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VMI77 wrote:Some of your analysis depends on the assumption that there was an anonymous tip. Given the history of "anonymous tips" I think there is good reason to doubt there was any such tip in the first place. But even if there was, the "anonymous tip" is easily abused. The police have been known to have a fellow officer phone in an anonymous tip, but really, all someone has to do is say they got one from a passerby on the street. I think the issue comes back to probably cause, and the fact that they had no description of either the perp or the vehicle and had to stop and detail some 19 vehicles proves they didn't have it.

Quoting the article:

Police said they had received what they called a “reliable” tip that the culprit in an armed robbery at a Wells Fargo bank committed earlier was stopped at the red light.

“We didn’t have a description, didn’t know race or gender or anything, so a split-second decision was made to stop all the cars at that intersection, and search for the armed robber,” Aurora police Officer Frank Fania told ABC News.
Officers barricaded the area, halting 19 cars.

I did not use the word "anonymous." I based my analysis on the wording used in the article, which was "reliable." By definition, a "reliable" tipster would not be "anonymous," unless that tipster was able to reveal knowledge of the crime known only to police. That alone would make the tipster "a person of interest".....or it should. That allegedly "reliable" tip did not include a description of the vehicle or its occupant, including his/her race and gender. I question the reliability of the source. The cops should have questioned that reliability too. Instead, they detained and handcuffed the occupants of 19 vehicles based on thin evidence. To me, it sounds like I could phone in a "reliable" tip to the Aurora PD, stating that "there's a man with a gun at the intersection of Main and Elm," and they'd go down there and cuff and search everyone looking for a gun. And, since Colorado issues concealed carry permits, there's even the likelihood of someone there actually having a gun....who has it quite legitimately.

I think the Aurora PD bandies about the term "reliable" without regard for its actual meaning. I think that the citizens of Aurora have a problem with their police department that needs to be addressed before it festers into an un-policeable situation. I think the Aurora PD Chief needs to go before the media, acknowledge the unreliability of the tip, and announce that they are reviewing their procedures to ensure that this never happens again. I think that his/her superiors in the city's administration should either respond in a way to deal with the problem, or they should be held politically accountable in the next election.

When I say that I understand the "tactical necessity," that does not mean that I approve of that necessity within the larger context of society. It merely means that I understand the internal logic of that decision....the same way your could read "Mein Kampf" and understand Adolf Hitler's internal logic without validating his conclusions. In other words, that internal logic may be illogical in the larger context. The "tactical necessity" of handcuffing and detaining 19 carloads of people while searching their vehicles for no other reason than they happened to be at a location where a demonstrably UNreliable tipster said a bank robber could be found is damaging in the larger context to the strategic goals of providing good community policing—which increases trust and cooperation between police and the community in which they work.

Here's what I think actually happened: one or more police officers thought that they might find the bank robber they were looking for at a certain intersection because he had left headed in a certain direction, and he could have only gone so far. Those officers convinced the rest of the officers of that probability. They picked the likely intersection and they acted. Afterwards, seeking to justify what they had done, they claimed that a "reliable" tip told them where to find the guy, but they also admitted that this "reliable" tip did not include any information whatsoever about model/make/color of the vehicle in question, and/or any description of the perp including his/her race and gender.

There was no tip.

This is absurd and the Chief's defense of the officers is both shocking and troubling. The FBI should be conducting a civil rights investigation and they can start with the guy who was wearing an FBI jacket.

There is a point at which the cost of "catching the bad guy" and/or solving a crime is too high; this action was way beyond that point.

Chas.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

VMI77 wrote:Some of your analysis depends on the assumption that there was an anonymous tip. Given the history of "anonymous tips" I think there is good reason to doubt there was any such tip in the first place. But even if there was, the "anonymous tip" is easily abused. The police have been known to have a fellow officer phone in an anonymous tip, but really, all someone has to do is say they got one from a passerby on the street. I think the issue comes back to probably cause, and the fact that they had no description of either the perp or the vehicle and had to stop and detail some 19 vehicles proves they didn't have it.

Quoting the article:

Police said they had received what they called a “reliable” tip that the culprit in an armed robbery at a Wells Fargo bank committed earlier was stopped at the red light.

“We didn’t have a description, didn’t know race or gender or anything, so a split-second decision was made to stop all the cars at that intersection, and search for the armed robber,” Aurora police Officer Frank Fania told ABC News.
Officers barricaded the area, halting 19 cars.

I did not use the word "anonymous." I based my analysis on the wording used in the article, which was "reliable." By definition, a "reliable" tipster would not be "anonymous," unless that tipster was able to reveal knowledge of the crime known only to police. That alone would make the tipster "a person of interest".....or it should. That allegedly "reliable" tip did not include a description of the vehicle or its occupant, including his/her race and gender. I question the reliability of the source. The cops should have questioned that reliability too. Instead, they detained and handcuffed the occupants of 19 vehicles based on thin evidence. To me, it sounds like I could phone in a "reliable" tip to the Aurora PD, stating that "there's a man with a gun at the intersection of Main and Elm," and they'd go down there and cuff and search everyone looking for a gun. And, since Colorado issues concealed carry permits, there's even the likelihood of someone there actually having a gun....who has it quite legitimately.

I think the Aurora PD bandies about the term "reliable" without regard for its actual meaning. I think that the citizens of Aurora have a problem with their police department that needs to be addressed before it festers into an un-policeable situation. I think the Aurora PD Chief needs to go before the media, acknowledge the unreliability of the tip, and announce that they are reviewing their procedures to ensure that this never happens again. I think that his/her superiors in the city's administration should either respond in a way to deal with the problem, or they should be held politically accountable in the next election.

When I say that I understand the "tactical necessity," that does not mean that I approve of that necessity within the larger context of society. It merely means that I understand the internal logic of that decision....the same way your could read "Mein Kampf" and understand Adolf Hitler's internal logic without validating his conclusions. In other words, that internal logic may be illogical in the larger context. The "tactical necessity" of handcuffing and detaining 19 carloads of people while searching their vehicles for no other reason than they happened to be at a location where a demonstrably UNreliable tipster said a bank robber could be found is damaging in the larger context to the strategic goals of providing good community policing—which increases trust and cooperation between police and the community in which they work.

Here's what I think actually happened: one or more police officers thought that they might find the bank robber they were looking for at a certain intersection because he had left headed in a certain direction, and he could have only gone so far. Those officers convinced the rest of the officers of that probability. They picked the likely intersection and they acted. Afterwards, seeking to justify what they had done, they claimed that a "reliable" tip told them where to find the guy, but they also admitted that this "reliable" tip did not include any information whatsoever about model/make/color of the vehicle in question, and/or any description of the perp including his/her race and gender.

There was no tip.

Sorry, I don't know where I got "anonymous" from. Maybe I conflated an article on a different event because you're right, the article says "reliable" and I agree that a reliable tip would not be anonymous. I also agree with your assessment of how the event probably played out.

pbwalker wrote:Surely those who are pro-DUI checkpoints are pro-this incident? Stop everyone, prove innocence before you can pass. Both are for "public safety"...think of the children, right?

I'm not in favor of those check points. I am in favor of police stopping a vehicle when they observe the driver to be driving in a manner which might indicate that the driver is impaired by drugs or alcohol. I don't think that we have a "right" to drive in an impaired condition, on the two principles that A) impaired drivers unquestionably produce higher accident statistics than sober drivers, and B) your right to drive impaired stops where my right to expect minimum standards of safety on the roads begins. But neither do I believe that police have the moral authority to randomly stop vehicles on the odd chance that one of them might contain an impaired driver.

This situation is different though, and in a sense, your objection is a small bit of a red herring. The reason I say that is that your objection above is to a scenario in which there is only a random expectation of catching a random person in the act of breaking the law, whereas the story in the OP concerns the search for a specific person whom they knew he had already committed a specific crime. They just didn't know who he was. Not a huge difference, but different none the less. Again, I don't like what the Aurora PD did and I'm not defending it.

BUT..... in all fairness to the PD, we're hearing detailed descriptions for those who got rousted, and very little substance from those who did the rousting, and all of this is seen through the lens of media who have their own agenda at play. I would like very much to know the true details of the tip, why it was deemed "reliable," the tipster's identity, and why the tipster's information would have been reliable. Only the police can provide those details. When/if they do, those details must be unassailable—otherwise the least desirable interpretation is the truth. I would question their methods even if the tip was unassailable, but if it is anything less than that, then the only interpretation of the events is that the Aurora PD has gone rogue. I'd hate to think that was the case.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:This is absurd and the Chief's defense of the officers is both shocking and troubling. The FBI should be conducting a civil rights investigation and they can start with the guy who was wearing an FBI jacket.

There is a point at which the cost of "catching the bad guy" and/or solving a crime is too high; this action was way beyond that point.

Chas.

You're right....there he is, and I didn't even notice him the first time I watched the video:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:This is absurd and the Chief's defense of the officers is both shocking and troubling. The FBI should be conducting a civil rights investigation and they can start with the guy who was wearing an FBI jacket.

There is a point at which the cost of "catching the bad guy" and/or solving a crime is too high; this action was way beyond that point.

Chas.

My sentiments exactly. and the chief states it's within the law. new chief needed after the investigation and civil rights violation trials.
Anyone with a clear understanding of what abuses of power will be done in the cause of "catching the bad guy" as Charles states should be condemning this for exactly what it is.

The underlying mentality is rampant

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/06/0 ... raduation/

We have crossed over to "guilty until proven innocent". While I do understand the school's supposed desire to catch intoxicated students, they have no more right to test the whole class than the police did to remove all of the people from their cars in Aurora.

Couple that with this.
http://www.infowars.com/epa-using-drone ... -and-iowa/

and we all need to be afraid. Very afraid.

Whatever happened to Probable Cause?

chasfm11 wrote:The underlying mentality is rampant

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/06/0 ... raduation/

We have crossed over to "guilty until proven innocent". While I do understand the school's supposed desire to catch intoxicated students, they have no more right to test the whole class than the police did to remove all of the people from their cars in Aurora.

Couple that with this.
http://www.infowars.com/epa-using-drone ... -and-iowa/

and we all need to be afraid. Very afraid.

Whatever happened to Probable Cause?

While I understand your point, I'm not sure the school article is a good example. For one thing, though the headline says "breathalyzer or no graduation," nowhere in the article is this claim substantiated, so it's not clear to me if there even was such an ultimatum. Furthermore, being prohibited from attending a graduation ceremony is not the same as "no graduation," and it sounds like, if there really was an ultimatum, it was in regards to attending the ceremony --but in actuality no one was denied attendance.

But let's assume that the school told students they couldn't attend the ceremony if they refused to take a breathalyzer.....the threat only works because most Americans are willing to trade their self-respect and their rights for symbols, trinkets, and entertainment. What would the school do if 90% of the students simply refused to take the test and told the school they could mail them their diplomas? Where would TSA be if Americans simply refused to fly as long as they were subjected to intrusive searches? What would theme parks, concert venues, and sports stadiums do if people, rather than be searched, simply didn't attend?

I went to my graduation ceremony, but if I'd been confronted with such an ultimatum I would have skipped it, just like I skip commercial flights and going to concerts and sporting events. It's a matter of priorities and when what you want is more important to you than it is to someone who seeks your compliance, (e.g. you want to board and plane and they don't care if you do or not), then you've given them all the power. In some circumstances, our overreaching government may act in a way that denies you any reasonable alternative, but most of the time people are giving up their rights for trivialities and convenience.

I am confused. Why do so many members of our forum object to this Police-action yet appear to support the Patriot Act?

Purplehood wrote:I am confused. Why do so many members of our forum object to this Police-action yet appear to support the Patriot Act?

For the record, I am opposed to most of the provisions contained in the Patriot Act.

i8godzilla wrote:

Purplehood wrote:I am confused. Why do so many members of our forum object to this Police-action yet appear to support the Patriot Act?

For the record, I am opposed to most of the provisions contained in the Patriot Act.

As am I, including the specious name.

VMI77 wrote:

i8godzilla wrote:

Purplehood wrote:I am confused. Why do so many members of our forum object to this Police-action yet appear to support the Patriot Act?

For the record, I am opposed to most of the provisions contained in the Patriot Act.

As am I, including the specious name.

chasfm11 wrote:The underlying mentality is rampant

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/06/0 ... raduation/

We have crossed over to "guilty until proven innocent". While I do understand the school's supposed desire to catch intoxicated students, they have no more right to test the whole class than the police did to remove all of the people from their cars in Aurora.

What if some body had a graduation and no body came?

Purplehood wrote:I am confused. Why do so many members of our forum object to this Police-action yet appear to support the Patriot Act?

Cuz Terrorists!!



Back on topic, I hope some of Aurora's subjects get rich from their King.

I think this is a loose-loose scenario for LE. Do what it takes to catch a bad guy, and run the risk of crossing the line.

Let him go, and you'll get accused of being lazy, corrupt, or incapable.

I think they missed it here, but I'm definitely not claiming to have the answer, especially in the heat of the moment.

Hopefully it's a learning point for all involved and a better, more thought out response can be called upon in the future.