The 4th Amendment returns to New York City

And Emperor Michael Bloomberg is royally pissed about it too! Now a little background. His royal shortness, Nanny Bloomberg, along with his sheriff, Raymond Kelly ((Raymond Walter Kelly)), have been stopping people going about their business and frisking them, ostensibly to relive them of contraband ((New York City stop-and-frisk program)).

If this sounds like a violation of the 4^th Amendment ((The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV))), it looks like at least one judge agrees with you. Here’s a few details from the New York Times:

A federal judge ruled on Monday that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in the city, repudiating a major element in the Bloomberg administration’s crime-fighting legacy.

So far, His Royal Totalitarianist has been batting Zero when his policies end up in front of a judge.

The use of police stops has been widely cited by city officials as a linchpin of New York’s success story in seeing murders and major crimes fall to historic lows. The police say the practice has saved the lives of thousands of young black and Hispanic men by removing thousands of guns from the streets.

Actually, from what I’ve heard, this illegal harassment has done virtually nothing to stop crimes of violence ((Stop-and-Frisks Actually Haven’t Cut Down on Shootings)). What it looks like they’ve been doing is flat out harassing people on the basis of skin color, not that anyone should have to endure this fascist crap.

But the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, found that the Police Department resorted to a “policy of indirect racial profiling” as it increased the number of stops in minority communities. That has led to officers’ routinely stopping “blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white.”

Now granted, a disproportionate number of crimes are committed by people of recent African decent, but unless they have actually committed a crime or are suspected of it, you can’t just stop them on the street and strip search them.

The judge called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms, including the use of body-worn cameras for some patrol officers, though she was “not ordering an end to the practice of stop-and-frisk.” In her 195-page decision, Judge Scheindlin concluded that the stops, which soared in number over the last decade as crime continued to decline, demonstrated a widespread disregard for the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, as well as the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Now the reason Judge Scheindlin didn’t order a flat out end to these searches is simple. In yet another boneheaded move by the Supreme Court ((Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968))), they wrote that:

For their own protection, police may perform a quick surface search of the person’s outer clothing for weapons if they have reasonable suspicion that the person stopped is armed. This reasonable suspicion must be based on “specific and articulable facts” and not merely upon an officer’s hunch.

Now for those who may not know, this was the infamous Warren Court ((The Warren Court)). Earl Warren turned out to be one of the most statist justices in decades. This isn’t to say that the court didn’t rule on things that needed to be done, but Warren’s answers always tended to require massive intervention by the Federal Government over the rights of the states. For all the good that was done, (Desegregation and civil rights), a lot more was outright wrong. It was the Terry decision that kept Judge Scheindlin from stopping the Stop and Frisk program outright.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was his usual gracious self when he was told to reconsider his program.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg angrily accused the judge of deliberately denying the city “a fair trial” and said the city would file an appeal.

Striking a defiant tone, Mr. Bloomberg said, “You’re not going to see any change in tactics overnight.” He said he hoped the appeal process would allow the current stop-and-frisk practices to continue through the end of his administration because “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a lot of people dying.”

These are the words that the Tyrant of New York City has been using for every single one of his cockamamie laws and regulations he’s been putting out since he became mayor. Transfats, salt, Big Gulps, if Bloomberg doesn’t like it, it will be OUTLAWED! Well the judge was having none of it from this moron.

The judge found that for much of the last decade, patrol officers had stopped innocent people without any objective reason to suspect them of wrongdoing. But her criticism went beyond the conduct of police officers.

“I also conclude that the city’s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner,” she wrote, citing statements that Mr. Bloomberg and the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, have made in defending the policy.

What did the judge expect? Bloomberg and his people hate the Constitution and would abolish it faster then Obama if they could. Bloomberg is a classic tyrant. In his mind, his rules are LAW and any who oppose him are to be ignored and punished for DARING to upset him. Well Bloomie, prepare to be upset. If you run this up to the Supreme Court, there is a very good chance they will decide that the Warren Court was wrong and overturn the Terry decision. (Which would be a good thing in my opinion) So what has the judge decreed?

Judge Scheindlin ordered a number of remedies, including a pilot program in which officers in at least five precincts across the city will wear cameras on their bodies to record street encounters. She also ordered a “joint remedial process” — in essence, a series of community meetings — to solicit public comments on how to reform the department’s tactics.

Cops hate cameras. As we have been seeing more and more, people with cameras will use them when police misbehave. When cameras are used by police, it seems that complaints against police officers drop. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. In any case, Judge Scheindlin has more things for Bloomers to do.

The judge named Peter L. Zimroth, a partner in Arnold & Porter L.L.P., and a former corporation counsel and prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, to monitor the Police Department’s compliance with the United States Constitution. The installation of a monitor will leave the department under a degree of judicial control that is certain to shape the policing strategies under the next mayor.

How about that? The New York Police will have to actually obey the Constitution. Now lets be honest here. Most police officers won’t knowingly violate the constitution. It’s the politicians and the upper management of the Police that make the policy and issues the orders to the rank and file. Bad managers make bad employees and when those managers and employees have guns and the powers of arrest, you will end up with cases like this one.

Judge Scheindlin’s decision grapples with the legacy of Terry v. Ohio, a 1968 ruling by the Supreme Court, which held that stopping and frisking was constitutionally permissible under certain conditions. But she said that changes to the way the New York Police Department employed the practice were needed to ensure that the street stops were carried out in a manner that “protects the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, while still providing much needed police protection.”

She noted that officers routinely stopped people partly on the basis of “furtive movements,” a category that officers have testified might encompass any of the following: being fidgety, changing directions, walking in a certain way, grabbing at a pocket or looking over one’s shoulder.

“If officers believe that the behavior described above constitutes furtive movement that justifies a stop, then it is no surprise that stops so rarely produce evidence of criminal activity,” Judge Scheindlin wrote.

Do you know that I have done all the things described here? When I’m walking down the street I have a tendency to look over my shoulder, Sometimes I change directions because I forgot something and had to go back home to get it. I am always putting my hands in my pockets. Gee, in Nanny Bloomberg’s Empire, I would be stopped and searched every 20 feet. Oh wait, I’m not Black or Hispanic.

She found that in their zeal to identify concealed weapons, officers sometimes stopped people on the grounds that the officer observed a bulge in the person’s pocket; often it turned out that the bulge was caused not by a gun but by a wallet.

“The outline of a commonly carried object such as a wallet or cellphone does not justify a stop or frisk, nor does feeling such an object during a frisk justify a search,” she ruled.

Now why do I have the phrase, “Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” running through my head?

“No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life,” she wrote.

You got that right. Here’s the problem. For the last 20 or so years, the United States has been slowly moving towards becoming a police state. This accelerated after the 9/11 attacks, and yes, I do blame Bush for it. I also blame Congress and the courts. We now have a judge who has looked at a case and decided “Whoa there Pardner! Time to reign in that horse.” Frankly, I do hope that moronic twerp Bloomberg takes this to the Supreme Court. They need to really start restoring the freedoms and liberties they have been suppressing for the last century. This would be a good place to start, and if the ruling is upheld or expanded, (Terry overturned), seeing Bloomberg throw a hissy fit would be be worth the price of admission.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~
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