
Court to Cops: No Immunity If You 'Don't Have Time for Constitutional Bullshit' - fritzw
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161113/06093636030/appeals-court-to-cops-if-you-dont-have-time-constitutional-bullshit-you-dont-get-immunity.shtml
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jknoepfler
The very idea that the police would return to the house without cause or
warrant and search it - which is a grotesque constitutional violation -
reflects an attitude of hostility and opposition to the community the police
are supposed to literally "protect and serve."

I'm increasingly of the belief that the domestic police in the United States
shouldn't even be called a force, they should be called a service. They should
not carry firearms, and they should not receive primarily military training.
They should be well paid and receive aggressive financial incentives to
continue their education. They should always be wearing a body cam when on
duty.

There will always be a need for armed police at some point, but that point is
not the streets, and not daily response to mundane events.

~~~
lossolo
> They should not carry firearms

Unfortunately in a society where a lot of citizens have fire arms, where gang
culture exist this will not be possible at all. How many times police was shot
on routine daily events? Police not carrying weapons is not realistic in USA.

~~~
lg
agreed. if they are unarmed then they can forget about arresting people and
bringing them into jail and in front of a judge. plenty of people are willing
to kill to avoid that outcome.

~~~
euyyn
> they can forget about arresting people and bringing them into jail and in
> front of a judge

Hyperbole much? I expect most arrests are done without firearms being drawn.

> plenty of people are willing to kill to avoid that outcome.

And plenty of people are willing to kill for other reasons too, which is why
no one's discussing that zero police officers should carry firearms. What's
being questioned is the policy of all of them doing it.

~~~
lg
maybe most arrests happen that way, but you need to be prepared for any
reasonable eventuality. apprehending people can be very dangerous. I see no
reason why an officer would willingly go into that situation unprepared to
defend him/herself with lethal force. having armed help a radio call away
doesn't seem comforting when you're dealing with someone who's armed and angry
now.

~~~
euyyn
I would bet most shots at the police aren't because the criminal wants to
straight up murder a police officer out of anger in the heat of the moment.
Rather because he's scared, wants to flee, and his only option left for that
is his gun.

It's a given here in the US that the moment you as much as appear to draw a
gun at a cop, you're getting shot. So I don't think criminals even have to
think about it to know that it's a "kill first or die" situation, once you're
down that route. Now, _if_ the criminal knows that the cop is unarmed, all of
that changes: his gun is just leverage. He flees (or expels the cops off his
house), which is undesirable; but then's when the situation can be escalated.
No more "wild West" situations of "this guy might shoot me any moment, better
be prepared to kill him for my life".

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StanislavPetrov
The real problem here is that these cops were not immediately arrested for
home invasion and the abuse of his Constitutional rights. Why is this limited
to a civil suit? These cops acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally and should
be criminally charged.

~~~
anigbrowl
Prosecutors work closely with police, and the chief prosecutor in a
jurisdiction has to stand for re-election on a regular basis. A prosecutor who
cracks down on police abuses is often committing career suicide.

~~~
SteveNuts
That sounds to me like a conflict of interest

~~~
anigbrowl
It absolutely is, I'm opposed to the election of prosecutos and judges because
the electorate is really not competent to make such decisions and reversing
ones that turn out badly is next to impossible.

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FilterSweep
One thing not discussed yet here is that it also appears to me the National
Suicide Hotline isn't even handling their calls correctly.

I'm clearly no suicide prevention expert, but questioning the caller on drug
use, repeatedly demanding to put weapons (that are not even present) away,
then calling a militant police force upon no response, shows that the Hotline
isn't really being the sympathetic role they were initially intended to be.

As bad as this situation has been for veterans, it brings to light how poorly
(IMO) they are handling citizens reaching out for help as well.

~~~
Bartweiss
This stood out to me as well.

The drug use question is a reasonable one, at least in terms of _active_ use.
It has a significant impact on how you want to talk to someone, how at-risk
they are, and yes, on what the police should be aware of if they're eventually
contacted. It shouldn't ever go further if the person doesn't need a police
visit, though.

Demanding that he "say the guns are down" sounds like stupid and alarming
legalism. It strikes me as someone reading a script, unable to deal with an
answer of "they were never up to begin with, and are locked away, can we move
on".

And the whole thing... yes, the police can help with suicides. Yes, someone
hanging up without explanation is a bad sign. But you can't fail to help
people, then assume they're unstable for hanging up on you, then make wild and
unjustified claims to the police.

~~~
mcguire
It stood out to me as well.

As an initial thought, I would have expected the hotline to operate under the
same privacy regulations as any other medical facility. At least in the
absence of any warning otherwise.

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tracker1
Nice to see the courts doing the right thing here... While I feel that most
Police Officers are mostly good, and that a lot of the anti-police rhetoric
exceeds reasonable; I do believe it's become a systemic issue wrt Police
organizations exceeding their positions and violating the rights of the people
they are meant to serve.

~~~
jrs235
From the comments on the site: "One of the facts that bothers me most -- other
than the officers behavior -- is that this comes from the APPEALS court. The
District court apparently found no problem with the violation of his
constitutional rights."

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
Not necessarily? It seems reasonable the MPD could & would have appealed if
the district ruled against, especially given this case hadn't made national
media. And although there were egregious comments made, this is the kind of
situation where precedent and judicial restraint almost always ends up
favoring the PD.

Edit: District court did rule in MPD's favor. Which isn't surprising of
course. Still, wouldn't have been surprised if MPD appealed had it gone
against them, for above mentioned reasons.

~~~
vilhelm_s
The court opinion is linked in the first paragraph of the article. It begins

> [Corrigan] now appeals the grant of summary judgment to the defendants,
> challenging the district court’s rulings that there was no constitutional
> violation and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.

Also interesting is how close this case was: the appeals court panel was split
2-1. The dissenting judge agrees that there was a constitutional violation,
but says this law was not "clearly established" so the officers should have
immunity. It goes to show how low the qualified immunity bar is.

~~~
baldfat
WOW if this doesn't just go to show how far we have gone in terms of our
policies.

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Beltiras
I'm just glad the cops didn't kill the dog. My first thought when reading
about his dog was "Oh no!".

~~~
Beltiras
There's even a blog about police murdering dogs.

[https://dogmurders.wordpress.com/](https://dogmurders.wordpress.com/)

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Neliquat
This is the problem with American LEOs. Not racism, but a basic contempt for
the system.

~~~
Beltiras
Don't think this is a uniquely American problem. Icelandic police just got
handed a sentence for stripsearching a 16 year old girl.

~~~
belovedeagle
> just got handed a sentence

And here we see why the current American problem _is_ uniquely American —
because that would never have happened.

~~~
hga
_Really??_

[https://www.google.com/search?q=strip+search+texas+road](https://www.google.com/search?q=strip+search+texas+road)

And not just in Texas, see some of the articles.

ADDED: I missed that, to date, to my knowledge and from what I've just been
reviewing, none of the police in these cases have been so much as criminally
charged.

Yes, that indeed shows it didn't happen in the US.

~~~
tylerhobbs
If you read the quoted portion of his comment, you'll see he's talking about
the officers being sentenced, not the offense happening in the first place.

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zekevermillion
Very sad that someone calling with PTSD did not get help, but the opposite.
4th amendment violations happen all the time. It's good to see justice done
here, the system worked (eventually). The upshot of this story is not so much
that the police messed up, as occasionally happens with treagic result -- it
is that veterans still are not getting quality care.

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Kenji
Having mental health problems is dangerous. Once again it shows that you must
not let the state know in any way, shape or form, or else you can expect that
they take rights away from you.

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altendo
the article fails to clarify this, but the number for the Veterans' Crisis
Line and the National Suicide Hotline are the same (1-800-273-8255). When you
call that number, you are prompted to press 1 to be redirected to the veterans
line. In this case, Mr. Corrigan likely missed the prompt and got sent to the
suicide hotline - a not uncommon experience for veterans.

~~~
mcguire
Is there a notice that the National Suicide Hotline will report your call to
your local police? Does the Veterans' line have the same policy?

~~~
altendo
It depends entirely on where your call to the suicide hotline gets routed. I
won't contact police unless there's an immediate threat to the caller or to
someone else (in cases of abuse/homicide, the caller might not be the one in
danger), anything short of that I won't. This, however, is how my crisis
center handles such calls. I can't speak for every organization that takes
calls from the suicide hotline.

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altendo
This is hard to read. I volunteer at a crisis center, and just reading the
description of how the phone volunteer handled the call made me cringe. In my
experience, you don't call the cops just because they call the suicide hotline
and have guns - I've experienced instances where callers call and _aren 't_
suicidal. I'd need a clear sense of intent before going out of my way to do
that. I really hope this was just a one-off thing, and not at all how
volunteers (if they are volunteers at all) treat callers on the suicide
hotline.

~~~
mcguire
Do your clients know that you may call the police if you get a sense of
intent?

~~~
altendo
If I perceive an imminent likelihood of an attempt, I'll generally start
trying to get a location from them - it's not subtle, they'll know. Sometimes
people will give it, other times they resist for whatever reason. For those
that resist I will process that feeling that they have and then try again.
They may even ask if I'll contact police, in which case I can't lie to them.
Ultimately I may _never_ get a location, or I'll have an extremely ill-defined
location - it's always up to the caller if that is information they want to
give.

~~~
altendo
clarification: if it gets to the point where I suspect an attempt is likely,
or if an attempt is happening, I will start working towards attempting to get
location information. The first thing I usually do, however, is help the
caller process their feelings to help build trust upfront, even in cases of
high suicidality. Speed is of the essence though in certain circumstances.

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ccvannorman
I read through this article and was shocked at the level of expectation for
constitutional violation built into the police departments "standard operating
procedures." Happy to see the court wasn't having it, and hope this trend
continues to clamp down on this department and others who believe or behave
similarly.

------
ashmud
News story from 2012:
[http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/guns/2012/may/23/miller-...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/guns/2012/may/23/miller-
iraq-vet-brutalized-over-guns-dc/)

------
VaChildAbuse
Well this is nice to read. I have PTSD, and attempted suicide three weeks ago.
I was having a big problem last night and almost rang the same number. I'm
glad that I didn't. So next time I'll probably just get into a bag, or jump
from a higher place than last time.

~~~
ImTalking
Very sorry to hear this, mate. With depression, we lose sight of the small
wins in life like a beautiful day, or a walk on the beach. Society measures
success by wealth/status but individually, deep down, all of us know that the
accumulation of small wins is the ticket. My son has asperger's and this is
what I try to instil in him. I hope you're OK.

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joesmo
This is why it's a terrible idea in the US to tell anyone about your problems,
especially mental problems. Help is _NOT_ out there unless you're extremely
lucky and rich. Most likely, there are a bunch of goons like in this article
waiting to pick you up, beat you up, and drop you off at the nearest jail.
That's if they don't just kill you outright.

And the uninformed still wonder why we have so many problems with mental
health and suicide in the US, a place where seeking help--even by accident--is
likely to make things worse or even lead to death.

~~~
altendo
> Help is _NOT_ out there unless you're extremely lucky and rich

There is, for sure. There are crisis centers that don't respond like that.
They may not be common - so maybe some luck is involved - but there are people
out there trying to help others.

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mrcactu5
wait. even though the veteran was suicidal, it's that he used the wrong phone
number? i'm confused.

veterans go though a unique form of stress. and they get seperate medical care
etc, which I hear is not always that great.

~~~
Noseshine
He wasn't suicidal. He just call the wrong hotline.

    
    
      > A disabled vet with PTSD accidentally called a suicide prevention hotline when
      > intending to dial the Veterans Crisis Line.
    

Very first line in the article.

~~~
mrcactu5
so why was he calling the Veteran's crisis line?

~~~
mikeash
Because he couldn't sleep, and it's implied he was having trouble with his
PTSD.

Is it too much to ask to read the article?

~~~
086421357909764
To follow your comment, numerous veterans un-able to get support locally
through their VA office have used the line as a last ditch effort to get
support. Knowing you are suffering from a mental health issue isn't the same
as being suicidal.

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libeclipse
The police officers' behaviour in the situation was inexcusable, but the bias
and anti-police rhetoric in the article is excessive.

~~~
smitherfield
I wouldn't even call it inexcusable. The police are allowed to enter a private
residence to prevent a person from harming themselves or others, and they had
received a report, which they had no reason to believe was untrue, stating
that the guy was suicidal and had a gun.

~~~
coldcode
Once, maybe. The second time is the unconstitutional behavior and will result
in the city paying millions of dollars.

~~~
exclusiv
Which is sad because the public gets screwed by them twice.

~~~
mcguire
The nice thing about democracy is that you get the government you deserve.

