Someone will sue for unlawful detention.
The idiot cops will claim 'qualified immunity'
The corrupt courts will side with the police.

Seriously, who made this idiotic decision to do this? Even if they had found the robber, any search they did would have been illegal, and the guy would have in all likelihood gotten off.
Did these people consent to having their vehicles searched? Contrary to what police would have you believe, searching your car is something they have to have consent or a warrant to do.

It's a nation-wide deterioration of our First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. Check out what happened in New Haven over the weekend:

New Haven/a>

It's shameful, that the police ANYwhere think they have the right to violate regular citizens' rights.

We all know that the vast majority of cops are fascism loving jack booted thugs.

...but what shocks me about this story is that every single person consented to exit their car and be cuffed.

The proper American response is "fuck you, this door stays closed until you come back with a warrant, and I'm calling my lawyer on speed dial right now".

Interesting story that Flynne posted. I'll be very interested in seeing how that comes out. The only mistake that woman made was failing to hit "Upload," as in upload to her YouTube channel before she stashed the camera.

@TJIC:
IIUC, in every state you *cannot* refuse a police order to get out of your car. When you do emerge, be damned sure you make it clear that you *do* *not* *consent* to any searches of your person or your car. One common bit of advice: lock the door behind you.
IIUC, in every state you *cannot* resist a police pat down. In every case, be damned sure you make it clear that you *do* *not* *consent* to any searches of your person.
You already know if that if you physically resist any police order you risk assault. So never physically resist. Do not engage officers in conversation. Be polite and ask, regularly, "am I free to go?"
IANAL, now go and check with your lawyer.

> IIUC, in every state you *cannot* refuse a police order to get out of your car.

Sure you can; you just might have your window smashed and be dragged out.

Personally, I'd be willing to take a police beating if afterwards they had to explain in court why they felt the need to handcuff 19 people, including forcibly extracting one for no crime at all.

> You already know if that if you physically resist any police order you risk assault. So never physically resist.

In general, my approach to avoiding physical assault is NOT "invite them assault you, because at least they'll use lube if you're polite".

I'm going to be contrairian(sp) here. As I understand from a different story I read re: this, the cops were told by a witness that the robber was currently stopped at that light. They had no other description of the guy or the car he was in. So their "reasonable suspicion" was that he was currently stopped at that traffic light. And he was armed, they knew that, so restraining everyone was not imprudent.
I don't see this as any different than the cops getting a tip that the robber is, right now, in that 7-11. Then the cops restraining everyone in the store till they figured out who was the robber.
Now if the cops were stopping and arresting everyone passing through that intersection, that would be a different story. But that's not what they were doing.

"We all know that the vast majority of cops are fascism loving jack booted thugs."

You're by yourself there, thing. Maybe a little Haldol will help. You can get some from your fellow Occupiers.

A friend of mine has a husband who is a Denver cop, and she calls the Aurora police the Keystone Cops. I see why. She is the most pro-police person I know, to the point of being sometimes rabid, and even she thinks this was excessive and unnecessary.

I don't think these people deserve a fat payout over this, unlike the kid who was forgotten by the DEA for 4 days and had to drink his own urine to survive, but someone should be demoted or at least lose some pay over this.

I definitely have a problem with restraining a bunch of innocent people. If this guy WAS armed, they created a situation where all these people were sitting ducks.

The spirit of "innocent until proven guilty" is that we'd rather see guilty people go free than innocent people be punished. That should have been in play here.

Andre,

I'm going to break down your comment in detail, but first watch this video first. He mentions several SCOTUS cases and knows the laws. Because of the spam limit Amy has I can't give live links to everything that I'd like too.

IIUC, in every state you *cannot* refuse a police order to get out of your car. When you do emerge, be damned sure you make it clear that you *do* *not* *consent* to any searches of your person or your car. One common bit of advice: lock the door behind you.

A while back Amy had posted about a pastor refusing to be searched[1] at a Border Patrol station. They eventually broke in his windows.

This does not even come up to the standards of a Terry stop[2]. They had nothing to even briefly stop someone who was female and even ask for a name from them.

If there was a weapon seen on the passenger seat or back seat, that may have been a reasonable reason to search and suspect people. But according to Bond v. United States[3] touching you, a vehicle, a bag or possession without a warrant or suspicion is a violation of the 4th.

[1] -- www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/03/30/pastor_beaten_a.html
[2] -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop
[3] -- scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16414508289124673813&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

IIUC, in every state you *cannot* resist a police pat down. In every case, be damned sure you make it clear that you *do* *not* *consent* to any searches of your person.

I'll agree that resisting a pat down is illegal. But if they touch without at least rising to the level of Terry[1] that is an unlawful search.

You already know if that if you physically resist any police order you risk assault. So never physically resist. Do not engage officers in conversation. Be polite and ask, regularly, "am I free to go?" IANAL, now go and check with your lawyer.

If an officer ever asks your name or are talking to you, you have the right to say nothing, "No", "Yes", or "I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional rights".

It gets a little trickier to be stopped while driving. But legally if you are in a parking lot, you are generally on private property. Therefore, violation of traffic laws do not apply, and they can't fine you for anything, and therefore they don't have qualified immunity.

Andre Friedmann at June 6, 2012 9:06 AM

Sorry to burst your bubble. Actually I'm not sorry to burst our bubble. Please tell me where I'm wrong and I'll amend my argument.

Monica, the guy they arrested apparently had two guns and they were loaded.

The cops allegedly had guns pointed at kids when taking people out of their cars. This whole deal is insane. Thank God no one was shot.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/113305.html

There is the kid pic. Shotgun right at the head.

They didn't have a "witness".

They had a transceiver/transmitter. That's where they knew - roughly - where the robber/getaway driver was. But not which one.

...but what shocks me about this story is that every single person consented to exit their car and be cuffed.

TJIC: I'm not sure "consent" is the right term there. I mean, you point a shotgun at my family and I might just have to hope the justice system works it out later.

Sio:

That's OK.

As you'll recall, Janet Reno said of the Elian Gonzalez raid, that Elian was never in danger, because the officer pointing the machine gun at him *had his finger off the trigger the whole time*.

Notice the correct along-the-side-of-the-Remington-870 shotgun trigger finger of the police officer and understand that he *was in no danger*.

"I'm going to be contrairian(sp) here. As I understand from a different story I read re: this, the cops were told by a witness that the robber was currently stopped at that light. They had no other description of the guy or the car he was in. So their "reasonable suspicion" was that he was currently stopped at that traffic light. And he was armed, they knew that, so restraining everyone was not imprudent."

Tactially it was absolutely stupid. There were a bunch of cars and only a few cops. Had they chosen the wrong group of cars to start with, and the robber was in another car, he could have taken out every one of them.

"We all know that the vast majority of cops are fascism loving jack booted thugs."

Some of them are. Police work is very attractive to people who have a power fetish. One of the things police academies are supposed to do is screen those people out. Some academies do it better than others. Also, some police tend to think being armed makes them invulnerable, and they take reckless risks. One advantage of the way the military does things is that they disabuse most soldiers of that notion very quickly.

Much less serious, but same sort of phenomonen: A friend of mine was stopped the other day, because the cop who stopped her didn't think she looked old enough to be driving. OK, she does look young. But even after she produced her drivers' license (she's 21), the cop refused to let her go. She had to with the cop to her aunt's house and then have her aunt vouch for her. And then the cop didn't have the decency to drive her back to her car. And this from someone on a police force that's generally regarded as being pretty good.