Sunday, August 01, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Give permission to search? Screwed either way
From Wisconsin, an incident that may help us answer the question, "What should you do if police ask permission to search your home?"
Or maybe not.
In the daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisc.) reporters Jim Collar and Jeff Bollier reported July 20: "Local police still have no culprit in custody following a Saturday night shooting that left an officer wounded in a south-side Oshkosh neighborhood.
"Oshkosh police officials on Monday remained quiet on the progress of their investigation into the unprovoked shooting of officer Nate Gallagher, who stood outside his squad car ... when the round was fired. ... Gallagher was released from the hospital Sunday after sustaining a gunshot wound to the right arm during response to a nearby underage drinking complaint at 10:10 p.m. ...
"The ongoing search for a perpetrator continues to prove frustrating for residents of the otherwise quiet neighborhood near Smith Elementary School. Residents ... had mixed things to say about the methods police used in searching homes Sunday morning in the aftermath of the shooting."
Resident Terry Wesner told reporters "a couple of shotguns and a rifle" were removed from his home by SWAT team members after he consented to a search, though officers did not tell him they removed the firearms.
"That's what makes me so mad," Wesner told reporters. "They had no reason (to remove the firearms) without a warrant. ... I thought you had to have a warrant to take someone's guns."
Oshkosh Police Capt. Jay Puestohl acknowledged consent to search does "not necessarily" mean officers have consent to remove property. Puestohl said nothing illegal was done by removing the firearms and that investigators needed to examine them. He declined to say on what grounds officers had the right to remove the firearms, though.
Postings on the discussion list of the Wisconsin Gun Owners describe local TV reports showing one resident "visibly shaken after his guns were `stolen' without any warrant being issued or apparent probable cause; the elderly woman who woke up to SWAT police doing a search in her kitchen (she seemed to think they broke in); the man who came home after working the night/weekend shift to find his home ransacked and his guns missing. ... The military-looking cops cutting down peoples' shrubs looking for evidence ... the look of terror on neighbors' faces not from the perpetrator of the crime but from those sworn to serve and protect."
Martin Gruberg, president of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, told reporters, "Search warrants are specific, and include information on why police are there and what they're looking for. ... If you give police consent to search, does that give them the right to come in, rummage around and take things? I'm not sure."
Most disturbing of all, Gruberg told the newspaper, neighbors might have felt compelled to offer consent whether or not they were comfortable with a search because they didn't want to give the appearance they had something to hide.
Resident Ron Kendall said residents of the house that has become the focus of the investigation refused to consent to a search without a warrant.
"He suspects it's a reason why police are giving the home so much attention," the Northwestern reports. "Detectives, who went to the home with a search warrant Sunday morning, were seen using a metal detector, sweeping through grass and cutting down shrubs and branches in the front yard Monday evening. Puestohl declined to say whether officers pursued the warrant because the residents refused a consent search."
That'll teach 'em to try and invoke some so-called "Fourth Amendment"!
It sounds like Terry Wesner, at least, has learned his lesson.
"They're (the police) are not going to come in my home again (without a warrant,)" he told a local TV station.
- In my July 4 column on Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," ("Not exactly an airtight case") I commented:
"The only way the events of Sept. 11 could have been partially prevented was if law-abiding Americans had been allowed to carry their own firearms onto those planes -- a right guaranteed by the Constitution.
"Then they could have shot the terrorists rather than allow those planes to be flown into the Twin Towers -- even if doing so amounted to suicide."
In reply, a young person named M. Lawrence sent me an e-mail labeled, "Not exactly and airtight case." It reads:
"Vin, I would rather have one federal marshal with a gun than a bunch of law biding citizens carrying there own guns on and airplane filled with people. You should fire the person who edits your column for allowing that paragraph to pass through. It negated everything you said. Made you appear foolish."
I replied:
Using "and" as an article both in the brief text of your message and in your subject line (we usually prefer "an"), misspelling "abiding," and spelling "their" as "there," merely make you appear foolish.
But appearing foolish is nothing compared to asserting, "I would rather have one federal marshal with a gun than a bunch of law biding citizens carrying there own guns on and airplane." Because that makes you appear a collectivist traitor to our freedoms and to the Constitution, which would never have been ratified had not the federalists guaranteed to acknowledge in writing the pre-existing, God-given right of all free men to carry their own arms, without infringement.
It also puts you in the select company of those who would rather have seen all those thousands of people die on Sept. 11, than "allow" airline passengers to carry the one device which could have stopped that massacre.
Congratulations, young statist. The parents who turned you over to the government youth propaganda camps for your indoctrination in victim disarmament and subservience to the state must be proud.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Ballad of Carl Drega." His Web site is www.privacyalert.us.
