Originally Posted by jdmac33

Originally Posted by sherifflittle

"warrantless searches by intimidating police officers"
"Still, the city's top cop and district attorney have said parents can say no to the officer's request to search their children's room."

Ok then just say no.

Originally Posted by Wolfman

Point is, without the slightest bit of articulable suspicion of criminal activity the police should not be even knocking on doors and asking for consent. This is an inexcusable imposition on the sanctity of a citizen's home.

You cannot just stop cars for no reason and ask to search them even if they are traveling in a "high crime" area; it is an unlawful intrusion on the citizen's right to freely travel and conduct his business. How then can you justify a similar intrusion onto and into someone's home - which inherently has an even greater expectation of privacy than a person's car???

This represents a movement in a direction that should have every true American taking a look at a bigger picture that leads to a very sobering result. The citizens of our country are gradually being reduced to subjects of a class who decides what is best for us. The freedoms that were won and rights supposedly guaranteed for us so many years ago are being unceremoniously stripped and chipped away by our politicians "for our own good".

It is "warrantless searches by intimidating police officers". The presence of a police officer on someone's doorstep carries with it an implied authority and a degree of intimidation. I'm no fan of the media but that is dead on. The frogs are simmering.

Originally Posted by Wolfman

So what you're saying is that if I see a known criminal driving down the street with a history of drug offenses, I can stop him without cause and ask to search his car?

Can I stop a person with a history of OUI and ask him/her to take sobriety tests and a PBT?

Can I go to the home of a registered sex offender and ask to look through his computer for kiddie porn?

Can I stop a person with a history of speeding and ask to download average speed data from his car computer to see if he's been going too fast?

Can I go to the bank of a check bouncer and ask for account statements?

Can I go to the apartment of a guy who has a history of B&E's and ask to verify the serialnumbers of all his appliances with receipts?

If you're not doing anything wrong there shouldn't be a problem, right?

Without specific articulable facts of ongoing criminal activity it is an invasion of privacy and a violation of rights to just knock on someone's door and ask to search their house. Open the door on this one and you open the door on all the other examples I listed above.

Originally Posted by USMCMP5811

As a matter of fact, yes. you can ask to search all day long, if they say yes good all day, if they say no, well then you're SOL. it's a simple thing called a Consent Search.

Originally Posted by jdmac33

Originally Posted by Wolfman

BUT you cannot stop a car for no other reason than to ask for a consent search. If you went door-to-door asking for consent searches you would be standing tall in front of the man in very short order. If your habit of consent searching without suspicion bore fruit you would have the everloving shit kicked out of you in a flurry of suppression hearings and you would lose every shred of credibility you had in a court of law.

Why? Because you were violating peoples rights to be secure in their homes and means of travel against unreasonable searches. Consent ain't what it used to be, and it is not a panacaea (def: Some antidote or remedy that completely solves a problem. In addition, nothing solves a problem without introducing its own new set of problems.) to replace good police work and investigation. Consent in an isolated incident is still barely acceptable and hardly ever sustained during hearings or trials. Used in the manner that you describe it is nothing more than a desperate Gestapo intimidation tactic.

Originally Posted by Wolfman

...and again I say that if you do one of these consent searches on a known gangbanger with a history of violence (a) they will never give consent or (b) if they are stupid enough to say OK and you find something, it will never pass the motion hearing - because as soon as the defense argues "what person would ever give consent, knowing that they have contraband".

When the courts see enough of these consent searches crossing their benches you will be the one scrutinized for what they will call fishing expeditions. You will be the one looking at search statistics which invariably will be used to imply racial profiling. You will be the one who winds up with a headache and an ulcer while the shitheads laugh at you and walk away. It was different many years ago, but the "consent search" is fast going the way of the dodo.

It's not hard to articulate true suspicion. Going door-to-door with a handful of BOP's and a handful of consent forms is a fast track to big trouble. Rely on police skills and good solid investigation to build and win a case, not tap dancing around peoples rights and trying to make a pinch the way some people try to make a living by buying lottery tickets instead of going to work.


Believe me, I have no love for criminals. I have even less love for those who would distort the Constitution to accomplish their own agendas.

Originally Posted by kwflatbed

They will pry my guns from my cold dead hands

Originally Posted by TalontedTSi

Wolf is definitely on point here. This search is totally rediculous and no gang member or anyone else for that matter will allow a cop to search his/her place without a warrant. Instead, local enforcements should be patrolling other areas of the streets that are known for crime instead of wasting time on answers they know they will receive from the peoples in the house they want to "search." What a joke!

Originally Posted by justanotherparatrooper