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Posted on 02/07/2012 5:29:03 AM PST by marktwain
A depressed Army reservist who made a phone call for help says dozens of police responded by surrounding his home and arresting him, vandalizing and searching his place without a warrant, seizing his dog and killing his tropical fish.
Matthew Corrigan, who lives alone with his dog, sued the District of Columbia in D.C. Federal Court.
Confronted with a massive police presence after his plea for help, Corrigan says, he denied officers permission to enter his house, but they entered and trashed it anyway, saying, "I don't have time to play this constitutional bulls**t!"
Corrigan says the debacle started on Feb. 2, 2010.
"Corrigan telephoned what he believed to be the 'Military's Emotional Support Hotline' because he was depressed and had not slept for several days," the complaint states.
"The number Corrigan called was in fact the National Suicide Hotline. When he stated that he was a veteran, he was asked if he had firearms, to which he said yes. He said nothing about being suicidal or using a firearm or threatening anyone. After a short conversation, Corrigan hung up, turned off the phone, took prescribed sleeping medication, and went to bed.
"At approximately 4 a.m. in the morning of Feb. 3, 2010, Corrigan awoke because he heard his name being called over a bullhorn. There were floodlights outside his front and back doors and an estimated 8 police officers in the back yard and 20 in the front yard.
"Corrigan turned on his phone and found that Officer Fischer of the 5th District was calling him, asking him to come out, which he did at about 4:50 a.m., locking the door behind him. He was handcuffed and put in the back of a SWAT truck.
"When Officer John Doe I (upon information and belief, Officer John Doe I is Lieutenant Robert Glover) asked Corrigan for the key to his apartment, he informed the officer: 'There is no way I am giving you consent to enter my place.' Officer John Doe I stated: 'I don't have time to play this constitutional bullshit!' and ordered that Officers John Does II-V, members of the Emergency Response Team (ERT), enter the apartment." (Parentheses in complaint).
Corrigan says police took him to a VA hospital, broke his front door and entered his apartment without a warrant, where they confiscated his guns, vandalized his place and took his dog to an animal shelter.
"Although the officers had no information that there were explosives in Corrigan's home and the home had been secured, John Does VI-X, the Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team, entered Corrigan's home without a warrant and searched for explosives," the complaint states. "The EOD team opened closed containers and used X-ray equipment to search closed containers.
"After the initial warrantless search, the EOD team brought in a dog to search for firearms.
"During the search of Corrigan's home, John Does II-XV seized three firearms and numerous rounds of ammunition for those firearms and others. The three firearms were a rifle, which was unloaded and trigger-locked in a locked hard-side container under his bed, a hand gun which was in a hard case in a drawer in the closet, and another handgun which was in a zipped bag on the shelf at the bottom of a clothes rack (pillows and blankets were on top and next to the bag). The locked cases were taken but the broken latches were left on the floor. The ammunition was stored in a sealed plastic crate and the rest was in boxes, in their original packing, in a milk crate, which was stored under a sleeping bag in a utility closet.
"Corrigan's eyeglasses were broken and thrown in a corner." (Parentheses in complaint).
Corrigan says he spent three days in the VA hospital, because "having weapons pointed at him upon leaving his apartment triggered his PTSD hyper-vigilance and caused irregular heartbeat."
After he was released from the hospital and determined not to be a suicide risk, Corrigan says, police arrested him and put him in jail, where he remained for almost 2 weeks.
"When Corrigan returned to his apartment 16 days after being seized, he found that John Does I-XV had left the front door unlocked and unsecured, had left the electric stove on, had cut open every zipped bag, had dumped every box and drawer, had broken locked boxes from under the bed and the closet, and emptied shelves into piles in each room. All his tropical fish in his 150 gallon aquarium were dead."
Corrigan seeks more than $500,000 in damages for constitutional violations.
He is represented by Richard Gardiner, of Fairfax, Va.
The trouble is these questions always hit when you are least expecting them or are distracted, like when you are sick and need a doctor. My natural inclination is to tell the truth, but you can’t afford to be honest and open in Amerika these days. My new policy is to volunteer no information to anyone, and when I am compelled to give information I give as little as possible.
The only way that is possibly a victory is if he actually committed a crime. Without him being guilty of something it's nothing more than gun theft and harrassment.
This is an interesting case. Does information given because of a question by someone on a suicide hotline give the police probable cause? It would seem to me that protecting the individual’s life would be the limit of their authority.
Wasn’t the DC ban on owning a gun held to be unconstitutional?
I really feel sorry to the guy. I hope is lawyer is a good one. The lawyer should also enjoin the suicide hotline for breach of confidentiality.
First rule of gun ownership. Don’t talk about your guns.
They still have time for that. The dog hasn’t been put down yet.
Ummm... Dear kindly Officer Jackboots:
That "constitutional bulls**t" is THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND! If you claim to be a "law enforcement official" then you had better damn well MAKE TIME for it, or suffer ALL the consequences for NOT doing so, both 'official' and 'unofficial'...
the infowarrior
Good grief! Pretty extreme consequences for being depressed and not sleeping for several days. Brought to you by the same folks that now call Maj. Hassan’s killing spree at Ft Hood “workplace violence”. From one extreme to the other. Hope Corrigan wins this case.
"To Protect and Serve" Yeah, right.
"To Punish and Enslave" - just like Barricade/Mustang cop car in Transformers 1 - is more like it.
Wow... I’m often one to give cops the benefit of the doubt, if any, and credit for a difficult job— but not here. These guys are out of control and need to be slapped down hard. I think even a first year law student could drive a Mack Truck through this case.
"To Protect and Serve" Yeah, right.
"To Punish and Enslave" - just like Barricade/Mustang cop car in Transformers 1 - is more like it.
It certainly clarifies the ROE that the State has in place against us peons.
They keep pushing and pushing, yet will act oh-so-surprised should the roles reverse...
Resets the rules of engagement, doesn't it?
At a bare minimum, it tells people 2 things:
1) Never call the police; and
2) Never help the police. I can see a lot of people not remembering anything, not seeing anything and not hearing anything. These jerks want to treat everyone like a criminal, then they should expect people to take the hint after a while and begin to act like them.
As for changing the rules of engagement - yeah, that is what is happening slowly across the country. If we have no right to a presumption of innocence, no right to be secure in our houses and possessions, no right to expect that the police will search a home (even if illegally) without absolutely trashing it ON PURPOSE, and no right to avoid being tased, beaten or shot...well, then 2 can play at that game. One side is less organized, for now. But since the side violating all codes of decency and our Constitutional rights is far, far outnumbered, not much organization is required by the rest of us. Perhaps none at all, just sufficient incidents that take the life of uniformed thugs and/or their families, and they'll be made helpless.
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur — what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!
Alexander Solzhenitzyn
If the courts don't fix this, or if higher levels politicians don't fix this, then we are headed for a disaster like we haven't seen since the Civil War. Never have a majority distrusted the police - but we're getting there.
I had a defective bullet jam my revolver. While trying to clear it 15 minutes later, it fired (downrange) I burned my hand pretty badly so I went to my doctor. He just laughed. I really appreciated that. We joked about it every other time I went to see him.
Solzhenitsyn had it right. Will the rest of us learn before it is too late?
On the contrary. He's perfectly suited for today's law enforcement.
“.’ Officer John Doe I stated: ‘I don’t have time to play this constitutional bullshit!’”
Then find a different job.
You’re fired.
< /what should happen>
Gun ownership. When asked he told the hotline that he had firearms.
Veterans Crisis Line is 1-800-273-8255
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Bait and Switch.
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