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Cops Play Wii During Undercover Drug Raid
An anonymous reader writes "Guns drawn, cops busted down the door of a suspected south Florida drug dealer, then proceeded to kick some ass on Wii bowling. A security cam captured some playing video games while others searched for drugs and weapons. Clearly they just misunderstood when they were told to search the house for Weed."
I think a couple of police officers getting paid to goof off is the least of our problems with the police in general here in the U.S. Things like corruption, abuse of power, illegal searches, etc. are of more concern to me. Personally I think that when you become a police officer you agree to be monitored 24/7 and have all the video/ transcripts made publicly available.
I think most people realize that cops are just bullies fulfilling their dream of getting paid to be a bully.
Not only that, but anyone willing to ruin someone's life over a little pot (like these cops) has a serious lack of ethics.
This will be a good test of our juctice system (cough) to see if the drug dealers get a lesser sentence because of some completely un-related shenannigans. I'm not saying the officers shouldn't be reprimanded to acting unprofessionally but this should in no way affect a judge's decision as how to punch the criminals.
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Slacking off every once and a while is one thing. The police chief even admitted that most house searches have "downtime." Still, playing Wii Bowling for 9 hours is a bit excessive.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
This must be more of that "New Professionalism" that Scalia was fantasizing about.
So their jobs are stressful. So what? Mine is too. But I don't come in and check out a GOV for joy-riding. Nor do I go to the lab and fire up the lasers to burn smiley faces on things. And those are government assets - Abusing personal assets is far worse.
You wanna play Wii? Fine - Buy one or befriend somebody who has one. Breaking into somebody's house (warrant or no) is NOT grounds for just playing around with their stuff.
Should this invalidate evidence found on the premises? Hell no. Should those officers be suspended for taking control of and playing with property that was completely aside from the investigation? Hell yes. They're probably short of theft, but if they're just playing in the guy's house - Charge 'em with trespassing.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Are you dense?
Here's an analogy, I'm an EMT. If I come to your premises, after /you/ call 911, and you decide you don't want treatment, but I think "No, this guy's messed up, I'll just have a look at this", I'm committing criminal assault and battery. If I stick around in your house, after, you can call 911 again, and have me arrested for trespass. Let alone pull up a pew and decide I'm going to have a few games of Wii Bowling, especially against your consent.
I am staggered that you think the real issue here is that the suspect thinks that this is inappropriate or unacceptable behavior. Don't even start me on "after doing their highly stressful job". So what? You go back to the station, to your home, you don't de-stress there. How could you ever think that was acceptable? Maybe they should have pulled a few brews out of the fridge too? Hell, maybe rolled themselves a joint from the evidence!
It's Wii this time. Next time it will be something more serious.
Which of the laws are ridiculous? I kind of like the laws against theft, murder, rape and other things.
After entering a premises and doing their highly stressful job, they played some Wii. Big Whoop. The real story is that attorney are trying to say this counts a seizing property. That's the abuse here.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
That's the word on the street anyhow. Also known as the fourth amendment of the US Constitution. Entering someone's private residence with a warrant is serious business. There's a time to blow off steam, but it's not during the execution of a search warrant.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
I think there are more then a few or at least the bad apples cluster together, before you can get more whistle bowers you need an environment where it is ok to blow whistles. Although this is bad behavior and coming from the private sector myself I would say they should get fired not suspend for such actions, but for someone to risk the quality of their life, harassment from other cops, Possible retribution, etc... It would need to be more serious then cops playing video games when they should be working.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If cops put the same effort into those laws as they do into useless laws, it would be a better world. Why do they bust "johns" who hire prostitutes, and not go after the pimps who coerce and abuse the prostitutes? Why do they spend thousands of man hours setting up undercover drug operations, and not thousands of hours infiltrating gangs that go around raping and murdering?
When it comes to the good laws against rape, murder, theft, etc, the police are almost 100% REactive. With bullshit like drugs and prostitution the cops become PROactive.
I know street cops don't get to set policy at that level. I think it's understood that when people complain about cops and laws, they're including the whole system, of which cops are the face.
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You can bet your ass if my chief found that I had done similar, I would be looking for a new job.
What relevance does his Wii have to their ability to execute the warrant? None. Ergo you have no right to do as you wish beyond the scope of the warrant. You are on private premises without consent, a right only granted you by virtue of the court allowing a warrant. Like my mention of me being an EMT - even if you call 911, it doesn't necessarily grant me access to your property. Why do you think a warrant is needed in the first place? Because one of the tenets of our society is that property is sacrosanct unless something makes it worthy of forfeit.
That means you don't goof off and do whatever the hell you feel like. For 9 minutes or 9 hours.
What if it was someone else's property? A housemate? What if it was broken?
Suspension is basically meaningless...they need to be permanently barred from public service. That should be the standard punishment for all public servant infractions.