Bluefield PD obtains search warrant for video footage, then searches fridge, etc. – Off-duty Officer Rampage Incident Part 2
Posted on April 26, 2022 by johnbryanlaw
I already posted the crazy video footage showing an off duty police officer on a rampage at Greg's Sports Bar in October of 2021. It's long, but highly interesting:
Here's the backstory which led up to that night. About a week before the rampage incident, there was a shooting in the parking lot of the same bar. Someone basically fired a gun in the air. The same police department that the rampaging officer worked for arrived at the bar to investigate. Bodycam footage shows what happened next, resulting in a late-night search where the officers can be seen looking in refrigerators and whatnot, rather than following the language of the warrant. As you'll hear on the video, the main officer threatened to get Greg in trouble with the ABC, which is exactly what happened after the rampage from the first video……
"The text of the [Fourth] Amendment thus expressly imposes two requirements. First, all searches and seizures must be reasonable. Second, a warrant may not be issued unless probable cause is properly established and the scope of the authorized search is set out with particularity." Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 459, 131 S.Ct. 1849, 179 L.Ed.2d 865 (2011) (citing Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 584, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) ). The particularity requirement "prevent[s] a 'general, exploratory rummaging.' " United States v. Oloyede, 982 F.2d 133, 138 (4th Cir. 1993) (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 467, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971) ).
"This [particularity] requirement ensures that the search is confined in scope to particularly described evidence relating to a specific crime for which there is probable cause." Id.; see also Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 84, 107 S.Ct. 1013, 94 L.Ed.2d 72 (1987) ("The manifest purpose of this particularity requirement was to prevent general searches. By limiting the authorization to search to the specific areas and things for which there is probable cause to search, the requirement ensures that the search will be carefully tailored to its justifications, and will not take on the character of the wide-ranging exploratory searches the Framers intended to prohibit.").7 "[T]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness." Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 381-82, 134 S.Ct. 2473, 189 L.Ed.2d 430 (2014) (quoting Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006) ). United States v. Nasher-Alneam, 399 F.Supp.3d 579 (S.D. W.Va. 2019).
Opposition to general warrants in America predates the American Revolution and is one of the guiding principles of individual freedom under our Constitution. In an effort to combat smuggling to avoid import tariffs, British colonial governments issued general warrants, known as "writs of assistance," that invested the bearer with power to compel any local official to enter any property and make a general search for contraband. The writs of assistance case in colonial Massachusetts, Paxton's case (1761), is said to have been "the most important legal event leading up to the American Revolution." Presser and Zainaldin, Law and Jurisprudence in American History 65 (6th ed. 2006). According to John Adams, "Then and there the child Independence was born." Id. While the writ in Paxton's case was granted, the result only fueled growing opposition to the practice of general searches, an opposition confirmed in countless cases subsequently decided in the United States. (FN 7 from United States v. Nasher-Alneam, 399 F.Supp.3d 579 (S.D. W.Va. 2019)).
This entry was posted in Police, Police Misconduct, Searches and Seizures and tagged Bluefield Police Department, civil rights law, constitutional law, fourth amendment, law of search and seizure, particularity requirement, Search and Seizure, search warrants by johnbryanlaw. Bookmark the permalink.
2 thoughts on "Bluefield PD obtains search warrant for video footage, then searches fridge, etc. – Off-duty Officer Rampage Incident Part 2"
paschn5167 on April 26, 2022 at 11:44 am said:
Now, more than ever, citizens need to push the elimination of cop unions, "benevolent" groups, ALL JUDICIAL IMMUNITY from the politically appointed supreme court "justices" to the latest toady sliding his/her way through the academy. (Un)civil forfeiture must be eliminated as well. Anything linked to "government" is made "special". From giving themselves raises to abusing overtime guidelines. Cops are nothing more than a private army, paid by taxation, used to maintain a blue barrier between the victims and the victimizers.
Although we're bludgeoned incessantly with pablum about "hero" cops etc. by the Central Bank Clan's "media" the evidence implies they're nothing more than an occupying army.
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