Know Your Rights
The Albany Times Union recently reported two stories of the local police department's abuse of searches.
The first case is of a man who was picked up at the bus station. Police say they considered him suspicious because he was wearing a back pack...at a bus station..yeah, suspicious. Oh wait! I forgot, he's black! That must be it. Did they charge him for traveling while black? He was forcibly sedated and searched. They never found anything. The hospital later billed him for his trouble. Read the whole thing here.
He was quickly handcuffed and falsely arrested. He was taken to a station to be strip-searched and then to a hospital, where doctors forcibly sedated him with a cocktail of powerful drugs, including one that clouded his memory of the incident.
A camera was inserted in his rectum, he was forced to vomit and his blood and urine were tested for drugs and alcohol. Scans of his digestive system were performed using X-ray machines, according to hospital records obtained by the Times Union.
The search, conducted without a search warrant, came up empty.
Our second story is of a woman who fit a profile - she apparently was a white woman in a rental car. That was enough to pull her over and search her vajayjay on the side of the road. The police officer also took her cell phone and started calling people on it. Read about this gross violation here.
This brings me to the informative portion of our lesson today: know your rights. I highly recommend downloading and reading this informative booklet from the ACLU. UPDATE: HERE IS A LINK TO THE WALLET CARD.The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter's vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs.
Sadly, in both cases above knowing one's rights probably would not have mattered at the time as it seems the police officers were going to do whatever the hell they wanted to do anyway. At least when you know your rights have been violated you can later press charges.
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
Comments
That is just... I hope that both of them get good lawyers, sue the hell out of the offenders, and get good publicity.
I've been pulled over for Driving While Young With Dyed Hair. I refused to submit to a search and the policemen left, they knew they had nothing. It's not that I had anything in my car, I just was running late and was pissed off that they pulled me over when I was going the speed limit and observing all traffic laws. I've often wondered what would have happened had it been other officers, if they may have abused me. It's terrifying.
holy shit.
This kind of stuff scares the hell out of me.
What century is it and what frickin' country do we live in anyway???
oh my gawd. That is just awful. a camera inserted in his rectum, forced to vomit...WHAT? for what? Don't they have anything better to fucking do? and what about the doctors who did this?
I'll be a white woman in a rental car in damn Texas in a few weeks. I'd better print that thing out and keep it in the car with me, right next to my knife. heh.
ugh. make me sick.
I know that being a police officer is deadly serious work and VERY dnagerous but this kind of thing is not OK. No. And i think it's one of the things that makes police work dangerous -- people are afraid of them For the wrong reasons.
The part I always think about? If it wasn't for cameras and witnesses, you'd never know a LOT of what happens. It's like waterboarding - that's not ALL the torture, just the torture we heard about. I bet things like these two cases go on all the time and you never hear about it because what if it happens to someone who doesn't speak up or if there are no people looking on? It's horrible.
If you could find something like that again, I think that would be most helpful. I'm not sure the .pdf file fits so neatly in your pocket for easy reading.
I refuse to live in fear, though. I still travel. I am not going to let the bastards keep me cowering in my own house, afraid of the dark. That's what they want, and I won't shrink my life down to give them the satisfaction. There's a big beautiful world out there, and I won't let them keep me from it.
Yeah, I feel the same way.
But---Mexican people used to come up to me in Houston and ask me stuff in Spanish, so I guess the dark hair and dark eyes fool some people...although Americans do the same thing when they are out of the English speaking world.
Holy Shit. Didn't know things were so fucked up there too.
RedZ's right - that "search" of the woman was just plain fingerfucking rape.