Please CHECK THIS OUT. Heidianne's in a difficult situation and could use some help. Please read what happened to her with the police. Her high-powered lawyer thinks she could have a 'watershed case' and you'll be amazed at the story. It would be great if any of you bloggers could also link to her story....She needs HELP! Thanks.
z
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47 comments:
How can we help?
Best way to help may be to explain that if she had dialed 911 from a back room closet because a couple armed intruders were giving her place a toss she'd want the cops to enter and investigate.
She should have a beer with Obama and Skip Gates.
THAT'S LIFE..welcome to blogging and welcome to GeeeeZ.
Heidianne's got a PayPal button there for anybody to throw in a few dollars to help.
We have to get the word out because this could be a very important case....Some day, I hope she has the time and energy to tell you all how the police treated her while in JAIL.
I'm a supporter of the police so it was hard to hear her tell me what the cops who arrested her had done and what they'd called her, etc......this apparently is a department gone bad and they need to learn certain language and treatment isn't acceptable.
I often get angry when I hear the LA media slam a cop or two for rough housing criminals on drugs who are fighting back or even shooting at them ...I often consider the strain cops are under trying to stay alive for THEIR OWN families when they know the SLIGHTEST show of human nature; anger, fear, acting on impulse in reaction to criminal's attacks, is going to be taken advantage of and they could even lose their jobs....but there are BAD cops and the department in Heidianne's neighborhood needs exposing (apparently, the dept is known to be bad by lawyers in the area, etc., but nobody's doing anything..YET!).
Also, obviously, this is a big slam on freedom....please help, everybody!
That's right z, darn it. This sort of thing should happen to Muslims and minorities but this is going too far.
Ducky,
I agree with you on wanting the cops to investigate in the situation you describe and I just wrote her to encourage her to explain a few more details.
MY point was "what if there was someone in a back bedroom you were hurting and he or she got to a phone for a second, called 911, but had to hang up quickly...why would the police take your explanation at the front door that all is well?" I'm hoping she'll explain that.
Obviously, your scenario should warrant the help of the police.
And, yes, the title of her post has to do with a White House invitation.... if Skip can get that kind of attention, SHE should get that kind of attention.
But, hey, I'm STILL waiting for the much publicized death of that young Chicago honor's student's death to be mentioned by Obama. He missed a great teaching moment. Darn
No, Ducky, that shouldn't happen to anybody. When you read the post and find out more details I've encouraged Heidianne to include, you will see that nobody should have had that happen.
The cops, had they really been concerned with a scenario like the one I described in my comment re 911, would have had every right to push past her and DONE SOMETHING.
Instead, they focused on her in rage that she wasn't welcoming them in as if they had that right.
I'm hoping she'll be adding to the post or a comment...at her place, and maybe here.
That's a most unfortunate story. I hate to take anything from it but I must pose a question which is wholly relevant.
Anyone here support primary seat belt laws?
In leau of the aforementioned story, you might want to rethink your position if you do.
I hate to state the obvious but we are very much a police state. If you'd seen the stormtroopers and some of their actions against truly innocent individuals during the GOP convention in St. Paul in 2008, you'd be mortified.
Soapbox, what's scarier to me is that most DID NOT see the treatment of the GOP and that they did not scream holy hell to make sure people DID.
it's our MEDIA I'm most scared of today; had they been anything but obama loving sycophants, we'd probably still have an AMerica to look forward to.
I'm not sure the seat belt law applies to Heidianne's story of the right she's arguing over...but I do understand what you're saying.
Yes, we should be told to wear them and why and probably not mandated.
How about SALT? YOu may not be able to get much of it soon...
How about light bulbs? Al Gore speaks wrongly and I can't find a bulb bright enough for my living room lamp.
So many things..
There very much is a corollary between Heidianne's story and with seatbelts as a primary offense. The basic premise being that without another infraction occuring, you can be pulled over simply for not wearing a seatbelt (now mind you I always wear mine but the fact of the matter is that your decision to NOT wear yours has absolutely no consequence or bearing to me. The "insurance rates" argument doesn't pass the smell test either as countless studies have disproven the theory).
At the point when you are pulled over, an argument for probable cause can thus be made (an argument for which your word becomes secondary to that of an officer to be certain) and consequently your vehicle may be searched.
Now, granted you may have nothing to hide but regardless, the fundamental premise is the still the same. Once the veil is pierced, the rest of the fabric gets shredded.
I can see how this kind of situation could have been set up as a ruse by a hostile anti-constitutional police state to invade a citizen's privacy, and how Heidianne could have experienced it that way since as far as she knew there was no call to 911, she'd received no message from the authorities about it, and this deputy insisted on coming inside without giving her any reason to think it was warranted at all.
If it IS warranted in the case of a 911 call, there needs to be some way of conveying that to the citizen about to be invaded, and they should be able to provide more evidence on the spot that what they claimed about such a call and their response to it really did occur.
So I can see it from the citizen's point of view.
But from the cops' point of view, assuming this ISN'T a ruse to deprive a citizen of her rights, they were responding according to their own experience of their legal right to enter under such a circumstance, and were met by a woman who to their mind unaccountably resisted their normal operations, even accusing them of depriving her of her constitutional right, which some cops have experienced mostly from criminals trying to evade arrest and might interpret as belligerence -- and if they are dealing with a criminal they know they are in danger themselves.
However, to react by flooring her and apparently mistreating her in jail after it must have become clear enough to them that there was no real reason for them to be there at all shows something very very wrong with the system.
I need to hear a lot more myself before I'll know how to respond.
ducky, that was EXACTLY what MY thought had been!
soapbox, i have actually used the seatbelt law correlation with my situation in discussing this with my attorne. he's a sharp guy and totally "gets" it. i still can't understand how he gets everything right up to the point of anything besides the bill of rights. and i have never been a proponent of the mandatory seat belt laws. ugh!
z, my mother was a dispatcher for the county police when i was growing up until they moved away from somd. there are no police officers in my family, but i have ALWAYS ranked "the police" right up there with the military in regards to respect owed. i pretty much NEVER had believed there could be police who acted as if they were in a legalized gang. however, my rose-colored glasses now have a crack in them.
you are right that the deputy had no idea who i was. interestingly enough, she never asked. had she asked, i would have gladly provided proof of who i was and that i had every right to be in my house.
there was no screaming, no indication of any violence, no indication of foul play. you are right and (from a comment i posted at my place):
i could have been an axe murderer. however, without any indication of something untoward going on a simple hang up call to 911 doesn't meet the requirement of probable cause. i don't know for certain, but i got the distinct impression during my conversation with the first deputy that had i actually received a call from the dispatch officer and told her "no, i didn't cal 911 or if i did i didn't mean to" that would have been the end of it. how could they know any better over the phone that i wasn't an axe murderer than in person?
additionally, there was nothing threatening in my behavior. i hadn't even showered yet for pete's sake and i was not "dressed" and i was in my stocking feet. i had one hand holding a phone and one hand on a door's edge. she, on the other hand had a gun. had she wanted to come in, quickly, she could have entered. i could not have stopped her had i wanted to.
honestly, i don't know if they called. i certainly never heard the phone ring (else i would have answered it), there was no phone called that beeped in my ear whilst i was speaking to mr. j, AND there was NO voicemail on our phone after the incident took place.
faith, there are some precedents that give the police the right to enter without permission and without a warrant when a 911 call is involved, as i have since found out. however, the california supreme court has ruled that (at least in california) a person's refusal to allow entry withot a warrant in regards to an anonymous 911 call does NOT give rise to exigent circumstances.
Glad to hear you're versed in the problem with the primary seatbelt law (and frankly I'm not even keen with it being secondary).
As an aside, I had a discussion with an extremely liberal neighbor about my efforts to repeal it here in Minnesota and about my displeasure with our Republican governor (Tim Pawlenty) having even signed it into law. Naturally she was dumbfounded as to why I'd attempt such a feat. I made my case and of course she invoked the "for the greater good" argument citing "children not having to grow up without one or both parents.
First I responded that we should probably then ban bathtubs because children drown in them far too frequently for us to permit them in homes. She thought that was a bit hyperbolic. And so I ratcheded up the hyperbole a bit more by invoking the Gene Hackman inquiry in Extreme Measures.
"If you could cure cancer by killing one person, wouldn't you have to do that? Wouldn't that be the brave thing to do? One person and cancer's gone tomorrow?"
Of course the answer is no. But it shows quite pointedly the ridiculous nature of the collectivist premise.
personally, i think there shouldn't be a law, period. if people want to throw out the "higher insurance rates" argument, what to i care.
years ago, in the state of maryland, there was a proposal put forth by several insurance companies that said "if you are in an accident and you experience any medical issues because of it and you were NOT wearing your seatbelt the insurance company was not going to pay.
it wasn't allowed to be implemented because that wouldn't be "fair" or something idiotic like that. about three months later the mandatory seatbelt law went into effect.
teach pople the laws of physics and make certain they understand them. if they then make the decision to test the veracity of those laws, that's all on them.
With the Department of Homeland Security so concerned about conservative terrorists, and unconcerned about true civil rights instead of real terrorism, I expect to see more and more of this.
You'll get no argument from me. We've gone from a government tasked with protecting us from threats both foreign and domestic to threats self inflicted.
Now Bloomberg's got the nanny state going after salt. Eh' might as well since the fries haven't been the same anyways since they put the nix on Trans-Fat oil. And, you can't smoke inside the bar/restaurant.
They should just mandate oxygen bars where everyone eats tofu and beansprouts already.
and precisely why it's so important to fight this, shoprat!
My gosh! What a horrid story! I am usually a police supporter and this is abuse of power, plain and simple.
I truly wish I could help, but right now my family is pretty broke.
I will pray, though. I wish I could do more.
prayer may well turn out to be the biggest help of all leticia. thank you so much!
The "exclusionary rule" may in fact be of help here. The Supreme Court has already ruled (Mapp v. Ohio, I think) that a guy found to have marijuana in his car after being pulled over on false pretenses (there was an arrest warrant in The System in his name from a prior speeding ticket that had been paid but the warrant order was not yet removed from the databases) could not be charged for the marijuana found because the search was technically illegal. (I doubt, however, that the guy's marijuana was returned or he was compensated for its loss as he should have been - yeah, I'm going there)
If the "911 call" is found to have not been made, Heidianne has a BIG case. This appears to be the case in that the alleged "voice mail" call didn't happen.
But, after the cops determined (via illegal search or not) that there was nothing going on in Heidianne's house, taking her into custody and detaining her in jail for a few days was more wrong because it stemmed from protesting what turned out to be false pretenses (no 911 actually made / no emergency to respond to) so the exclusionary rule principle should apply. The cops essentially compounded an "honest" error with a willfully spiteful mistake.
As the comments indicate, this is a fairly complex issue.
What is not complex, however, is the unnecessarily brutish response of the police officers.
In our little corner of the world (southwest Florida), officers are taught that respect breeds respect. I have been extremely impressed with the firm politeness of our police officers and our sheriff's deputies, even when dealing with known felons.
It's always "Sir" and "Ma'am" and "Have a seat in the back of the car please sir," and so on. They only get tough when gotten tough with.
From the narrative given in this case there seems to have been a distinct lack of respect for the citizen on the part of the officer.
Every police officer should be versed in the Bill of Rights so as to prevent them from being violated. Nothing supercedes a right, and officers should know that.
There are correct ways to have acheived entry to the home if necessary, including waiting for a warrant. If Heidianne had been an axe murderer, she wouldn't have been axe murdering anybody while they waited so no harm would have been done.
In the end, sadly, police are politicians, too.
This sounds like a very complicated case. It actually became topic of discussion earlier today at work.
I wish you well with all of this.
A 9 mm stop cops who have no respect for civil rights. Why not? They'll do it to you.
Especially butch cops that have something to prove to their fellow masochists!
I'm moving over to Heidianne's side after reading all the hashings out here. The police overreacted to nothing. Really need to know what that 911 call was all about, if it really happened, what's going on there.
Prank calls are made all the time. Sounds like a great way to punk your neighbors.
And if the cops fall for them, shame on them. And if the cops make even bigger mistakes as a result, they should have to pay.
But doesn't the address automatically show up at the 911 office, FJ? How could they make it look like it belonged to the neighbor instead?
steve, my blog post became a topic at your work? pray tell, what was the consensus?
my youngest daughter, fred, shared it with her history professor. he is a died-in-the-wool liberal and he and my daughter butt heads frequently. she was shocked to learn that he agreed wholeheartedly that the police had overstepped on this.
This is PREPOSTEROUS! Before the Civil Rights movement this could never have happened to a respectable white person living in a decent neighborhood. (But it DID happen to "underlings" and "minorities" ALL THE TIME -- something we conservatives are loath to admit)
I have always maintained that the average policeman is cut from the same bolt of cloth as the average thug. I recognize the need for the police, but I do not LIKE them. They are a necessary EVIL.
Power corrupts -- ALWAYS -- and too many mental midgets given a badge, a gun and more authority than they can properly handle develop into swaggering bullies that take an aggressive abusive approach to the citizenry they're sworn to protect.
I'm so sorry that Heidianne of all people has been subjected to this barbarous treatment.
What this has to do with Obama, Bloomberg or any part of the federal government, however, I can't imagine. We are, indeed, lapsing more and more into the vice grip of totalitarianism on all fronts, but in this particular case it is a LOCAL problem.
FYI: I've been informed by a conservative-activist net friend in New Hampshire -- a gal who was named Republican Woman of the Year for 2009 in her state -- that carrying around a copy of the Constitution and quoting it to anyone in authority when challenged is very likely to land you in jail for a few days at least or on a "terrorist watch" or "no fly" list. No kidding!
The overmastering desire to exercise power and control over fellow human beings -- i.e. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS run AMOK -- is in my mind the deadliest sin of all. It is the twin sibling of out-and-out SADISM. The love of power coupled with an eagerness to punish is TOXIC on every conceivable level.
This terrifying incident proves that the "liberalism" we so despise was after all a NECESSARY REACTION -- an ANTIDOTE, if you will -- to the thuggish, villainous approach the old Establishment once took to Indians, Negroes, Hispanics, Vagrants, Homosexuals and anyone else the middle class majority considered "undesirable."
"Payback" is NEVER justified, because it only perpetuates and magnifies the original evil, but payback OCCURS, and it sure is HELL.
This vicious cycle will never cease till we learn once and for all that vengeance belongs to God and God ALONE.
~ FreeThinke
I did just eradicate the only one of Heidianne's comments I felt should go.
FJ, did you eradicate the OTHERS I suddenly found were also deleted?
Well...that was a surprise ...
FJ..thanks..I don't feel like it right now; maybe later.
I get that all the time... ;-)
FJ...:-)
Chilling.... If I knew a 911 call could not have been made from my phone my first thought would be "home invasion robbery" - by pretend cops who I would NOT want to let past my door. I have no idea what a "real" badge looks like, but I'd be calling the "real" cops for verification. Several cases of this in east county a few years back.
I will be visiting HAJ's Paypal button.
deborah, it was frightening. and i didn't know you could do something like that until after the fact. come to think of it, the deputy never did show me her badge - neither did her "supervisor"...
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