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The SWAT Team Would Like to See Your Alcohol Permit
How police use regulatory inspections to conduct warrantless searches
Radley Balko | December 13, 2010
In August a team of heavily armed Orange County, Florida, sheriff’s deputies raided several black- and Hispanic-owned barbershops in the Orlando area. There were more raids in September and October. According to the Orlando Sentinel, barbers and customers were held at gunpoint, some in handcuffs, while police turned the shops upside down. A total of nine shops were raided, and 37 people were arrested.
By all appearances, these raids were drug sweeps. Shop owners told the Sentinel police asked where they were hiding illegal drugs and weapons. But in the end, 34 of the 37 arrests were for "barbering without a licence," a misdemeanor for which only three people have ever served jail time in Florida. Two arrests were for misdemeanor marijuana possession. Just one person was arrested on felony drug and weapon charges.
The most disturbing aspect of the raids, however, was that police didn't bother to obtain search warrants. They didn't have to. The raids were conducted in conjunction with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Despite the guns and handcuffs, under Florida law these were licensure inspections, not criminal searches. So no warrant was necessary. Such "administrative searches" are a disturbingly common end run around the Fourth Amendment.
This sort of raid is usually conducted in bars and nightclubs under the guise of an alcohol inspection. New Haven recently sent a SWAT team to a local bar to investigate reports of underage drinking. Last week the Atlanta City Council agreed to pay a $1 million settlement to the customers and employees of a gay nightclub after a heavy-handed police raid in which 62 people were lined up on the floor at gunpoint, searched for drugs, and checked for outstanding warrants (and, incredibly, unpaid parking tickets). The September 2009 raid was conducted after undercover vice cops claimed to have witnessed patrons and employees openly having sex at the club. But the police never obtained a search warrant. Instead the raid was conducted as part of an alcohol inspection. There were no drug arrests, but eight employees were arrested for permit violations.
Federal appeals courts have upheld administrative searches even when they look for evidence of criminal activity, as long as the government can plausibly claim that the primary purpose of the search was regulatory. In the case of the Orlando raids, simply noting the arrests of 34 unlicensed barbers would be enough to meet this test.
But the Fourth Amendment requires that searches be "reasonable." If using a SWAT team to make sure a bar isn't serving 19-year-olds is considered reasonable, it's hard to imagine what wouldn't be. In 2009 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit allowed a civil rights suit to go forward against the Rapides Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff's Department after a warrantless SWAT raid on a nightclub thinly veiled as an administrative search. In 1995 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit made an even broader ruling, finding that having probable cause and a warrant for the arrest of one person in a club did not justify a SWAT raid and subsequent search of the entire club and everyone inside.
Other legal challenges to administrative searches have been less successful. Consider the bizarre case of David Ruttenberg, owner of the Rack 'n' Roll pool hall in Manassas Park, Virginia. In June 2004, local police conducted a massive raid on the pool hall that included more than 50 police officers, some of whom were wearing face masks and toting automatic weapons. (Watch video of the raid here.) It turned out police were investigating Ruttenberg for several alleged drug crimes, although so far he has not been charged with any. They had tried unsuccessfully to get a warrant to search the pool hall, where Ruttenberg also lived. So instead they brought along several representatives of the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and claimed to be conducting an alcohol inspection. The raid yielded three drug-related arrests, but two of the arrestees turned out to be police informants, and the third was an undercover police officer. Ruttenberg was cited for three alcohol violations, based on two bottles of beer a distributor had left that weren't clearly marked as samples and vodka found in his private office.
In June 2006, Ruttenberg filed a civil rights suit alleging that the town and the police department were unfairly targeting him and had repeatedly tried to frame him on drug charges. (I've followed and reported on Ruttenberg's case for several years.) In December 2006, a federal judge dismissed all of Ruttenberg's claims. In 2008 a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the ruling on every claim but one—that using 50 or so police officers, SWAT gear, and automatic weapons to conduct an alcohol inspection is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The case went back to the district court judge, who again dismissed that claim. In April of this year, a 4th Circuit panel affirmed that decision. Which means Ruttenberg's out of luck, and at least in the 4th Circuit, the Fourth Amendment doesn't prevent the government from sending a SWAT team to make sure your beer is labeled correctly.
Most Americans probably believe they can't be searched, handcuffed, or have a police gun pointed at them without probable cause. But courts have consistently found that the Fourth Amendment affords less protection for businesses, their employees, and their patrons than it does for private homes. Get caught in the wrong bar, barbershop, or pool hall at the wrong time, and you could find yourself subjected to an "inspection" that looks and feels su iously like a search.
Wuuuuuuuuuuut ?
It's called abuse of law in my book, and why I am opposed to all new regulations, laws, etc. that are not necessary. Too often, some little item is written in that allows the government to abuse it's power, legally.
Ross Douthat, where is your sorry ass now?
"evil in high places" and low, is everywhere. Hitchens is right, you're wrong, like all Repugs and conservatives are wrong, All Wrong, All The Time.
Like, say, locking up terror suspects with no recourse to an effective legal system? Or using torture on them to get confessions? I don't see how that power could be abused...
Well played, sir.
You beat me to it.
Please show me any other time in history that those captured during war were given trials during the war, and was the commonplace.
Well, the people who have been "captured during war" were usually affiliated with the country we were at war against, correct?
Would you say that terror suspects are affiliated/allied with the country they attack from?
No, but do they get a "bye" because they aren't representing a country? As soon as we do that, how many countries may consider using people dressed and acting as radical groups to attack us?
I'm not sure how being sent to court and put on trial is considered a "bye".
The whole point of the Geneva Conventions is that, if you wage war lawfully, then you can't be sent to prison/jail for waging war. The Geneva Conventions laws were created to protect soldiers who were following the laws of international conflict/war from being sued/tried etc etc. That's why soldiers must distinguish themselves in war (brandishing arms openly, wearing uniform etc etc).
However, when you have a non-state actor that gets arrested by any group, how do we know whether or not he actually committed the crimes he is accused of? He goes on trial. Especially when said "war" may occur anywhere, at any time.
Given your opinion that creating new laws/regulations/etc allows government to possibly abuse their power, why would you support a new/different system of justice (military tribunals) rather than put them through regular trials in a court system that has existed for hundreds of years?
It comes down to current operations, planning, and classified information. Without being able to use such things, the courts will most often have no choice but to release them.
Now I can agree with using a tribunal system as outlined by the cons ution, where the rules are changed to protect classified information. Just not in any public court system.
Fair enough. I agree readily that if confidential data is involved, then it should not be in a "public" venue. Do you think that the accused should have rights to access the data/info being used against them?
That's where it becomes tricky. No. The courts should be able to have one side present evidence without the other side present. This isn't normal proceedings were normal cons utional protections apply. Classified information needs to be kept as such. The accused can still get a fair hearing without being privy to how the information was collected.
Let's put yourself into those shoes WC. How would you feel if the gov't branded you a terrorist, then used secret info to convict you, that neither you or your lawyer had access to review?
I wouldn't like it one bit. However, you cannot use that as an argument against convicting an innocent man, because it happens in our society anyway, in open court systems.
Bull , and complete lack of understanding how the justice system works, including protective orders. Posts like this one reek of ignorance and ultimately destroy any sort of credibility you might have.
It's not a perfect system but convictions can be appealed and the discovery of new investigative methods surface all the time (ie: DNA testing) that allows the wrongly convicted to challenge their convictions.
Obviously, you need a basic access to the justice system to do that.
That's pretty poor logic. Are you claiming that because innocents are sometimes put in jail now, that it makes no difference what standards are used to prove guilt?
Putting a man in jail or detention without letting him see the evidence against him is unAmerican.
You said yourself you're wary of the government abusing its power, right? What's to stop someone from arresting you, then charging you with a crime, and finding you guilty on evidence you can't review?
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.co...swat-team.htmlWhy in heaven's name does the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department need its own SWAT team? Does the guy in this photo look like he's prepared to perform any task you traditionally associate with a game warden? Wrote William Norman Grigg at LewRockwell.com:
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has a newly minted SWAT team. To be sure, the agency maintains that this “cadre of specialty teams” will focus on search-and-rescue missions. However, the way Game Warden Cullen Stakes is dressed in the photo above makes it pretty clear that he’s not getting ready to rescue people who have been stranded by floods, or have gotten lost in the woods.Ridiculous. There's nowhere in the state where TPWD couldn't call in local SWAT if they needed it. Utterly absurd, and pointless.
Among the TPWD’s specialized units is the “Scout Team,” a group of 25 wardens who “have received a variety of training and can be used in border operations, dignitary protection, or any form of high-risk law enforcement, such as serving felony arrests or hostage situations,” explains Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine.
“We can have a team anywhere in Texas in four hours, and that’s the worst-case scenario,” boasts Law Enforcement Special Operations Chief Grahme Jones. “A lot of times it’s much faster.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...aph-strippers/So this was a regulatory operation. But instead of sending a few bureaucrats to do the paperwork, the city of San Diego thought it appropriate to send a team of gun-toting cops to raid the place (similar to recent masked, militarized SWAT raids on massage parlors). Remember, according to the report, there was no su ion of criminal activity here. This was a routine inspection. Which raises the question: Are all routine, regulatory inspections of San Diego businesses done with raid teams? Is it just strip clubs? Are strippers known for being dangerous? And if the photos were necessary for record-keeping purposes, why was it necessary to photograph the women while they weren’t wearing clothing?
It’s also puzzling why the TV station felt obligated to protect the iden ies of the police officers. If this was truly just a regulatory inspection, the cops wouldn’t be undercover officers. So what’s the point? This seems to be to be a pretty questionable use of that sort of force. The TV station obviously believes there’s at least an argument to be made that it was, or they wouldn’t have aired the story. TV stations air the names and photos of people suspected of crimes all the time. Yet police officers are public servants, who are authorized to carry guns, forcibly detain, and in some cases kill. There’s a strong argument that journalists should make every effort to expose the iden ies of officers who use force in questionable ways, not go out of their way to obscure them.
I agree.
We afford police a greater protection under the law of their persons in acknowledgement of what function they serve and the dangerousness of that job. We have a right expect, and they have a duty, to be as transparent about what they do with the trust we place in them.
from the liberal loonies at the Economist:
http://www.economist.com/news/united...ps-or-soldiersPeter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies, estimates that SWAT teams were deployed about 3,000 times in 1980 but are now used around 50,000 times a year. Some cities use them for routine patrols in high-crime areas. Baltimore and Dallas have used them to break up poker games. In 2010 New Haven, Connecticut sent a SWAT team to a bar suspected of serving under-age drinkers. That same year heavily-armed police raided barber shops around Orlando, Florida; they said they were hunting for guns and drugs but ended up arresting 34 people for “barbering without a licence”. Maricopa County, Arizona sent a SWAT team into the living room of Jesus Llovera, who was suspected of organising fights. Police rolled a tank into Mr Llovera’s yard and killed more than 100 of his birds, as well as his dog. According to Mr Kraska, most SWAT deployments are not in response to violent, life-threatening crimes, but to serve drug-related warrants in private homes.
He estimates that 89% of police departments serving American cities with more than 50,000 people had SWAT teams in the late 1990s—almost double the level in the mid-1980s. By 2007 more than 80% of police departments in cities with between 25,000 and 50,000 people had them, up from 20% in the mid-1980s (there are around 18,000 state and local police agencies in America, compared with fewer than 100 in Britain).
The number of SWAT deployments soared even as violent crime fell. And although in recent years crime rates have risen in smaller American cities, Mr Kraska writes that the rise in small-town SWAT teams was driven not by need, but by fear of being left behind. Fred Leland, a police lieutenant in the small town of Walpole, Massachusetts, says that police departments in towns like his often invest in military-style kit because they “want to keep up” with larger forces.
The courts have smiled on SWAT raids. They often rely on “no-knock” warrants, which authorise police to force their way into a home without announcing themselves. This was once considered cons utionally dubious. But the Supreme Court has ruled that police may enter a house without knocking if they have “a reasonable su ion” that announcing their presence would be dangerous or allow the suspect to destroy evidence (for example, by flushing drugs down the toilet).
Often these no-knock raids take place at night, accompanied by “flash-bang” grenades designed temporarily to blind, deafen and confuse their targets. They can go horribly wrong: Mr Balko has found more than 50 examples of innocent people who have died as a result of botched SWAT raids. Officers can get jumpy and shoot unnecessarily, or accidentally. In 2011 Eurie Stamps, the stepfather of a suspected drug-dealer but himself suspected of no crimes, was killed while lying face-down on the floor when a SWAT-team officer reportedly tripped, causing his gun to discharge.
Householders, on hearing the door being smashed down, sometimes reach for their own guns. In 2006 Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old woman in Atlanta, mistook the police for robbers and fired a shot from an old pistol. Police shot her five times, killing her. After the shooting they planted marijuana in her home. It later emerged that they had falsified the information used to obtain their no-knock warrant.
- See more at: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/03/19/cri....OX345wci.dpufYou might not know it from watching TV news, but FBI statistics show that crime in the U.S.—including violent crime—has been trending steadily downward for years, falling 19% between 1987 and 2011. The job of being a police officer has become safer too, as the number of police killed by gunfire plunged to 33 last year, down 50% from 2012, to its lowest level since, wait for it, 1887, a time when the population was 75% lower than it is today.
Crime’s Down, So Why is Police Aggression Increasing?
because they can, they're unstoppable, irreversible.
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