Can you look at this picture and not think we live in police state?

By David McElroy · June 7, 2012

It was a pretty typical Saturday afternoon in Aurora, Colo. People were bustling around town going about their business. For about 40 unlucky people, though, the next two hours were going to be anything but typical.

Someone robbed a Wells Fargo bank in Aurora. Police say they received word that the suspect was almost certainly in a car at a particular intersection. They didn’t have a description of the suspect. They didn’t know if it was a man or woman or what race the suspect was. They knew nothing, but they said afterwards that it was a “virtual certainty” that the suspect was somewhere at that intersection.

What the Aurora police did next makes it clear that they’ve never heard of the Fourth Amendment and have no respect for innocent people.

Police quickly blocked the intersection from all sides. I’ve heard differing reports on the number of cars in the intersection, but it was in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 vehicles. Even though police had no reasonable suspicion of any particular person or vehicle, they handcuffed every single adult in every single one of those cars. It was about 40 people. You can see from the picture above that they went in with guns ready to blow the heads off of these innocent people. Doesn’t that kid look like a bank robber?

After everyone was handcuffed, police asked for permission to search the handcuffed people’s cars. Can you imagine the absurdity of that? They’re essentially under arrest, but they’re being asked for permission — as though they feel free to refuse. Being good little citizens who don’t refuse police requests — and probably also scared to death — everyone consented to the searches.

Over the next two hours, police searched each vehicle. It wasn’t until they got to the very last vehicle before they found a couple of loaded weapons. They arrested the man inside and he’s been charged with the bank robbery.

Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates said Monday that he’s sorry innocent bystanders got caught up in the search for the suspect, but it didn’t seem to bother him that much. According to Denver’s CBS affiliate, “Oates also said the ends justify the means since the suspect was caught.”

It’s pretty well-established in this country that police have to have probable cause to stop a vehicle or to detain someone. Believing that there was a good chance that a suspect was somewhere among about 20 cars doesn’t constitute probable cause. In any sane legal universe — which might have already passed us by anyway — this is a completely illegal search. Here’s what the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The people who happened to be driving down the street minding their own business weren’t secure last Saturday. There was no legal reason to detain any one of those people. They were false arrests. The entire operation was what you’d expect in a police state, not in one where we allegedly have the freedom to avoid such arrests.

So was the police chief right? Do the ends justify the means? Is it worth giving up our constitutional rights in order to make the police force’s job easier? Unfortunately, many people would say it’s just fine with them, but I’ll bet quite a few of the people who ended up with guns pointed at their heads — see the picture again — wouldn’t feel that way.

My suspicion is that the city of Aurora is going to be facing some lawsuits over this. The city should lose and the people who ran this operation — starting with the police chief — should be out of jobs. But that’s in a sane universe, not in a police state.

Update: To give you some insight into the scary mindset of the police culture, here’s a response I received about this Thursday morning on Facebook from Brittany Nicole Hudon, who says she’s a former police officer:

I’m not horrified. It’s the same concept as a sobriety check-point. That kid doesn’t look like a kid from behind. I couldn’t tell until I read the description of the photo. I totally agree with the police actions here. As a former Police Officer I understand their actions. They did not illegally detain anyone. You can detain anyone for up to 24 hours for any reason. Sorry. We’re being proactive. 2 hours get over it. Would you rather have a gun pointed at you by a trained officer who will not shoot you unless you make aggressive lethal movements toward him, or a criminal who will shoot you for flinching or catching a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye? Personally I feel much safer knowing the cops are here handeling the situation. Also, this kid could be a bank robber. If you can be charged at 14 as a adult for murder you can totally plan a robbery. No description yet of suspect. Sure, I’m not taking my chances. Let me see your hands, and get on the ground. It’s not the cops job to determine innocence or guilt. Their main concern is keeping everyone alive and healthy. As long as no one was injured, I’d say this was a job well done!

Share on Social Networks

If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

Related Posts