I live in Colorado for a reason
I knew there was reason I liked you Larry. Just couldn't put my finger on it.
here in most of Colorado, unless your driving, the cops treat under an ounce like a pack of cigarettes.
This kinda harassment pisses me off. If you'll allow me to soapbox for a min, I'd like to share what recently happened to me.
A few months ago I was up in Milwaukee doing some job related travel I finished up and headed back towards the airport to get a hotel for the night. Got a bite to eat, watched a little TV, talked to the family, then hit the pillows around 10:00 so I could get up early to catch my flight.
At 3:15 AM…BANG BANG BANG...POLICE, OPEN THE DOOR!!! BANG BANG BANG!!!.....OPEN THE DOOR!!!
I'm sound asleep, so at first I'm thinking, "what the heck is that?" BANG BANG BANG!!! I yell "WHAT!!" they respond "POLICE, OPEN THE DOOR!!" I start getting up to get my pants on. They're still yelling and screaming "OPEN THE DOOR, OPEN THE DOOR"
My initial thought is that they are at the wrong room, or maybe next door, or the buildings on fire, something. So I go and look through the peephole while I'm buttoning my pants on and I see about 10 cops in full paramilitary gear with pistols and assault rifles drawn on me. I crack the door open and stupid me, I didn’t have the latch on. They push open the door and it’s ON!! They start screaming "ON THE GROUND, ON THE GROUND!!!" I'm still half asleep. They pull me out out into the hall, throw me down, stick a knee in my back, and handcuff me. Then they stand me up and walk me all the way down the hall around the corner away from my room and start asking me a bunch of questions about who I am, why I'm there, what I do for a living, on and on. Then they start multiple questioning. They keep asking me the same questions in different ways, or just plain lying, trying to trip me up. "You said you just got to town yesterday. Now you're saying you got into town on Monday, which is it Chief?" Imagine being woken up at 3 am at gunpoint and having to give gun wielding cops your entire timeline for the whole week. Everything you’ve done. And they’re contradicting and twisting everything you’re saying trying to get you to screw up just once. I was giving them short one word answers only.
After about a half hour, they take me back to just outside my room and tell me that they are doing some big statewide investigation, blah blah blah and they'll let me loose as soon as everything checks out. Then the team leader, who is in full military CAMO with an assault rifle, asks AGAIN if I have any guns or drugs in my room. I say no. They say, "would you mind if we perform a search of your room and belongings to verify that." Now, I assumed that since they had led me away from my room that they had already searched it, but apparently not.
So...there I am...standing there faced with "the question". Do you mind if we search your room? Even though I have nothing illegal on me and have nothing illegal in the room (that 'm aware of), I thought about it for a second and gave a very resounding "NO, I do NOT give consent to search my room or property!!!" I knew that if they had to ask for consent, they had no probable cause. They took me back into my room, still handcuffed, They took ALL my personal information, and never told me anything about who they were. They never did search my room though. So my refusal to consent to search worked. It was the only part of that whole situation that I felt good about.
They uncuffed me, made some smart ass remarks about me getting be on cops (they weren’t filming) and they left. As quick as it started, it was over.
Basically I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and walked right into the middle of some big Wisconsin Dept of Justice drug task force investigation.
They comp'd my room, which I found out the next morning. Gee that was awful nice. So for what they put me through, the taxpayers of Wisconsin covered my room, they saved my company $80.00, AWESOME!!
So when I got home I called an attorney specializing in police misconduct. He says that basically the cops, especially state and fed type agencies pretty much have immunity against any kind of civil suit for this kind of thing; unless I was hurt. Even though this was clearly a violation of my 4th amendments rights, unless they had beat the hell out of me, or shot me, then there’s not too much I can really do. My first and most important mistake was I never should have opened the door. I should have told them that if they had a warrant, then to go ahead and kick the door. If not, go away.
Even a small amount of investigative work and they would have known I wasn't involved in whatever they were doing
Not sure what peoples opinion is on police activity of this sort is, but in my opinion, the police are supposed to protect and serve; not to drag out of their homes at gun point in the middle of the night, cuff, detain, and interrogate innocent citizens.
If you guys haven’t seen this video please watch it. It may save your butt one day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXk...ves/35286.html&feature=player_embedded#t=2919
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XtBvalUVKU
Be careful out there friends.