Posted on 05/31/2006 12:54:05 PM PDT by AzaleaCity5691
Police arrest 67 at checkpoints Wednesday, May 31, 2006 By NADIA M. TAYLOR Staff Reporter Officers issued more than 1,800 tickets and arrested 67 people over the Memorial Day weekend at several driver's license checkpoints throughout the city, police said.
Most of the 1,834 tickets issued were for not having a driver's license or proof of insurance, according to interim Mobile police Chief Lester Hargrove.
Fifty-four people were arrested on outstanding misdemeanor warrants, and 13 people were arrested on felony warrants, Hargrove said. Most charges stemmed from traffic violations or drug offenses, police said.
One man, Carl Mitchell Washington, 22, was driving with his 2-year-old son when police stopped him at a checkpoint and found about 30 pills, which were believed to be Ecstasy, and $2,775 in cash, Hargrove said.
Washington was charged Sunday with possession of a controlled substance and endangering the welfare of a child and was released on a $3,500 bond, according to the Mobile County Metro Jail log.
Under Alabama law, possession of a controlled substance is a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in jail. Endangering the welfare of a child is a Class A misdemeanor, which can carry a sentence of up to one year in jail, according to state law.
In addition to the weekend arrests, police seized two handguns and towed 53 vehicles as a result of the checkpoints, Hargrove said.
The topic of roadblocks garnered substantial media attention last month after two men were shot to death at a McDonald's drive-through in northeast Mobile. After the April 5 killings, city officials called for more frequent random checkpoints to look for and seize illegal weapons.
The latest round of checkpoints -- which ran Friday through Monday -- was the third weekend since April 28 that police have set up roadblocks in Mobile. Police issued a total of 1,362 citations during the first two weekends, which took place April 28 and 29 and May 5 and 6.
Unreasonable search and seizure and all that.
Creepy. I can't understand why people put up with this stuff. When they have them here, they stop 100 people, MAYBE there are 3 or 4 "criminals." Seems kind of unreasonable to me.
Yeah, great idea! Let's extend this to houses too. Door-to-door checkpoints! No warrants! We'll catch lots of "bad guys" that way. After all, if you're doing nothing wrong, then why should you not want police going through your house too?
Papers please.
Glad I'm not alone. This country is falling apart, and it's not due to the commoners. They can not ticket people here for not wearing seatbelts. Maybe they should check women smokers, to see if they're expecting.
Just a question:
Does law enforcement need a search warrant to search a car at a random stop?
More proof that drinking and driving check points have nothing to do with catching drunk drivers.
Your papers, comrade.
Couldn't agree more...checkpoints worked wonders in Germany.
IIRC, SCOTUS ruled "No" I could very well be wrong.
I have insurance, I have a conceal carry permit for my pistol, my automobiles comply fully with state law, and I don't drive around my car with drugs and other contraband. I got stopped at one roadblock, and I informed the officer I had a pistol in my car, and I showed him my permit, along with the other pertinent information, and then I was sent on my way.
The changing demographics of this city necessitate that measures like this occur or else we run the real danger of becoming the next Birmingham, a crime-ridden s***hole, in which a lawyer was kidnapped yesterday in a fairly brazen fashion. It is not like they are stopping pedestrians, and they are not going into people's homes. If you are not on a private road you are on a public road, you have no ownership of a public road. Incidentally, a week after the first roadblock, the PR did a poll and found that 81% of area residents support the roadblocks, the highest level of support for anything recently polled.
In order to get to my home in this nice well-kept area on the Bay, I have to drive through a once nice area that has since turned into a ghetto, I have no way around it. Whenever I buy groceries, I take a pistol with me. Roadblocks have made me feel safer, and they don't violate anyone's rights because you don't have a right to drive. The ability to drive is a privelege granted to you by the state, it's not your constitutional right, and I will say this, every drug dealer, every gang banger, every thug they take off the streets so that the law abiding citizens don't have to sleep with shotguns by their beds, I'm all for it.
Easy solution. Post the sites of the checkpoints on the town website. The only people caught will be idiots.
I guess it would depend upon your definition of essential and a little temporary.
susie
If by "random stop" you mean a stop justified by any one of the hundreds of sections in the motor vehicle code, the answer is yes, you generally need a warrant. But there are lots and lots of exceptions to the warrant requirement for a moving premises.
Two of the most common ones are:
1) Consent. The driver says, "Yea, go ahead and search." Lots of arrests for contraband follow those words.
2) Search incident to arrest. Arrest the driver for minor charge (no ops, no insurance, unpaid ticket, whatever), and a complete inventory search is standard procedure.
I think they only need probable cause. For instance, if they believe they smell marijuana or if a drug dog hits on the car. However, this may just be TX.
susie
Oh, well that makes it alright then.
and they don't violate anyone's rights because you don't have a right to drive. The ability to drive is a privelege granted to you by the state, it's not your constitutional right
Pure BS and already debunked thoroughly on this thread.
In this county, almost anyone can get a pistol permit, if you are not a felon, and you can pay the very modest fee, then it's some paperwork, a few other things, and you are then sent on your way with your permit. It's not unreasonable to ask people to do this so they can carry their pistols with them. And it's not as if everyone is going to be targeted, as I think law enforcement has a pretty good idea of who requires further searching and who doesn't
Last time I checked, they don't do that with citizens. They make citizens post bond before getting out.
In the great state of Louisiana, a car is considered to be under the same state constitutional safeguards as ones home. However, the cops have been known to use certain techniques, such as fear and intimidation, to get into vehicles anyway.
All hail the state.
Sickening.
One application I could see would be checking for illegals. Do it in selected areas for periods of time and you would hear some real bitching from the anti-gov/default pro-amnesty people.
"Enforce immigration laws but kindly don't do it any any way that inconveniences me"
You need to put /sarcasm after that statement or else we are all going to take you seriously....
You're a closet authoritarian, aren't you?
Not if there is contraband in plain view or if they get consent or if they otherwise have probable cause to believe that there is illegal contraband in the car. Also, if they arrest someone for a valid cause (ie. outstanding warrant) they can perform a search incident to arrest of the person arrested and the area of the car in his immediate reach which could have a weapon available.
"Happy Memorial Day. Your papers, please."
Perhaps you should move to a place like China or North Korea. They have already enacted this type of thing on a national level.
The nanny state test makes 'em stick out like a sore thumb.
Unless you live in my state (Illinois) or one of the other 3 states that have no "permits" and do not recognize the second amendment.
One of many on FR.
"its for the children" huh?
how about instead of sitting around, hoping to nab a couple badguys and generate a buttload if income from seatbelt tickets, those cops went out and caught the CRIMINALS that were causing the problems.
besides, most criminals will know 15 minutes after a roadblock is set up, and find alternative routes.
I take his point though. Sounds to me like a citizen who is fed up with crime and wants law enforcement to get proactive about looking for criminals. You can say that keeping a gun is a wise move for self-protection but if you discharge it then you can expect an investigation, the need to retain counsel and you had better hope that you don't have a local DA looking to make hay at your expense because your legal bills will go through the roof.
Is it just me or does that seem a little backwards?
It's a nice and easy way for the cops to not only generate money but they can sweep up people who have warrants as well as nab some moron for transporting drugs in the car.
Checkpoints are not a proactive law enforcement technique. They are fishing expeditions that treat everyone as a criminal until each person in line proves themself to not be a criminal.
How far do you want to go? CCTV? Satellite surveillance? Full body scanning on pedestrians at random? After all, one person in this thread implied that when you're in public you don't have Constitutional protections anymore.
"I believe in enforcing the law as much as anyone does, but I have a problem with this checkpoint thing.
Unreasonable search and seizure and all that."
I understand how you feel, but it happens every day. I had a cop friend of mine tell me that if he wants to stop you, all he has to do is follow you for 10 minutes and he'll find a reason to pull you over.
Anyone can be pulled over for speeding (1 mile over the limit.)
Apparently minus the closet part.
"I had a cop friend of mine tell me that if he wants to stop you, all he has to do is follow you for 10 minutes and he'll find a reason to pull you over."
Wow, what a manly man. Does he kick dogs too?
What does it matter? They're just expecting useless lumps of flesh anyway.... < /s>
You wanna bet? You park 4 cruisers out on a busy street in high crime areas and you will be amazed at what you find behind the wheel and under the front seat. Until people started complaining about racial profiling I knew of towns that would stop anyone that looked like they didn't live in an area so as to cut down on the crime rate.
If you were 17, dressed like a gang banger and driving into areas that it was obvious that you didn't live you got pulled.
And you believe that because the State told you so?
Amendment IX
I don't carry anything illegal in the Vette (actually I don't own anything that could be remotely considered illegal).
However, the Vette is filled with bits of this and that from the space program (ALL ACQUIRED LEGALLY) such as a meteorite, three axis Inertial Nav unit, carbon-carbon skin, MLI, shuttle tile material, sensors, PMTs, thermal OSRs, CCD focal plane assembly, honeycomb skin, solar panels, flight computer, spacecraft panels, mono-propellant fuel line, RF cable, solar sail material, Astro-Quartz, x-band dish antenna, microwave omni antennas, flat ceramic microwave antennas, an RF subsystem assembly, blue nomex flight suit, Carbon/Kevlar clean-room suit, Neutron detectors, Vela Satellite sensor assembly, Indium foil, Kapton, Mylar, Titanium struts, Cray 3 computer boards, ceramic parts, core memory arrays, waveguide, 76GHz microwave assembly with feed, ring laser 3 axis gyro assembly, beta cloth, gamma and xray detectors, etc.
I take this stuff around to schools so kids get a chance to handle actual spacecraft hardware. :-)
(at least four of these items have been flown in space)
Wonder what a LEO would think as all that got piled alongside the Vette?
Checkpoints would be a nice thing. Then again, I wonder what percentage of the people stopped would be skipped because they're in the US illegally.
"It's a good idea and it should be adopted around the country"
As soon as the new recruits at the Police Academies get the goose step down it will be.
"You wanna bet?"
Uhm, no thanks. You're going to have to do better than that.
How does your argument demonstrate that checkpoints are not fishing expeditions? The majority of people passing through them are law abiding citizens who must prove that they are law abiding before they are allowed to pass.
From Miriam-Webster's Dictionary: "Fishing Expedition" -- an investigation that does not stick to a stated objective but hopes to uncover incriminating or newsworthy evidence
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.