people in a police chase, and next week the excuse will be milder still.
NO you don’t put up with violating the constitution to mitigate risk and enhance public safety. The two are not related. The police have legal tools at their disposal and that is that. We have free society and there is inherent risk in a free society because the bad guys have a lot of tools available to hurt and kill us. They have “freedom” to do so, and our security is lower as a result. But the worthwhile trade off is that we maintain our liberty.
No, you don’t trade your liberty for security, and the idea that a hostage may be hurt or killed by a criminal does not warrant a mass violation of constitutional rights.
You know, it is one thing for cops to cordon off an area for safety reasons. Suddenly you can’t drive down a public street you are entitled to drive down normally, but it is within their constitutional power to regulate your movement in a small area for public safety reasons. It is NOT in their power to treat those people in the area as if they are suspects having committed a crime.
No, nothing is worth what the Aurora police did to illegally search random vehicles and handcuff the car occupants. Please re-think your viewpoint and see if you really support illegal police tactics just for the potential for a small measure of temporary security.