Posted on 01/16/2016 6:24:12 PM PST by Ken H
Police department in Washington, DC will not be held accountable after officer caught snooping through motorist phone looking for nude photos.
Washington DC and the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) were given a free pass by a federal judge on Friday after a traffic cop helped himself to the racy photographs he found on a phone he seized from a female driver. US District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer dismissed all but one count in the lawsuit motorist Natalia Argote, claiming she had no redress against the city.
Argote, an Alexandria, Virginia resident, was stopped in the District by two MPD officers on March 3, 2012. While one officer had her perform sobriety tests, another, Officer Terrence Richardson, seized her cellphone and began looking through it. Officer Richardson found a nude image of Argote and texted it to himself.
After discovering what had happened by looking through the phone's history, Argote decided to sue the District, the MPD, Police Chief Cathy Lanier and Officer Richardson. Judge Collyer gave all but Richardson a free pass.
"Ms. Argote has not adequately pleaded a custom, policy or practice on the District's part," Judge Collyer wrote. "To be sure, she alleges that MPD officers 'regularly' commit the sort of violations alleged here. She also includes 'failure to properly train' and 'failure to monitor and manage' allegations. But none of those allegations is supported by a single pleaded fact. Ms. Argote makes a wholly unsupported leap from the premise of her own ordeal to the conclusion that this must be happening everywhere."
The only count in the lawsuit that remains would hold Officer Richardson personally liable for a Fourth Amendment violation. He was cleared of liability for "converting" for his own use the property belonging to Argote without her consent and without legal justification.
"Officer Richardson may have unlawfully accessed Ms. Argote's phone and committed the despicable act of texting her nude picture to himself, but that was not conversion because it did not seriously interfere with Ms. Argote's ownership or control of her picture," Judge Collyer concluded. "The actions may be redressable through other means, but not the tort of conversion."
A copy of the ruling is available in a 100k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: Argote v. DC (US District Court, District of Columbia, 1/8/2016)
Cops are your boss. Hussein agrees.
Obviously we need to see the photo in question in order to make a determination.
Secure your phone! Use a password, or a diagram. Don’t use a thumbprint (or other biometric key). It seems the 5th Amendment protects Americans from being forced to enter a password or draw a diagram — but, there’s nothing to stop cops from forcing you to place your thumb on the screen.
I don't know how it wouldn't, she has utterly lost control of the picture now that the cop is now free to send it to anyone he wishes without her knowledge or consent, including to people she doesn't want it sent to.
But, it would appear that cops are above many of the laws they enforce on the rest of us.
This bitch judge is on the FISA Court! Appointed by “our buddy” John Roberts.
Note: This is a picture that Natalia Argote (right) voluntarily made public.
I hope that cop will learn that his actions put his career at risk and will stop crossing the line (better if he recognized that his invasion of her privacy was reprehensible, but that is asking too much). I think it's far more likely that he will learn he is immune. When the law fails to protect people, some victims will choose other options, and I will not have much sympathy if this cop pays the price.
Attractive lady—but what led him to search through her phone for nude pics? Would he do that with every lady he interfaces with or was there some underlying reason why he took her phone into custody?
Seems like there is missing info here.
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