The Glade 4.0

The man was let go from his work and bought a few guns afterwards. Nothing illegal about any activity he took and the swat teams of two counties close off a block for an hour and seize him and his property because they wanted to be "pro-active". The reason stated - they thought he might be "disgruntled". Look how the article is written.



http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... WS/3090315

POLICE ACT SIFTLY AFTER GUN PURCHASES
ODOT worker who'd been put on leave is mentally evaluated after buying handguns, AK-47
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ShareThisMarch 09, 2010

By Anita Burke
Mail Tribune
Concerns about an Oregon Department of Transportation employee who purchased several guns after being placed on leave prompted law enforcement across Southern Oregon to step in.

Negotiators and a SWAT team from Medford police safely took a man — whose name wasn't released — into protective custody Monday morning in the 500 block of Effie Street, Medford police said in a news release.

He was taken to Rogue Valley Medical Center for a mental-health evaluation.

The man recently had been placed on administrative leave from his job and was "very disgruntled," the news release said.

ODOT Communications Director Patrick Cooney said there were administrative, personnel matters involved that limited what the department could discuss.

However, the state agency had reported concerns about the man to law enforcement agencies, who started monitoring him, officials said.

"We had concerning information regarding a personnel issue and were watching the subject," Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said.

In two days, the man bought a Heckler & Koch .45-caliber universal self-loading handgun, a Walther .380-caliber handgun and an AK-47 assault rifle, Medford police Lt. Bob Hansen said. All of those firearms were purchased legally, with required record checks by the Oregon State Police.

Authorities were "extremely concerned" that the man may have been planning to retaliate against his employers, the news release said.

"Instead of being reactive, we took a proactive approach," OSP Sgt. Jeff Proulx said.

Douglas and Jackson County sheriff's departments, OSP officers based in both counties and police in Medford and Roseburg collaborated, he said.

Medford police watched the man's home overnight, starting at about 9 p.m. Sunday, Hansen said.

Because he was known to have weapons, police wanted to defuse the situation and ensure the man wasn't a danger to himself or others before the neighborhood awakened and people started their daily activities, Hansen said.

Medford's hostage negotiators and SWAT team were called in at 3 a.m. Monday and arrived on the scene at about 5:45 a.m., he said.

About a dozen officers responded. They closed the street for about an hour and evacuated three homes to protect neighbors and prevent bystanders from gathering, he said.

After a phone conversation with negotiators, the man — who was alone in the home — agreed to come out, Hansen said.

Police seized the recently purchased firearms, as well as another .45-caliber Heckler & Koch handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun. Police are holding the weapons for safekeeping, but no criminal charges have been filed.

Reach reporter Anita Burke at 541-776-4485, or e-mail aburke@mailtribune.com.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Leave the man alone.

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Holy shitsnacks!

1. the home was not "raided" The man agree to come out after talking with the negotiator.

2. Any of these things taken separately should be all right, but when you put things together you start to paint a picture of a potential problem.

3. If the man had gone on a shooting spree, people would be jumping up and down going "why didn't those worthless cops do -something"

4. If the man is found to be innocent and rational he should be released and his property returned to him.

5. certainly the man should not be held against his will after 24 hours without charges being filed. Is he in police custody? The article doesn't say.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

1. He was surrounded by men with firearms ready to shoot him, his street closed, and his neighbors evacuated. When a reasonable observer infers that a person is not "free to leave" then one is under arrest. There is no "agreement" possible in such a case of duress.

2. The picture violates no laws. You're ok with police doing this to you because they had a few pieces of information which "painted a story" to them?

3. And those people would be morons.

4. Found to be innocent of non-existant charges? What ammends should be made to him for the scenario?

5. Whose custody would expect him to be in after being taken away by SWAT?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Surely there is more to the story than police arresting a man just because he happened to buy a few guns within a couple of days after losing his job. Like, what was their probable cause other than the guns? Maybe something was said.
Of course, one would think that if the guy was seriously disturbed enough to buy the guns, he would have not gone peacefully with the police...he would have gone out in a hail of gunfire.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

They did not arrest him. They took him voluntarily for a mental health evaluation.

He was also not under effective arrest by not feeling "free to leave" because he was also inside his own home. The police did not enter. The mere presence of armed police officers talking to a person is not a reason to think one is not free to leave. Evidently they had no charges and there is no reason to think he would have been arrested had he declined to go with them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

They closed the street and evacuated homes, Diamondeye -- this wasn't two cops knocking on the door to check up on the guy. He's talking to the SWAT negotiator. What there produces any kind of expectation that failure to comply will result in any thing but forced entry by said SWAT team?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Then how did they seize his property?

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Holy shitsnacks!

The mere presence of the SWAT team does not make it reasonable to assume they will conduct a breach if you don't come out when they're asking you to come out. They didn't have a warrant, nor was there any imminent danger to anyone. Thinking they're going to come in just because "they're the SWAT team, and the cops don't care if they're supposed to or not" is being unreasonable.

That's not to say that the entire situation wasn't absurd from beginning to end; there was no need for any of this. That doesn't, however, change the fact that he was not under constructive arrest. He was in his own house. They didn't come in.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Obviously he let them come in at some point. I'm talking about before he agreed to come out. They clearly did not come in to get him.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The set standard of "arrest" in PA is having a person reasonably believe that they aren't free to leave.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Then why the hell was the SWAT team even there?

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Holy shitsnacks!

If I saw two SWAT trucks in front of my home, I wouldn't assume I was free to leave.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I'd probably call the cops.

"Um, yes, 911... there's a couple of SWAT vans on my front lawn, and a bunch of dudes with guns and **** hanging around... Can you send help please? I don't wanna get tazed."

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Holy shitsnacks!

I want to know where the government gets the authority to seek a mental evaluation, or even to compile any information about a non-criminal and with no evidence of commision of any crime to any ends at all.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

In all logicalness though... any dude who just lost his job and goes out to buy 3 guns, one of them being an assalt rifle would have me looking at him funny too.

I tend to increase my spending when I lose a job. I dunno why and I've been trying to fight it.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Emotional compensation.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

You have more time to try to find things to occupy yourself with. Usually things that occupy you (other than work) costs money.

Then you're not a reasonable person.



Because if the guy did turn out to be nuts and started blasting away when the phone rang or something, they'd be needed.

Having the SWAT team there, or actually anyone there at all, was really not necessary in the first place, but it does not create a constructive arrest.

[quote="Elmo
]The set standard of "arrest" in PA is having a person reasonably believe that they aren't free to leave.[/quote]

No, the standard everywhere is when a reasonable person would think they are not free to leave. Lots of unreasonable people think things that they consider reasonable but aren't. It's not based just on what the person in question thinks, anyone can claim they thought they weren't free to leave any time they want to. It has to be based on an articulated situation.

In any case, there is no reason to think a reasonable person wouldn't thinkt hey were free to leave. Evidently there was a phone conversation. A reasonable person, and even most unreasonable ones would ask the police something to the effect of "Do you have a warrant?" and "Are you here to arrest me?"

If the answer was "yes" or implied to be "yes", then you might have a case (since if they actually DID have a warrant he would have been arrested), but there's no evidence they actually did say anything of the sort. If they said "No, we aren't here to arrest you, we're just concerned about you" then it's not reasonable for him to think he'd be arrested if he didn't agree to their request. The mere presence of the police, regardless of numbers, is not cause for a constructive arrest especially when they are not actually preventing one from leaving. Simply having people there doesn't stop one from doing anything.

Without some evidence that they actually did something to create the impression that he'd be arrested if he left his house, (of which there is none) there's no case for a constructive arrest. Even if there was, it would still be a hard sell because he was also not actually in their physical control.

I'm not arguing that they should have done any of this in the first palce; this is just excessive concern over guns, and a police department being herded along by public sentiment. However, there's no case at all that there was a constructive arrest.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It gets it from the fact that it's the government; in this case the state government or its extension in local authorities. If it were the Federal government, it would be problematic since the Federal government is not authorized to adjudicate mental incompetance except for military personnel.

States, however, are.


No authority or right is needed to compile information, either. Information is just information. The means of gathering it, and the uses it is put to are certainly open to question, but posession of it is not.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There is almost certainly a whole lot more to the story than is in the article. All media have a tendency to get details wrong.

On the surface it looks like a lot of overreaction out of fear. No one was killed, no one was even shot.

Given the details in the story, were the police out of line? Maybe, there isn't enough information there to make that call, in my opinion. There is plenty of information in the story for readers to overreact though.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

You're being circular again DE. You're declaring that Coro isn't reasonable because he disagrees with you, now he is unreasonable so his statement doesn't have any weight on the expectation of a reasonable person.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I agree that this would likely not be considered "constructive arrest" in the sense of custodial detention, but I think it would almost certainly still be considered a seizure/detention for 4th Amendment purposes. As others have pointed out, the standard for that is simply whether a reasonable person would feel free to leave or otherwise decline to cooperate with the officers' requests, and the Supreme Court has stated that this is determined by a totality of the circumstances. In U.S. v. Mendenhall, the Court gave some examples of circumstances that "might indicate a seizure", including "the threatening presence of several officers; the display of a weapon by an officer;...or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer's request might be compelled." It seems pretty obvious that the presence of a 12-man SWAT team blocking off your street and evacuating your neighbors while a police negotiator calls and asks you to step outside is going to satisfy that standard!

Now, that said, even if the guy was seized under the 4th Amendment, that's still ok so long as the cops had a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity/intent and their seizure of the suspect was no more intrusive than necessary under the circumstances. Those are both debatable on the facts provided in the article. It's important to note, though, that multiple innocent factors that are completely legal on their own can, when taken together, be enough to support reasonable suspicion on the part of the police. (See U.S. v. Sokolow for that.) Personally, I'd say that getting fired, "acting disgruntled" and immediately buying a metric **** of guns is probably enough to raise a few eyebrows, though perhaps not enough to justify calling out the SWAT team.

Anyway, happened to have my Crim Pro book nearby, so figured I'd throw that stuff out there for reference.

snick

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"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." Charles Mackay