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from the St.-Louis-still-misses-you,-Baton-Bob dept.
"Baton Bob" (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Bob) is a street performer in Atlanta, Georgia. In June 2013, Atlanta police arrested Baton Bob during the middle of a street performance, after a verbal altercation Bob had with mall security guards.
Baton Bob has now filed a
federal lawsuit accusing Atlanta police of violating his constitutional rights, assault, discrimination, privacy violations and identify theft.
What makes this SoylentNews-worthy is that Atlanta Police forced Baton Bob to post a pro-police statement on his Facebook page before officers would allow Bob to be released on bond. According to the lawsuit:
At approximately 3:40 p.m., while Plaintiff sat handcuffed and without an attorney, he was told to dictate a public statement to Officer Davis, who then typed and posted the message to the Baton Bob Facebook account. The message read:
First of all, the atl police officer that responded to the incident thru security has been very respectful and gracious to me even in handcuffs. So, the situation escalated from a complaint from a security officer in the area and for some reason she rolled up on me like she didn't know who I was and like I had not been there before. For them to call police to come to intervene was not necessary. So, out of it, because of my fury, the Atlanta police officer did not understand the elements of the situation, so he was trying to do his job, respectfully and arrested my ass!!!!!!!!! I'll be out tomorrow so look out for my show at 14th and Peachtree. So now I'm waiting to be transported so I can sign my own bond and get the hell out of here. I want to verify, that the Atlanta police was respectful to me considering the circumstances. See you when I see you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As promised, Plaintiff was then given a signature bond and released from jail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @09:11PM
The police can hold you for questioning but they cannot withhold your right to bail
"We aren't finished questioning him."
As long as prosecutors remain in cahoots with the cops, the gang wearing blue will get away with this sort of shit.
As long as citizens continue to elect those corrupt D.A.s, nothing will change.
Same deal with the self-professed "Tough on crime" judges (in places where those are elected).
-- gewg_
(Score: 3) by mendax on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:20PM
Yeah, but access to an attorney can end that quickly in most cases. Most cops don't want to waste their time when they know that the person they arrested is not going to say anything on the advice of his attorney. However, you are right, when the police, the DA, and the judges are in cahoots, all bets are off. It wouldn't surprise me if this is going on in Georgia, and that the cops, the DA, and the judge are all named Bubba and they're all cousins. (Can you tell that my contempt for the Deep South is showing?)
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.