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I'm so confused, how is this creating a pretext? A pretext is a false reason. Like if they searched for one reason but they really did it for a different one. B

I'm so confused, how is this creating a pretext? A pretext is a false reason. Like if they searched for one reason but they really did it for a different one. But that's not what I'm reading here? It seems they suspected something, they used that exact reason to perform a search, and that's exactly what they found. Terrible reason, okay, but why are they being accused of lying? If a thief threatens you saying you look like you have money, and it turns out you did, and he takes it, is that a pretext too?

rglover 1mo ago
The pretext is that his travel to another state was assumed to be to buy weed. They appear to be relying on his existing warrant and criminal record to justify having used Flock data to not just locate him, but manufacture probable cause. Unless they have direct evidence (photo from Flock of him ripping bong hits in his car at a light) prior to the stop to attach probable cause to, it's a pre-crime judgment. IANAL (if you are, feel free to poke holes), but I wouldn't presume it unlikely he walks under the 4th amendment, even if it's through appeals.
- dataflow 1mo ago
  > The pretext is that his travel to another state was assumed to be to buy weed. [...] > Unless they have direct evidence [...] it's a pre-crime judgment. But how does it being pre-crime judgment etc. imply it is a pretext too? Just look up the definition: - A pretext is "a false reason given to hide the real motivation behind an action." [1] - A pretextual stop is "pull(ing) people over for minor rule violations [...] as an excuse to conduct a search and go fishing for other crimes." [2] Notice it says "false", "hide", and "other crime"? And not merely "bad reason" to "serve as an excuse" to "search for any crime"? Here, they appear to have done exactly what they claimed they their intentions were, and as a result discovered exactly what they suspected. Is anyone disputing this? If this was a "pretext", then what the heck are we alleging were their "real" motivations and "other" crimes? How could they have possibly been more honest in their intentions? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretext [2] https://www.policingproject.org/pretextual-traffic https://www.policingproject.org/pretextual-traffic
  - rglover 1mo ago
    As far as I understand, the real motivation was to catch him for a warrant but using the presumption (false until proven with evidence beyond his car traveling between states) of him buying weed and transporting it across state lines as their pretext.
    - dataflow 1mo ago
      Are you saying they already had a warrant for his arrest but needed an excuse other than a warrant to pull him over? That makes... no sense? Or are you saying they wanted to catch him and then use whatever they found as a warrant to search him, in which case... where does it say that, and why are you saying they would have wanted to do that if the weed itself wasn't the reason? Or are you saying something else entirely? I'm not seeing anything indicating such in the article...
- TZubiri 1mo ago
  IANAL. It seems that the police was investigating the suspect for a separate crime "bail jumping". There was a warrant, and the suspect was detained and searched with the powers granted by a judge via a warrant. Again I ask, what's the 4th amendment violation here? That a cop assumed something? A cop is free to assume whatever they want, as long as that's not what they rely on to make a detention or search. >relying on an existing warrant and criminal record to justify [locating someone], and manufacture probable cause. A judge issued for the detention of an individual, the police did so. Did the cops rely on the warrant to manufacture a probable cause? What are you arguing here, that the detention was legitimate, but the search was not and the evidence of the crime should be ignored via poisonous fruit? The detention was legitimate, when someone is detained, they are searched, that seems legitimate to me. I think the confusion arises from a lack of distinguishing between probatory and investigative evidence. A conviction requires hard probatory evidence ( beyond a reasonable doubt or preponderance depending on the charges), a search requires 'probable cause' (pre-search readily apparent, time sensitive, suspicion of a crime). The purpose of a warrant is to bridge the gap between investigative and probatory evidence. Cops and detectives can obtain investigative evidence (that guides the investigation but is not sufficient to obtain a conviction) by their own means with standard limitations, certain actions like searches are protected by requiring approval from a judge, that approval is called a search warrant. The justification for requesting a warrant can be entirely investigative, it does not require probatory evidence as that would be against the very nature of the system being described, the purpose is to obtain probatory evidence without vulnerating individual privacy rights by adding a check and balance from a different power. So it wouldn't make sense to argue that the hypothesis was weak, or that flock cameras were used, whatever investigative evidence or hypothesis they had is irrelevant, what matters is only that they had a warrant, whether they got it by submitting the inter-state drug crossing as evidence, or submitting something else as evidence, Here's where I had to google some nuances. In the case there already existed an arrest warrant, a search of the person would be legitimate, but not a search of the car. So if there's a probable cuase being mentioned, it relates only to the searching of the car, not to stopping the car (as that would have been covered by the arrest warrant). The probable cause mentioned in filing seems to be based on odour, whether that's enough, I don't know, it appears that it is. I can see though how this might be nuanced, and how an attorney might argue that odour of an individual officer is insufficient. Maybe some defenders can get him out of the case, but does that mean that the system is working incorrectly? Where? What are we arguing that an officer committed an unlawful search of the car after a lawful arrest? Certainly a routine incident (unless grossly unlawful), wouldn't even merit disciplinary action. And to my understanding completely unrelated to The complaint even mentions that the officer found a weed grinder in the top of the car, which could have easily been used as probable cause, as it was readily apparent, but it was only found during the search. So yeah it doesn't look like there was a 4th amendment violation, and even less that it would be related to the flock cameras, there was an arrest warrant, and as far as the search it was not related to. I'd like to add that every time one of these cases against Flock comes up, it never amounts to anything, I get the argument that this can "start with unsympathetic cases", but I take it there's no cases of dumb teenagers without priors? Like this is the worst abuse that can be found relating to flock cameras? Flock is 'advertising' with cases of lost children being recovered, those have to be weighted, at least I will. I won't analyze every case of a criminal being subjected to a potentially unlawful search, that was actually 100% on point and actually found the evidence. In the end, the pre-crime is actually done against flock in the (left) public opinion, it's being judged based on slippery slope arguments on potential dystopian futures, instead of what is actually happening. Bringing up cases like this that aren't even borderline is probably doing more damage if anything, there were cases of officers stalking their ex-gf with the cameras, and it seems that the audit trail doesn't track specific warrants, it just asks for a general string that's usually filled with 'warrant', those are true weak points, this is just engagement bait to get blue dress/white dress debates where the left defends the rights of criminals and false positives(which might be legitimate), while the right sees criminals being prosecuted for their crimes. If that's what it comes down to, I don't see the dress blue, what can I tell ya. Edit: i don't get why the bail jumping charge was dropped though, like how can you lack evidence for that? If the conviction was never fact based but law based, then that may be grounds for arguing the arrest warrant was illegitimate and thus argue poisonous tree?
ndsipa_pomu 1mo ago
To my mind, tracking a vehicle/person's movements sounds pretty much like a search. What concerns me is that they didn't have any reason to conduct that search in the first place. It surprises me that the cops don't need a warrant to track anyone for any reason - that's very much open to abuse as cops are not known for being impartial.

rglover 1mo ago

The pretext is that his travel to another state was assumed to be to buy weed. They appear to be relying on his existing warrant and criminal record to justify having used Flock data to not just locate him, but manufacture probable cause. Unless they have direct evidence (photo from Flock of him ripping bong hits in his car at a light) prior to the stop to attach probable cause to, it's a pre-crime judgment. IANAL (if you are, feel free to poke holes), but I wouldn't presume it unlikely he walks under the 4th amendment, even if it's through appeals.

dataflow 1mo ago
> The pretext is that his travel to another state was assumed to be to buy weed. [...] > Unless they have direct evidence [...] it's a pre-crime judgment. But how does it being pre-crime judgment etc. imply it is a pretext too? Just look up the definition: - A pretext is "a false reason given to hide the real motivation behind an action." [1] - A pretextual stop is "pull(ing) people over for minor rule violations [...] as an excuse to conduct a search and go fishing for other crimes." [2] Notice it says "false", "hide", and "other crime"? And not merely "bad reason" to "serve as an excuse" to "search for any crime"? Here, they appear to have done exactly what they claimed they their intentions were, and as a result discovered exactly what they suspected. Is anyone disputing this? If this was a "pretext", then what the heck are we alleging were their "real" motivations and "other" crimes? How could they have possibly been more honest in their intentions? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretext [2] https://www.policingproject.org/pretextual-traffic https://www.policingproject.org/pretextual-traffic
- rglover 1mo ago
  As far as I understand, the real motivation was to catch him for a warrant but using the presumption (false until proven with evidence beyond his car traveling between states) of him buying weed and transporting it across state lines as their pretext.
  - dataflow 1mo ago
    Are you saying they already had a warrant for his arrest but needed an excuse other than a warrant to pull him over? That makes... no sense? Or are you saying they wanted to catch him and then use whatever they found as a warrant to search him, in which case... where does it say that, and why are you saying they would have wanted to do that if the weed itself wasn't the reason? Or are you saying something else entirely? I'm not seeing anything indicating such in the article...
TZubiri 1mo ago
IANAL. It seems that the police was investigating the suspect for a separate crime "bail jumping". There was a warrant, and the suspect was detained and searched with the powers granted by a judge via a warrant. Again I ask, what's the 4th amendment violation here? That a cop assumed something? A cop is free to assume whatever they want, as long as that's not what they rely on to make a detention or search. >relying on an existing warrant and criminal record to justify [locating someone], and manufacture probable cause. A judge issued for the detention of an individual, the police did so. Did the cops rely on the warrant to manufacture a probable cause? What are you arguing here, that the detention was legitimate, but the search was not and the evidence of the crime should be ignored via poisonous fruit? The detention was legitimate, when someone is detained, they are searched, that seems legitimate to me. I think the confusion arises from a lack of distinguishing between probatory and investigative evidence. A conviction requires hard probatory evidence ( beyond a reasonable doubt or preponderance depending on the charges), a search requires 'probable cause' (pre-search readily apparent, time sensitive, suspicion of a crime). The purpose of a warrant is to bridge the gap between investigative and probatory evidence. Cops and detectives can obtain investigative evidence (that guides the investigation but is not sufficient to obtain a conviction) by their own means with standard limitations, certain actions like searches are protected by requiring approval from a judge, that approval is called a search warrant. The justification for requesting a warrant can be entirely investigative, it does not require probatory evidence as that would be against the very nature of the system being described, the purpose is to obtain probatory evidence without vulnerating individual privacy rights by adding a check and balance from a different power. So it wouldn't make sense to argue that the hypothesis was weak, or that flock cameras were used, whatever investigative evidence or hypothesis they had is irrelevant, what matters is only that they had a warrant, whether they got it by submitting the inter-state drug crossing as evidence, or submitting something else as evidence, Here's where I had to google some nuances. In the case there already existed an arrest warrant, a search of the person would be legitimate, but not a search of the car. So if there's a probable cuase being mentioned, it relates only to the searching of the car, not to stopping the car (as that would have been covered by the arrest warrant). The probable cause mentioned in filing seems to be based on odour, whether that's enough, I don't know, it appears that it is. I can see though how this might be nuanced, and how an attorney might argue that odour of an individual officer is insufficient. Maybe some defenders can get him out of the case, but does that mean that the system is working incorrectly? Where? What are we arguing that an officer committed an unlawful search of the car after a lawful arrest? Certainly a routine incident (unless grossly unlawful), wouldn't even merit disciplinary action. And to my understanding completely unrelated to The complaint even mentions that the officer found a weed grinder in the top of the car, which could have easily been used as probable cause, as it was readily apparent, but it was only found during the search. So yeah it doesn't look like there was a 4th amendment violation, and even less that it would be related to the flock cameras, there was an arrest warrant, and as far as the search it was not related to. I'd like to add that every time one of these cases against Flock comes up, it never amounts to anything, I get the argument that this can "start with unsympathetic cases", but I take it there's no cases of dumb teenagers without priors? Like this is the worst abuse that can be found relating to flock cameras? Flock is 'advertising' with cases of lost children being recovered, those have to be weighted, at least I will. I won't analyze every case of a criminal being subjected to a potentially unlawful search, that was actually 100% on point and actually found the evidence. In the end, the pre-crime is actually done against flock in the (left) public opinion, it's being judged based on slippery slope arguments on potential dystopian futures, instead of what is actually happening. Bringing up cases like this that aren't even borderline is probably doing more damage if anything, there were cases of officers stalking their ex-gf with the cameras, and it seems that the audit trail doesn't track specific warrants, it just asks for a general string that's usually filled with 'warrant', those are true weak points, this is just engagement bait to get blue dress/white dress debates where the left defends the rights of criminals and false positives(which might be legitimate), while the right sees criminals being prosecuted for their crimes. If that's what it comes down to, I don't see the dress blue, what can I tell ya. Edit: i don't get why the bail jumping charge was dropped though, like how can you lack evidence for that? If the conviction was never fact based but law based, then that may be grounds for arguing the arrest warrant was illegitimate and thus argue poisonous tree?

ndsipa_pomu 1mo ago

To my mind, tracking a vehicle/person's movements sounds pretty much like a search. What concerns me is that they didn't have any reason to conduct that search in the first place. It surprises me that the cops don't need a warrant to track anyone for any reason - that's very much open to abuse as cops are not known for being impartial.