I think this is where police brutality starts - right here, to average people, and it goes unnoticed when people fail to report the misconduct of officers that they suffer from every day all over the country. Don't put up with it - report it, make a paper trail. Call the number on the bottom of your ticket, get your story straight, look up the laws, and send it in to the people who are training these guys. This is the report I just sent in.
“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.”
-Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America
July 3rd, 2009 11:15pm
I was with a group of friends and acquaintances somewhere between beach 17 and 18 at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. We had just finished eating a delicious fire-cooked feast of foil-baked food, and were standing around the fire together listening to the waves and talking under a starry sky when we were spotted by some uniformed officers. I believe there were five of them. They drove up behind our group in two beach buggies and began to gather around us, forming a sort of semi circle from the north and east. They shined their flashlights in our eyes when we looked to acknowledge their arrival, then began shining their lights on our bags and asking people questions; Any alcohol? No, we said. What's in those bags? There were some paper bags the groceries had come in, which were now largely filled with trash, and our personal backpacks and coolers. They demanded that someone search through these bags. But that person's search produced nothing of concern and they started poking around themselves. Already they had infringed on our Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our persons and effects. Apparently they were looking for alcohol. However, our group was standing around a public fire pit with a number of other groups.They did not have probable cause, nor does probable cause necessarily circumvent the need to issue a warrant or at least to state a reason for suspicion. Even where a search is deemed valid without a warrant ''...the Court frequently asserts that ''the most basic constitutional rule in this area is that 'searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment” (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/03.html#1, 9/7/2009). This search was unreasonable.
I was standing on the more eastern side of the semi-circle of officials, and I was upset by how nervous our group had become when they arrived, as well as by their unwarranted search. Our group was not being rowdy or loud. The only things about us which may have attracted attention were our numbers and diversity, so I spoke up. There were two uniformed men standing nearby, so I put my question out to them “Why are you searching us?” I got no reply. So I tried another angle. I said “It's illegal to search without a cause, why are you searching us?” This time, the officer farther from me turned around and beamed me in the face with his flashlight as he said “I'll give you a ticket without a cause!”.
My stomach tightened. This man wearing a government uniform, carrying a large heavy flashlight, and very probably armed with a gun, had plainly stated that he was willing to blatantly defy the law. He made this statement among his peers, all similarly out-fitted, and none of them spoke up. None of my peers dared to say anything as we were all prepared only for a pleasant evening out on the beach, not a hostile confrontation with authority.
I was still shocked by his words by the time he approached me. Again the light was in my face, then it traveled down to my left hand in which I was holding a quarter-full plastic cup. “What's in the cup?” he demanded. I saw sand settled in the bottom of the cup and floating near the edges. Without thinking, I dumped the cup upside down in the sand. He instantly grabbed my shoulder, squeezing hard and pulled me roughly away from the fire and my friends. “Come with me” My feet were barely touching the ground. This man-handling was entirely unnecessary. He did not even ask me to follow him before grabbing hold of my sholder and dragging me across the sand. I was intimidated, I was even scared. I was physically powerless compared to him, obviously the people I was with would not have been able to help me should the need arise, and he had already made it quite clear that he was not compelled to obey the law. This was a frightening combination.
In Terry v. Ohio “Chief Justice Warren for the Court wrote that the Fourth Amendment was ... applicable 'whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away'"(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/03.html#1, 9/7/2009). I received no explanation, and certainly no warrant before I was dragged away to be written up.
At the sand cruiser he pulled out a pad and began scribbling. He asked for my license, which I had in my back pocket, and I handed it to him. He looked at the address printed on my license, “Is this where you live?” “That is my permanent address, yes”. Clearly, I was not living there at the time since I was in California. I also happened to be at that unfortunate place in American young-adulthood where I had no address since I had just graduated from college and was not yet employed, so I had responded as honestly and clearly as I could. “Is this where you live?” “That is my permanent address”, “Do you live there?” Not sure why he was still prying at that I gave the answer he wanted, for a second time. “Yes.”
He continued writing on the ticket only to stop a moment later, “it says here you weigh 103 pounds, is that how much you weigh?” “Actually it says 106, and how is that relevant?” “Well I think you weigh more than that” I guess he would have a good idea since he just dragged me to his car, yet I still didn't see how this pertained to the citation he was writing... which he still had not explained. “I need it for identification purposes. I have to make sure I have the right person. I think you weigh more than this” “You should know you don't have to update your weight when you renew your license, and I really don't know why it matters. I'm about 115 now” “Really, I'd say you weigh more like 120”. And that is what he wrote on the ticket. Now it was clear that he was just taunting me, picking at every detail he could find, trying to get some satisfaction out of revealing my insecurities. Did he want to see me cry?
He resumed writing on the ticket. I stood there trembling and upset at the injustice, but since I was already receiving a citation and knowing my right to freedom of speech, I asked another question. “Do you feel like you're doing a civil service?” He didn't answer. I filled the silence with a remark about how enlightening he had been, and he told me that if I needed a lecture he would give me one when he was done writing. So when he finished he straightened up and looked at me in the eye to say, and I quote, “Dumb girls like you get drunk on the beach at night, and they get raped”. The things this remark conveyed to me were troubling: First he called me dumb, and then he blamed women for being raped. I was, again, too rattled to think of a good response and ended up saying only “Thanks for calling me dumb, that's really kind of you”.
At this point he had made me feel extremely unsafe. I knew he had no regard for the law, he was willing to use brute force to coerce people into action, he demeaned women, considered me personally to be dumb, was armed, and unaccountable to the other people with equal standing present at the time. Next he asked me if I had any belongings with me. I said “yes, I have a backpack by the fire.” He told me to get it but made no move to hand me my license. Before I took a step away, I asked for my license, which he slowly handed to me. I put it back in my pocket, walked to the fire, shakily picked up my backpack, and tried to maintain enough composure to tell my friends that I was basically okay but that we should go. Before I had said more than 3 words to that effect Michael's voice was raised, “Get off the beach or I'm going to arrest you!”
I was startled, maybe I should have assumed that I would be arrested if I didn't leave the beach instantly after getting my bag, but I hadn't even explained to my friends that I'd gotten a ticket, nor did I know I was expected to leave the beach instantly. I began to explain that I came with these people, they had parked the car after I was on the beach, and I didn't know where it was so I needed to leave with them. They were still gathering their own things as some of them had also been “interviewed”. Again “GET OFF THE BEACH NOW! OR I'M GONNA ARREST YOU!”
Now I had only two choices. One was to walk away from the people I knew, into the dark, across the beach alone to an uncertain location after being told by this officer of the law that girls get raped on this beach a lot. Or, I could get arrested. I turned helplessly to my friends, who assured me that they would follow and urged me to go. So I went – very much distressed, out into the dark by myself to avoid being arrested.
Michael, officer number 239, did nothing to improve the well-being of myself, my friends, or the other people on the beach. He in fact induced fear, distrust, vulnerability, and he undermined the law, specifically, the fourth amendment.
I believe that Michael should be required to take some time to review the Bill of Rights, and to reevaluate his role as an officer and his views about women and rape victims. All the people who were on duty with him that night and did nothing to counteract his behavior should be reminded that they must hold one another up to the same standards they impose on those around them.
If I had been able to stay in California long enough, I would have contested this citation. It was completely unreasonable, according to the law.
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