"Boston PD, may we search your house?
You REALLY gonna say no?
Posted on 04/22/2013 10:54:14 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
There were two components to last week's shelter-in-place request in Watertown, Massachusetts. The first was a request that people not to leave home. The second was a door-to-door search by heavily armed law enforcement officials. Those are two very different things, with different implications. But neither was illegal.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlanticwire.com ...
Amen fellow Texan!
Waco in New York now, is it?
Or this or a later government determines say “ failure to surrender weapons to the National Gun Buyback Bill” constitutes an imminent danger to public safety. Everyone forget already the meme on Monday and Tuesday was” angry white right wingers”? Sleep tight.
I said the same thing knowing that if the owner gave permission then all was well. We don’t have real testimony of a home owner requesting the search warrant.
What is to me more important is the boat. We were told that officers opened the covering and looked in the boat and found nothing. Later, the boat owner came outside to smoke, noticed something wrong, saw blood and looked in the boat. He then called cops and three came.
As a tinfoil clad conspiracy loving theorist, it crossed my mind that the original officers observed the same thing but were guilty of searching the boat warrantless. The owners story makes it all legal.
Not a bad theory. The ACLU lovers here would do well to remind themselves that the ACLU would jump on the case in a heartbeat if the perp or evidence were found with an illegal search. Once a homeowner calls 911, that makes everything legal.
I'm a retired police officer, and I agree.
If the SWAT shows up with heavy force like this and overcomes the will of a person to refuse consent, or brings the voluntariness of the consent into question (uh yea this would be a textbook case of that) then anything found during the search like “illegal guns” or drugs would inadmissible at trial should they be charged.
Absolutely right. For this same reason, police officers may not get consent to search an automobile unless it is clear to the motorist that he is "free to go". Any consent obtained while a motorist believes he is still being detained during the traffic stop is invalid. This is because consent must be given voluntarily, without any threat or coercion, real or perceived.
Now, if they identified the Muzzi on the street and he ran in the front door of a house, then that would be actual “exigent circumstances”. Or if they had some other information regarding his location that had an indicia of reliability then that would probably be okay.
In another thread I explained that the Fourth Amendment controls even in exigent circumstances. When a police officer swears out an affidavit for a search warrant, he must specify the particular place to be searched, and the particular person or items to be seized. The warrant issued must reflect this specificity. Likewise, when there is an exigent circumstance exception, it still must apply to a particular place, not an entire neighborhood. Exactly like you state, the police must have knowledge that the suspect has fled into a particular place. I asked on two other threads (and never received an answer) whether the police in Washington, DC should be allowed to search every home every night. During my time as an officer there, there was a violent crime every single night (murder, armed robbery, multiple shooting, etc.)
Would those people who find nothing wrong with the Boston searches also support the DC police searching every home, every night? If not, why is it different?
The authorities aren't releasing any details about whether anyone refused, and if they did how the police responded. They are about as transparent as the zero administration.
I am very interested to hear any accounts of residents refusing police entry into their homes. Based on the vast number of homes searched, I find it hard to believe not one household declined. As you state above, however, even if they came out with their hands up, is this consent? Is it really consent when the SWAT team trains their weapons on your family?
bookmark
Nope nothing illegal, or disturbing here....
If you have a small, heavily armed army with military-type vehicles in front of your house, I don’t see how your “consent” was not coerced.
A sensationalist Brit tabloid trying to sell papers, while quoting InfoWars. Yay.
Color me unimpressed.
I, for one, appreciate reading y’all’s input on this .. thanks
A door-to-door search (without willing permission from each homeowner) is clearly illegal.
That is the kernel of this issue to me.
The kernel of the issue is whether they pressured homeowners to give consent for searches in their sweep. It sounds to me like they did.
the guy might not have hid there until after it was searched... which might be the reason he thought it was a good place to hide
Yesterday i was in a conversation among fellow Texans about this and they were having a really hard time imagining this type of thing happening here. After proper respect was paid to the victims, the conversation eventually progressed to how a similar event would go down in Cut and Shoot or any other place outside of a mega inner-city area.
Local sheriff’s office starts calling people...
Sheriff: “Hey, Jim, have y’all seen anyone in your neighborhood who looks suspicious? We’ve got an outlaw on the loose.”
Resident: “Hey, Billy! How’ve you been! Yeah, we’ve been watchin’ on the TV. The fellow tried to come into my yard a couple minutes ago and tried to get in. The wife winged ‘im in the laige and slowed him up a bit. I just got off the phone with the neighbors ‘n they winged ‘im in the other laige, so y’all should probably come pick him up now ‘fore he makes it to the cul-de-sac ‘cause they’re waiting on ‘im.”
Sheriff: “Oh, hell, Jim. We need him alive, now. Y’all don’t be shootin’ him up TOO bad!”
Resident: “Well, i can’t guarantee anything. They’re having a block party down there and they don’t take too kindly to some terrorist fellow interrupting their Waylon and Willie music.”
Sheriff: “We’ll be right there!”
Resident: “Aight. Come on!”
I cleaned it up a bit and left out the part about lime and make-shift body bags. Yeah, that’s the world many of us live in, so this whole “compliance” thing seems surreal.
If they are actually pointing guns at me, I’d change my tune about this. Actually pointing a weapon at you is a different matter.
The kernel of the issue is whether they pressured homeowners to give consent for searches in their sweep.
IOW, I’d see it as a case by case basis. But there is nothing illegal about doing door to door canvassing, asking each homeowner to allow a search.
“exigent” will be the rationale when they come for our guns
boom will be the response
You are exactly right. It seems some posters believe that throwing around the word "exigent" basically suspends individual liberties to achieve whatever result is needed by the State.
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