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The ACLU has sued the San Diego Police Department, seeking the destruction of DNA samples collected from minors during a stop that was found to be unlawful:
Specifically targeting black children for unlawful DNA collection is a gross abuse of technology by law enforcement. But it's exactly what the San Diego Police Department is doing, according to a lawsuit just filed by the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties on behalf of one of the families affected. SDPD's actions, as alleged in the complaint, illustrate the severe and very real threats to privacy, civil liberties, and civil rights presented by granting law enforcement access to our DNA. SDPD must stop its discriminatory abuse of DNA collection technology.
According to the ACLU's complaint, on March 30, 2016, police officers stopped five African American minors as they were walking through a park in southeast San Diego. There was no legal basis for the stop. As an officer admitted at a hearing in June 2016, they stopped the boys simply because they were black and wearing blue on what the officers believed to be a gang "holiday."
Despite having no valid basis for the stop, and having determined that none of the boys had any gang affiliation or criminal record, the officers handcuffed at least some of the boys and searched all of their pockets. They found nothing but still proceeded to search the bag of one of the boys—P.D., a plaintiff in the ACLU's case. (It's standard to use minors' initials, rather than their full names, in court documents.) The officers found an unloaded revolver, which was lawfully registered to the father of one of the boys, and arrested P.D.
The officers told the other four boys that they could go free after submitting to a mouth swab. The officers had them sign a consent form, by which they "voluntarily" agreed to provide their DNA to the police for inclusion in SDPD's local DNA database. The officers then swabbed their cheeks and let them go.
P.D. was then told to sign the form as well. After he signed, the officers swabbed his cheek and transported him to the police department. The San Diego District Attorney filed numerous charges against P.D., but they were all dropped as a result of the illegal stop. The court did not, however, order the police to destroy either P.D.'s DNA sample or the DNA profile generated via his sample. The ACLU seeks destruction of the sample and profile, along with a permanent injunction "forbidding SDPD officers from obtaining DNA from minors without a judicial order, warrant, or parental consent."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Friday February 17 2017, @09:47PM
Indeed, I have seen kids with their personal .22 rifle, but with father and at the range. 4 underage guys with an unloaded weapon had better have a good reason to go roaming around, and if they had it it would be in the story. QED.
All of this still makes the police procedures about DNA collection very questionable, no matter the potential usefulness. It's not as if one has to pick sides. I'd rather have a justice system where the police doesn't have to bend the rules (which will never happen when the ruling system needs criminals to do the dirty work and police to keep them under control), but, among all who bend rules, the police is one of the most dangerous.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 17 2017, @10:26PM
The tragedy here is that the ACLU is compelled to defend obvious thugs, it would be much more palatable if the cops forced their collection methods on a lovable tranny or a respectable businessman for bogus reasons.
California doesn't even have open-carry laws. To be fair they could have just been wearing their school colors since there are schools in the area with blue as a color, and the time of the arrest was around 3:30 p.m. on a Wednesday which could easily have been right after school but nothing excuses an underage person conceal-carrying a handgun in an urban area.
It was right of the cops to mark those punks. I hope we hear a follow-up in a few years with one or more of those knuckleheads arrested during an armed robbery or something.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NewNic on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:32AM
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. [quotationspage.com]
H. L. Mencken
US editor (1880 - 1956)
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:46AM
Is it a tragedy when the ACLU is compelled to defend certain "unpopular" whites?
https://www.aclu.org/other/hate-speech-campus [aclu.org]
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/12/514785623/the-aclu-explains-why-theyre-supporting-the-rights-of-milo-yiannopoulos [npr.org]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/29/aclu-right-represent-ku-klux-klan [theguardian.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-history-of-the-aclu-defending-confederate-veterans-the-kkk-and-rush-limbaugh/ [washingtonpost.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:38AM
But I am pretty sure a backpack doesn't qualify as concealed carry.
Concealed carry is a term used for a firearm being in a position where it could be rapidly used, usually concealed on the person themself.
A firearm being transported in a backpack seems like it should follow under the same legal rules as a sword being carried in a zippered tube, or a bow in a bowcase (both of which are perfectly legal up to the point of being brandished. Although a cop may hassle you about any of the three regardless.)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:09PM
I take it you didn't grow up in small town America. Kids get terribly bored because there isn't much to do. The parents are usually working 3 jobs to make ends meet, so there isn't a lot of adult supervision, either. With those two things kids can get up to all kinds of trouble. The ones who lived in the trailers by the slough down the hill from my town would do stuff like TFA describes all the time.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday February 18 2017, @05:30PM
Kids get terribly bored because there isn't much to do.
They get terribly bored because they are terribly boring. Not their fault, of course. They have been conditioned to be consumers, their social skills are modest for lack of practice and from the virtual world overlay which creates more problems.
My gen, in a small town, did not have smartphones, so got along with 8 bit pc, pimped 50cc/125cc motorcycles (no way you kept it stock), instant cameras and boom boxes for the privileged, and soccer ball, volley ball, beach ball, tennis ball (still for soccer), deflated balls (dodgeball time), bikes, elastic band for underwear (two people holding it at various height, one doing the evolutions, dunno how it was named there in burger/sandwich land) for everybody. The hardcore guys played gilli-danda. A friend once had a psychology/whatever seminar with younger people, one of the exercise was playing tag, he absolutely destroyed them, to the point of feeling bad for them.
Adult supervision consisting in an old cat lady tending a corner shop telling us not to trust the priest (we trusted no adult anyway).
Account abandoned.