Post by Shuftin on Feb 6, 2007 4:00:32 GMT -5
February 2, 2007
A man gets out his legally-owned, antique gun collection, opens a beer, and sits down to clean the guns while watching the World Series. A security guard walks by, looks in the man's window, sees the guns, and decides to ask him questions. The man doesn't feel obligated to answer the questions because he's done nothing wrong. The security guard interprets the man's abruptness as "menacing," and contacts his supervisor, who calls the police.
By the time all is said and done, 60 police officers show up for the standoff, including the local SWAT team. Now the man is angry -- and justifiably so. He resists the police. They eventually hit him with rubber bullets and flash grenades, arrest him and cart him off to jail. After a jury deadlocked on the felony charges against him, he plead no contest to a misdemeanor weapons charge.
The man then sued, and won on the complaint that police failed to obtain an arrest warrant. But the court deferred to the police, despite the fact that they by all appearances unnecessarily escalated a harmless situation, and awarded the man the insulting figure of one dollar. The city appeals the one-dollar judgment, apparently not wanting to concede the precedent that the government shouldn't be able to arrest a man who has done nothing wrong without a warrant.
www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/91B9122675AD4E6388257265005CB74A/$file/0416095.pdf?openelement
A man gets out his legally-owned, antique gun collection, opens a beer, and sits down to clean the guns while watching the World Series. A security guard walks by, looks in the man's window, sees the guns, and decides to ask him questions. The man doesn't feel obligated to answer the questions because he's done nothing wrong. The security guard interprets the man's abruptness as "menacing," and contacts his supervisor, who calls the police.
By the time all is said and done, 60 police officers show up for the standoff, including the local SWAT team. Now the man is angry -- and justifiably so. He resists the police. They eventually hit him with rubber bullets and flash grenades, arrest him and cart him off to jail. After a jury deadlocked on the felony charges against him, he plead no contest to a misdemeanor weapons charge.
The man then sued, and won on the complaint that police failed to obtain an arrest warrant. But the court deferred to the police, despite the fact that they by all appearances unnecessarily escalated a harmless situation, and awarded the man the insulting figure of one dollar. The city appeals the one-dollar judgment, apparently not wanting to concede the precedent that the government shouldn't be able to arrest a man who has done nothing wrong without a warrant.
www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/91B9122675AD4E6388257265005CB74A/$file/0416095.pdf?openelement