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from the dividends-of-cooperating-with-cops dept.
TechDirt reports:
Previously, [TechDirt reported how] police officers pretty much razed a residence to the ground searching for a shoplifting suspect.
In another case, law enforcement spent nineteen hours engaged in a tense standoff with an empty residence before deciding to send in a battering ram.
Now, they're reporting another "standoff" with a lawsuit [PDF] following.
On August 11, 2014, after registering her child for first grade, Ms. West returned to her home to find multiple City of Caldwell police officers in her yard searching for a Fabian Salinas. Wanting to cooperate, and uncertain whether Salinas was in her house, Ms. West gave the police a key to her house and gave them permission to use it to enter her house to arrest him. During a ten hour long standoff, police repeatedly exceeded the authority Ms. West had given them, breaking windows, crashing through ceilings, and riddling the home with holes from shooting canisters of tear gas destroying most of Ms. West and her children's personal belongings. The only occupant of the house was Ms. West's dog. Ms. West's home remained uninhabitable for two months.
[...] So, when given a key and consent from the occupant, officers instead chose to grab an armored vehicle and go through several windows and the attic.
[...] This happened back in 2014 but there's been no coverage of the Caldwell cops' 10-hour, one-dog standoff until now. Thomas Johnson of Fault Lines suggests that might have something to do with the local paper of record.
If you're wondering why it took a couple of years for this event to make news outside of Idaho, it's because the local paper apparently only checks court records or their exclusive police source, resulting in some very incomplete reporting. Why bother getting out there and talking to the homeowner or neighbors when you can sit on your chunk?
[...] From all appearances, the suspect was never in the home during the 10-hour standoff.
[...] The police did give her a three-week stay in a hotel. Too bad it took more than two months for her to be able to return to her residence. This raid on a house containing nothing more than a dog is the natural side effect of police militarization, which encourages law enforcement to escalate in questionable situations, rather than use more measured tactics to ensure occupants aren't deprived of a place to live simply because a suspect might be hiding somewhere behind closed doors.
Previously: 19-Hour "Standoff" Ends With Cops Destroying an Empty House
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday August 21 2016, @06:10AM
I understand all of that, but that's not what the judge ruled on.
No -- actually that was precisely the basis of the ruling. From the article linked in this thread:
But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.
Or, if you insist on reading the entire ruling itself, it's here [aele.org]. Again, from the ruling:
On August 29, 1999, the district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment, finding no suspect classification and that defendants had “shown . . . a rational basis” for the policy. We agree that New London’s use of an “upper cut” did not violate the equal protection clause and affirm the judgment of the district court.
You continue:
He claimed that it wasn't discrimination of any kind (legal or not).
Actually, that's not true. The Circuit Court only mentioned the word "discrimination" once, and that was in reference to the Plaintiff's claim that he first thought he was being discriminated for his age, but that was later shown to be untrue. There was no discussion in the ruling at all over whether or not the IQ-test policy constituted "discrimination," since it was irrelevant to the legal power of the court in this case.
In other words, he used a poor sophistry rather than address the rational basis for the criterion.
Again, untrue. The ruling mostly consists of a brief summary of rational basis precedents, along with consideration of the question relating specifically to the policy at hand. Again from the ruling:
Applying that lenient standard [i.e., rational basis] of review, we conclude that even absent a strong proven statistical correlation between high scores on the Wonderlic test and turnover resulting from lack of job satisfaction, it is enough that the city believed -- on the basis of material prepared by the test maker and a letter along similar lines sent by the LEC -- that there was such a connection. Plaintiff presented some evidence that high scorers do not actually experience more job dissatisfaction, but that evidence does not create a factual issue, because it matters not whether the city’s decision was correct so long as it was rational. The city could rationally have relied upon the guide to interpreting test results provided by the test maker as justification for reducing the size of the applicant pool with both a low and a high cut off. Even if unwise, the upper cut was a rational policy instituted to reduce job turnover and thereby lessen the economic cost involved in hiring and training police officers who do not remain long enough to justify the expense.
And if you find this to be "sophistry," I suggest you look up the cases cited in the preceding paragraphs of the ruling for what constitutes a legal "rational basis" under governing precedent. It's very broad. Now, if you want to argue that this judge should overturn 80 years worth of governing precedent about what constitutes a "rational basis," well that's one way to go -- but I don't think we want federal Circuit Courts making such arbitrary pronouncements concerning local laws and policies. Or, if you want to argue that "high IQ" should be a "suspect class," I suppose that's a discussion we might have, but I'm not sure you've thought about the ramifications of what that could do to hiring procedures and the ability of employers in general to choose employees "best suited" for a job.
Anyhow, I agree there are hard issues here, and potentially room for debate, but my previous post outlined the precise standards by which this judge explicitly judged this case.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:49AM
I stand corrected but dismayed.