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Something is wrong when asking for help leads to the police ransacking your home. Found on techdirt is this story for our times: Appeals Court To Cops: If You 'Don't Have Time' For 'Constitutional Bullshit,' You Don't Get Immunity:
A disabled vet with PTSD accidentally called a suicide prevention hotline when intending to dial the Veterans Crisis Line. Within hours, he was dealing with DC Metro's finest, dispatched to handle an attempted suicide. This brief quote from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals opinion [PDF] -- part of veteran Matthew Corrigan's first conversation with responding officers -- sets the tone for the next several hours of Constitutional violations.
The officer who had asked for his key told him: "I don't have time to play this constitutional bullshit. We're going to break down your door. You're going to have to pay for a new door." Corrigan Dep. 94:15–18. Corrigan responded, "It looks like I'm paying for a new door, then. I'm not giving you consent to go into my place." Id. 94:19–21.
This is as much respect as the responding officers had for Corrigan's Constitutional rights. The rest of the opinion shows how they handled the supposed suicide case with the same level of care.
From there it gets worse, much worse.
[Continues...]
The opening of the opinion recounts just how dangerous it is to talk to nearly anyone linked to the government about your personal problems.
Matthew Corrigan is an Army Reservist and an Iraq war veteran who, in February 2010, was also an employee of the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the night of February 2, 2010, suffering from sleep deprivation, he inadvertently phoned the National Suicide Hotline when dialing a number he thought to be a Veterans Crisis Line. When he told the Hotline volunteer that he was a veteran diagnosed with PTSD, she asked whether he had been drinking or using drugs and whether he owned guns. Corrigan assured her that he was only using his prescribed medication and was not under the influence of any illicit drugs or alcohol; he admitted that he owned guns. The volunteer told him to "put [the guns] down," and Corrigan responded, "That's crazy, I don't have them out." Corrigan Dep. 56:2–5.
Despite Corrigan's assurances that his guns were safely stored, the volunteer repeatedly asked him to tell her "the guns are down." Id. 56:2–14. When asked if he intended to hurt himself or if he intended to "harm others," he responded "no" to both questions. Id. 69:6–18. Frustrated, Corrigan eventually hung up and turned off his phone, took his prescribed medication, and went to sleep. Id. 56:10–14; 70:6–7. The Hotline volunteer proceeded to notify the MPD.
The whole story is well-worth reading, but in a nutshell: The vet finally comes out of his home, locks the door, does not resist, is handcuffed, does not give permission for a search, and the police then proceed to knock down his door, perform a search without a warrant, and then come back five hours later to perform another search, still without a warrant, and thoroughly ransacks his home. The techdirt story concludes:
Better yet, the "screw your Constitution" officers have had their immunity stripped.
Because it was (and is) clearly established that law enforcement officers must have an objectively reasonable basis for believing an exigency justifies a warrantless search of a home, and because no reasonable officer could have concluded such a basis existed for the second more intrusive search, the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity across the board.
"Objectively reasonable" is not a high bar. But the MPD never had any intent of reaching it. The officer's statement that there was "no time" for the Constitution made that very clear. The failure to find anything in plain view during the first sweep was treated as an excuse to turn a cooperative man's (cooperative except for consent to search) upside down until officers could find something to excuse their steamrolling of the Fourth Amendment. They figured what they uncovered would save them after the fact. That's the ends justifying the means and that's precisely what the Fourth Amendment is there to protect against.
So, it seems that justice for the vet might finally win out in this case, but only after having his home upended and a long, drawn-out court case.
What [else] is a citizen to do?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:40AM
Kinda like the anti-war protestors that went silent when Obama came to town?
(Score: 2, Informative) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:15AM
Democrats are disgusting. They only protest GOPevil, and never their own. Obama's two terms were like GWB's two terms, the only difference is the fucking democrats never said a damn thing while he extended and expanded Bush's policies. Apparently, none of them was smart enough to ask "What would Cheney do with this power." Now we'll find out but thankfully, to a lesser degree than had Clinton won. At least the Democrats will go back to pretending to care about war and civil rights.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:13AM
We tried to speak out, but we kept getting drowned out by the "GO BACK TO KENYA YOU MUSLIM NIGGER" nonsense. There are plenty of valid, rational reasons to criticize Obama, like how he suddenly went from a moderate centrist Senator to a right wing conservative authoritarian President almost immediately after being elected, and was basically Dubya's 3rd and 4th terms. The constant "SHOW US YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE NIGGER, THE REAL ONE THIS TIME" bullshit and nonstop "Our primary goal is to make Obama a one-term president" obstructionism and god damn temper tantrums shutting down the entire government no less than three times and the stupid, irrational, delusional "OBAMA IS COMING FOR OUR GUNS"-type nonsense and outright racist bullshit prevented anyone from hearing us or even wanting to.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @11:32AM
Um, bullshit.
Obama was in office for EIGHT YEARS. Towards the end, only Code Pink was left, and even they cooled their jets.
Meanwhile liberals were patting themselves on the back at FOLLOWING THE BUSH TIMETABLE FOR WITHDRAW, omitting Obama was negotiating for occupying for even longer, and making very abstract rationalizations why regime change was needed.
If there was anything that soured me on liberals, it was how quickly hey went turncoat when it was expedient, and even for this election, went into hysterics about how Trump was leading us to WWIII with a straight face, ignoring all the regime change that happened under Hilary.
You ain't the most principled bunch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @01:56AM
Rabid, tribal partisans tend not to be principled, yes. But it applies to both parties and most people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:22AM
No, see, what happened was the anti-war protesters forgot about the wars when they looked in their wallets and found no money, then they became the Occupy protesters. Obama the 21st century Hooveresque ineffectual shit didn't do a fucking thing to fix the Great Recession except tell everyone prosperity is right around the fucking corner, just like Hoover didn't do a fucking thing to fix the Great Depression. So we have Obamaville shantytowns just like we had Hooverville shantytowns. And the Occupy protesters, well their movement was utterly crushed by police forces because nobody wants to listen to complainers. Now if Trump isn't the next FDR then America is totally fucking fucked.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:51AM
Interestingly, the Tea Party and Occupy had similar concerns (much to the chagrin of peacocking liberals, and only a few years late to the party), although approaching it from different angles- the tea party wanting to keep more of what they earned (and not bailing out failed institutions), and Occupy seemingly wanting to be treated like failed banks :)
I always find it amusing liberals advocated for bailing out the banks while complaining about undue corporate influence.