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http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/vi...p&VID=25382107
In a brazen instance of police overreach, a Florida convenience store owner is filing a civil rights lawsuit against local police for continual and unrelenting harassment of his customers and employees by officers.
According to the Miami Herald, the last three years have been a nightmare for workers and shoppers at the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store in Miami Gardens. Here is just one employees experience with the police:
Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years.
He’s been searched more than 100 times. And arrested and jailed 56 times.
Despite his long rap sheet, Sampson, 28, has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of marijuana.
Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing.
Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens.
But Sampson isn’t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.
The store’s owner, Alex Saleh, has tried again and again to get police to stop the harassment, but his pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
Finally, exacerbated at being ignored, Saleh installed surveillance cameras in his store to record the abuse. The footage he has collected over the past two years is startling.
Police have regularly arrested people for simply shopping at the store. Workers are stopped before getting inside the building, stopped and frisked, and sometimes arrested. Workers are pulled out of the store while on the clock, oftentimes being cited for trespassing (even though, by definition, they have permission to be in the store because they were hired to be there). At least once instance, shows a police officer pretending to use the bathroom and instead searching the back of the store (without a warrant).
The experience has left Saleh’s store chronically understaffed and with sales down as customers are understandably reluctant to shop there.
The entire situation has law experts scratching their heads:
“There is just no justifying this kind of behavior,’’ said Chuck Drago, a former police officer and consultant on police policy and the use of force. “Nobody can justify overstepping the cons ution to fight crime.”
Saleh says the nightmare all started about three years ago when police asked him to participate in a citywide program called “zero-tolerance”, meant to reduce crime. Saleh was happy to oblige (who doesn’t want to help stop crime?), but what he didn’t realize is that police were going to use that signature as justifying nearly any police abuse that they would commit while around his store.
The idea behind the program is based in a theory of criminology called the “broken window theory,” which holds that a community that rids itself of petty crime and minor vandalism will lead to a reduction in serious crime, because criminals will have no where to hide.
Scientists who study crime have mixed feelings on the validity of the theory. The theory has been widely implemented across the country – even cited by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, as being the primary force driving the reduction of crime in New York City in the 1990s. The problem is, the theory also has very, very little data showing a direct correlation between its use and actually stopping violent crime.
When University of Chicago professors Bernard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig revisited broken windows, they reported criminologists knew very little about the theory’s effectiveness. Even further, their paper found no evidence, outside of Kelling’s work, to support that cracking down on minor offenses decreases more serious crime.
Aside from lack of evidence that cracking down on minor offenses reduced felonies, much of the new research found targeting minor crimes harms poor people as well as blacks and Hispanics. [source]
Those flaws are clearly on display in Miami Gardens. The community has struggled with gang violence, drug crime and shooting sprees in recent years. Overall crime has fallen but violent crime has doubled, according to state crime figures. Also, the city (the third largest in Miami-Dade) is mostly black and almost universally poor. These are the very people scientists warned would be disproportionately affected by over-zealous “broken window” enforcers.
Saleh knew he made a mistake by inviting police harassment almost immediately.
Miami Gardens police officers, he said, began stopping his patrons regularly, citing them for minor infractions such as trespassing, or having an open container of alcohol. The officers, he said, would then pat them down or stick their hands in citizens’ pockets. But what bothered Saleh the most was the emboldened behavior of the officers who came into his store unannounced, searched his store without his permission and then hauled his employees away in the middle of their shifts. He finally told them he no longer wanted to participate in the program and removed the sign. [source]
But that didn’t stop police from continuing to make frequent stops to his store. The officers even put the sign back on his store, despite his protests. Apparently, police in Miami Gardens follow the “vampire guest” rule that allows them to come in once invited and never leave.
The police have offered little explanation as to why they feel justified in the constant arrests for little to no crimes. They may it is wrong though, the video surveillance has shown that they frequently lie about it.
On that June arrest report, obtained by The Herald, police explained the trespass arrest, saying that Sampson was arrested for loitering outside the store when in fact the video, which has a date and time stamp, clearly shows him being handcuffed and arrested inside the store.
Another employee, Ron Picart, was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm. The case was never filed by the state attorney because the officer, Dunaske, found the firearm under the store’s counter during an illegal search, which was video recorded.
Despite the mounting evidence against it, the Miami Gardens police department has not let up. In all likelihood, as you read this very article, a police officer is harassing an employee or customer at the 207 Quickstop, for no other reason than that they can.
- See more at: http://www.classwarfareexists.com/po....AMkmZE01.dpuf
tax dollars at work
seems like a corrupt cop making legitimate business owners to close shop, is there another small business same type of business operating on the street or around the area as a compe or? probably using whatever muscle to push out compe ors....
Don't need to read the article to know where it happened tbh. It happened in Florida, guaranteed.
That's not what the broken window theory is at all. The broken window theory is essentially that if you repair neighborhoods (as in fix broken windows, hence the name) crime will go down because people will take more pride in their community. For example, a building without any broken windows is less likely to get vandalized. Nothing about the broken window theory involves aggressive cops going after petty crimes.
the cops
thanks for making this thread, doggie. if i would have made it, about 2 or 3 geeks would have called me a race baiter and accused me of pulling the race card. but anyways, this story is ed up. i hope some of these pigs lose their jobs behind this.
some need to be shot...because according to my theory committing far worse crimes that aren't being reported...
So if you get stopped and frisked or arrested every day for a year, what's the odds you're going to have a bag of weed or a joint on you somewhere in that time and how stupid do you have to be in order to have it on you?
I have a feeling there's a lot more to this story, like the workers crossing private property to get to the store, selling drugs from inside the store, something along those lines. Otherwise the police dept is spending a lot of money to do petty and violate civil rights.
yeah, it's Florida. let's give the cops the benefit of the doubt here.
saint dorner. gone but not forgotten.some need to be shot...because according to my theory committing far worse crimes that aren't being reported...
Since there's always two sides to a story and we're only hearing one, and since the other side is in an "official capacity", it's safe to say there has to be an existing order to do what they are doing. I think if we knew the history behind it, we might still disagree with it, but it wouldn't be as blatantly over the top as it appears to be from that article.
Also, is that Chappele's brother?
In all fairness, it wouldn't be politically correct for them to use the more accurate term "broke nigg3r theory". Which basically says get rid of the broke nigg3rs and crime will go down.
In Miami Gardens, store video catches cops in the act
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/2...o-catches.html
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