There is an interesting lawsuit out of New Orleans where two undercover Louisiana State Police troopers, Sgt. Joseph Patout and Master Trooper Christopher Treadaway, stopped for Sushi and parked illegally across the street. A booting company employee promptly booted the vehicle and when the police came out, they ordered him to remove the boot. The employee refused without their paying the fine so they arrested him, searched him, took the key and removed the boot. The attendant, Brandon Hardeway, was never charged and the company was then fired by the parking company in what many suspect is the company’s currying favor with the police over the incident. What is most striking is that there does not appear to have been any discipline, let alone termination, of the officers responsible.
Hardeway says that he watched the officers enter the Sushi restaurant that had no parking privileges and booted the vehicle like other vehicles. After leaving the restaurant, the troopers demanded that the boot be removed from their Dodge Ram pickup. Hardeway checked with his employee, Premier Parking Enforcement, who said that the company only “extended courtesy” to official vehicles used by New Orleans police as well as “other plainly marked emergency vehicles.” Patout and Treadaway then arrested Hardeway for “interfering” with their performance of their duties. He was detained for several hours and never charged. Notably, various high-ranking officers were consulted before he was released. However, the troopers conducted a search and took Hardeway’s keys off his belt and removed the boot. They also searched his vehicle without a warrant and without probable cause. The scene was captured on Hardeway’s chest camera.
The owners of the parking lot then punished the booting company for what appears little more than standing up to police.
What is astonishing is that there is no evidence that this illegal arrest and illegal search as well as the abuse of authority resulted in any discipline at all for Patout and Treadway, let alone terminations as officers.
Source: Advocate
Darren – that sounds reasonable.
Why didn’t they just pay to park in the private lot in the first place?
Wouldn’t that have been less likely to have “blown their cover” than parking illegally in a private lot would have?
davep – because they are police and have a get out of jail free card.
Professor Turley, I would respectfully point out the historic, egregious American case of usurpation, despotism and tyranny that dwarfs this bit of vaudeville. ending America’s experiment in freedom initiating an inverse ideology of one-party liberal/collectivist dictatorship – the very antithesis of America. Lincoln’s unconstitutional revolution against the American form of government began with the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, even as the innocent Confederacy had the “God given” natural right to secede. To wit:
“…Roger Taney, Supreme Court Chief Justice, contended that Article I of the Constitution declares: “a state of rebellion is the only time when Congress could declare the writ removed.” He also believed: “This article is devoted to the legislative department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the executive branch..”
According to Justice Taney, the section of the Constitution authorizing the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus “has not the slightest reference to” Lincoln.
Lincoln, according to the position of the Justice of the Supreme Court, was a criminal perpetrating “high crimes and misdemeanors” for which impeachment and conviction are the corrective action.
Lincoln’s act was “executive overreach” taking America to a Constitutional “tipping point” exponentially more devastating than this millionth case of endless police abuse of power.
Lincoln only began his “reign of terror” with this act.
When will the “good men” of America correct the corruption that has defined America since Lincoln? America apologized to Japan for the Atomic Bomb. When will America apologize to the Confederacy for denying its exercise of the same natural right that Scotland voted on recently? When will America declare the “Civil War Amendments” null and void as extremist acts executed without a quorum, through coercion and under duress?
After that, we can correct these errant police officers.
***
LINCOLN’S ABUSE OF POWER DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
By Brian Pulito
“During his terms as president, he suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, and upheld the Declaration of Independence above the Constitution.
…during the initial year of the American Civil War, Lincoln used his power and removed that right, first in Baltimore, New York, and eventually the entire union. He authorized military officers to suspend the writ before he made an official proclamation. Joshua Kleinfeld, an author who has researched this issue, wrote that “when Lincoln suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, he clothed himself with more power then any individual had possessed in America before, or since.
Lincoln contended that he removed the Writ in order to ensure victory and preserve the union. In fact he preserved more power for himself and removed a great deal from the United States legislative and judicial branches. The first proclamation to remove the Writ of Habeas Corpus was made in September of 1862. Not only did this proclamation, which had no scheduled end, remove the writ, it also established Marshall law. It gave full power to close down “hostile, anti war newspapers,” and to arrest individuals for protesting the war.
Lincoln removed a great deal of power from the legislative branch with this proclamation. He was not empowered under the Constitution to make such a declaration. In fact, that right belonged to Congress alone. Roger Taney, Supreme Court Chief Justice, contended that Article I of the Constitution declares: “a state of rebellion is the only time when Congress could declare the writ removed.” He also believed: “This article is devoted to the legislative department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the executive branch..”
The troopers should have performed one of two options:
1) Pay the attendant and then put in a memo for reimbursement by their employer.
2) Pay the bill themselves and make the problem go away quietly. (the better option if you want to go to coffee later and not be the laughing stock of the detachment)
bam bam:
“The refusal to remove a boot, from an unmarked vehicle, which is revealed to be one which belongs to law enforcement, in the course of duty, is not understandable.”
That is my question. Did they illegally park because they needed to keep an eye on someone or stay close to their car in the event they need to leave suddenly? Or were they simply parking illegally because they thought they could? That’s why I wondered what the parking policy was with the department regarding undercover cops, or if they even had one.
You make a good point that interfering with an on-duty police officer leaving, whether he is in uniform or not, could have created a safety issue. It would have been better, in my humble opinion, for the employee to remove the boot, take down their badge #s, and refer the matter to his employer and the police department.
bam bam:
“The article specifically states that a policy was already in effect to NOT boot obviously marked vehicles. There was no additional requirement as to ascertaining whether the occupants were scoping out someone or not.”
That was the policy of the booting company. I was referring to the police department as to what their policy might be on parking privileges for unmarked vehicles.
I agree with Paul that the officers blew their cover by making a public stink over the boot. They should have just let their department handle it.
Bam Bam.
I agree, by refusing to remove the boot the parking attendant could have prevented the troopers from making a rushed departure to shoot a nigger 8 times in the back.
As far as we know, the search was done without a warrant:
From The Advocate:
According to Soileau, the troopers took Hardeway’s keys off his belt, searched his vehicle without a warrant and removed the boot themselves, saying at first that they intended to keep it as evidence. Soileau said a New Orleans police officer came to the scene but declined to take Hardeway to jail after hearing the gist of the allegations against him.
And then Professor Turley comments:
They also searched his vehicle without a warrant and without probable cause. The scene was captured on Hardeway’s chest camera.
The owners of the parking lot then punished the booting company for what appears little more than standing up to police.
What is astonishing is that there is no evidence that this illegal arrest and illegal search as well as the abuse of authority resulted in any discipline at all for Patout and Treadway, let alone terminations as officers.
If you don’t factor in attitude, (see video of punk kids that the officer flipped out on and pepper sprayed/tasered), attitude of a parking lot guy who had a wild hair up his nose or cops who demand to be treated like royalty, the parking lot guy should have taken the boot off to a polite explanation by the cops.
There should be some give and take. Cops are not animals that need to be trained in an absolute manner. However, the parking lot guy is lucky it wasn’t the Cleveland police guy who ran out of clips riddling an unarmed guy. That would have been messy.
If there were such a statute in the officers’ favor, couldn’t they have cited the Louisiana statute to the parking enforcement employee? If the employee then refused to obey the statute, couldn’t the officers then write him a ticket or arrest him?
Instead it appears from the article they never cited a Louisiana statute, then the troopers proceeded to perform an illegal search. If there were an actual emergency at the time the troopers could have maybe used an exigent circumstances exemption.
bam bam, In my state, law enforcement is specifically exempt from certain laws. Other than that, they are not exempt. Therefore, if the law permits a boot to be applied in a particular situation, it may be applied to law enforcement vehicles unless those vehicles are specifically exempt. I haven’t seen anything suggesting there was any criminal activity on the part of the attendant here. The fact that he wasn’t charged speaks volumes given the apparent punitive attitude of the officers.
Most (not all) police officers have good intentions but there seems to an attitude where the “ends always justify the means” even in non-emergency situations.
For sake of argument let’s say the police were correct in the above case. What laws are they required to follow? Where is the line? At what point do they have to follow laws? Is there any law that applies to them?
Ross – all parking, speeding, and traffic laws must be followed unless they are an ’emergency vehicle’ aka running lights and siren. Where they get into trouble is when they blow stop signs and are running silent.
observer
Absent all the facts, my comment was in response to allegations that both the arrest and search were illegal. I believe, given what little I’ve read, that the arrest was justified. Again, many reasons may have justified the search. Unless you know why it was unwarranted, we can only assume. I do not, however, decide that the police are always in the wrong before all the facts are known. Read my comments as you see fit.
bam bam – please lay out your grounds for arrest and then ground for a search of the vehicle.
Richard
I think that booting police vehicles, or the failure to do so, goes well beyond a simple courtesy. If the booting results or could result in the interference of police duties, that crosses into the realm of criminal behavior. An unmarked car, which is booted, is understandable. The refusal to remove a boot, from an unmarked vehicle, which is revealed to be one which belongs to law enforcement, in the course of duty, is not understandable.
“Lots of reasons, which are unknowns, to both arrest him and conduct a search of his vehicle, which was probably very close by.”
Oh those pesky little things known as a search warrants. Why bother, when it’s so easy to conduct illegal searches, right bam bam?
Paul
It may have been an unmarked vehicle, but once it was known to be a police vehicle, currently being used by on duty troopers, the attendant and his superiors should have included its exemption from booting as well. Of course there is no policy to not boot unmarked cars, how could there be? The policy was in place, as a courtesy to officers, since any delay in their ability to exit could be considered dangerous and a hazard to society as a whole. I would also argue that there is more than a simple courtesy involved here. Rules exist which criminalize interfering with the work of police officers. I see the failure to remove the boot, without any preconditions, as an example of this interference. This is not true of just issuing some sort of citation, which would not have blocked this vehicle’s exit. We can’t have yahoos (sorry Annie) deciding to detain law enforcement. We just can’t. What if these officers didn’t have the required money demanded of them? Do we want them being required to wait until someone can bail them out? Ridiculous.
The need to search this person’s vehicle does not seem like it is an illegal search without knowing the reasoning behind it.
bam bam – can you come up with any reasonable reason that would withstand court scrutiny for searching the car? Also, since they are undercover they are not available for emergency response. As such it makes no difference if the boot is on or not.
bam bam, you seem to believe, like these officers, that private individuals are required to “extend courtesies” to them based on their position. The fact that a private individual may choose to do so on some occasions does not create a legal requirement that such “courtesies” be extended on other occasions. The fact remains that illegal parking may result in booting in that area. Undercover officers who wish to ensure their vehicles are not booted should comply with the rules that they expect everyone else to comply with. The failure of agencies to deal appropriately with such misconduct (which can now be observed by the public in living color) is one of the fundamental reasons that respect for law enforcement officers is decreasing at an alarming rate.
This is Louisiana and is not the least bit surprising.
Jim22
You mention an illegal search, as does JT, who also adds in an illegal arrest. Given the scarcity of actual knowledge that I have regarding this particular incident, from what I can tell, the parking lot attendant did not want to remove the boot. This refusal was given even after he was informed of the vehicle’s status. And, yes, Annie, even after he contacted his superiors. Did his behavior, with regard to his impeding their exit using a police vehicle, while on duty, justify the search of his car? Maybe, if they felt that he posed a danger to them. While Annie may believe that he was a law student, working his way through school, some of the people in the towing industry tend to have an unsavory reputation. Did the officers run a check on him and find a rap sheet as long as your arm? Did he act in an aggressive manner with them? Lots of reasons, which are unknowns, to both arrest him and conduct a search of his vehicle, which was probably very close by.
bam bam – since the vehicle was used in undercover work, it did not qualify for unbooting. The unbooting was a courtesy. They would need to pay to get the boot off. So, they seize the keys to the boot from the kid to take the boot off and then using the same keys search the truck, illegally, since they have no cause at all.
Ross, In NY troopers are everywhere. Not just the highways.