Denver police used pre-printed forms to issue charges, misled arrestees

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Saturday, August 30, 2008

The ACLU has accused the Denver Police Department of violating the constitutional rights of protesters arrested in the vicinity of the Democratic National Convention by denying them access to lawyers, forcing them to plead guilty to inappropriate charges and placing some of them in leg shackles.

The charges are detailed in a letter (Click here for PDF) which at time of writing is yet to appear on the website of ACLU Colorado but has been obtained by alternative news website Raw Story.

The letter summarizes how basic facts of law and criminal justice were either ignored or turned on their head by the police in the absence of legal counsel for arrestees, itself a violation of the Constitution.

The ACLU alleges that police effectively forced some protesters into pleading guilty, by tricking them into believing they had to do so in order to post bond and gain access to a phone call.

In addition it is thought that some arrestees were led to believe that only they could post bond, rather than having a third party do it on their behalf.

“This meant that no one was allowed to make a phone call unless they plead guilty, thus making it impossible for arrestees to even call a lawyer until admitting guilt.” Raw Story writer John Byrne comments.

Furthermore, the letter charges that some of those in custody were told that pleading not guilty would result in a “double sentence” if convicted.

The ACLU also states that police used “pre-printed” charge forms and had to scrub out charges that did not apply to some protesters. According to the letter some were erroneously charged for offenses they did not commitsuch as “begging, loitering and throwing stones and missiles,” simply because cops failed to remove them from the forms. In addition the letter also states that extra charges were written in to some forms by hand, leading to duplications of charges. In one case an arrestee seemed to be facing six charges when in reality there were only two separate ordinance violations listed.

Not content with issuing false charges, police also mislead those arrested into thinking that any conviction stemming from the charges could lead to “years in jail”, according to the ACLU, when in reality no such penalties exist for municipal court violations.

The letter states that the only time arrestees got to consult lawyers was in front of the jury gallery or in open court in front of the judge, a blatant transgression of the most basic legal rights.

One section of the letter, written by Taylor Pendergrass, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Colorado, intimates that protesters were rounded up in mass arrests and were not given the opportunity to back off by police:

“It is not clear whether any order to disperse was given. No Legal Observer [sic], witness or arrestee on the scene we’ve debriefed heard any order to disperse… Numerous persons, including Legal Observers, asked to be able to leave the blockaded area and were refused.” the letter states.

“After the arrests, attorneys from the People’s Law Project and the ACLU arrived at the [Temporary Arrestee Processing Site to conduct confidential attorney-client consultations,” Pendergrass continues. “The City refused to provide any access to allow these persons to meet with attorneys.”

Pendergrass also charges that those who could not make bond spent up to eight hours at the holding facility before being taken to court. Many were not given any food and were refused blankets or extra clothing to keep warm. He also states that arrestees were flexi-cuffed to each other in painful positions and were not even allowed to go to the bathroom individually.

He also reveals that protesters were kept barefoot and in leg shackles:

“Arrestees were kept barefoot at TAPS. I personally saw one such arrestee later at the City and County Building. I saw her marched from the elevator to the courtroom in bare feet and leg shackles. I saw her appear in bare feet and leg shackles.”

Two weeks ago reporters discovered the huge city owned warehouse holding facility in Denver, consisting of steel cages topped with barbed wire, ready to receive thousands of protesters.

On seeing footage of the facility one local political organizer told the crew it resembled a “concentration camp”, while another described it as a “meat processing plant”. The facility has since been dubbed “Gitmo On The Platte”.

On Monday Alex Jones and the Infowars crew obtained exclusive footage outside the holding facility.

Last week a police bulletin was leaked which advised officers that potentially violent protesters may be identified from their use of hand held radios, bikes, maps and “camping information.” The ACLU called the bulletin “unnecessarily provocative” and warned, “It has the potential to get police officers all amped up and looking for a confrontation at a time when what we need is cool heads and restraint.”

The ACLU has demanded that arrestees be allowed access to attorneys and that all other discretions and violations listed in their letter be corrected by the city during the last two days of the convention.

Nick Juliano
RawStory
Thursday, July 17, 2008

The American Civil Liberties Union wants Congress to investigate the Department of Homeland Security’s creation of “militarized zones” within the US in its overuse of a terrorist watch list and other programs that endanger privacy and civil liberties.

“The Department of Homeland Security has far too many ill-conceived programs that fail to account for privacy, due process and other principles that assure fairness to the innocent,” Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office said in a news release. “It is time for Congress to recognize the Bush administration’s security apparatus is an emperor without any clothes.”

Fredrickson said DHS agents are overzealous in their patrol of the “border,” sending agents and border check-points up to 150 miles away from the border, in effect transforming “many towns into militarized zones.”

Homeland security Secretary Michael Chertoff was testifying Thursday before the House Homeland Security Committee Thursday about DHS’s border security procedures.

“DHS’s collection of personal data on millions of U.S. citizens and its ever-expanding surveillance infrastructure should raise alarms for the committee,” Fredrickson said. “DHS provides the illusion of security without the purported benefits to our nation.”

The department has previously come under scrutiny for seizing traveler’s electronic data without warrants in the course of border searches. Chertoff defended the policy in a recent USA Today op-ed.

The ACLU previously has criticized the Transportation Security Administration, which was folded into DHS when it was created after 9/11, for creating a terrorist watch list that has now ballooned to more than 1 million names.

“The Akif Rahman experience is an example of DHS’s inept border screenings. This week, during an event to mark the one millionth name record on the terrorist watch list, Rahman, an American citizen, spoke about how he has repeatedly been detained at the U.S.-Canada border. Rahman has been interrogated extensively about the mosque that his family attends and his religious observances. Yet, after being shackled and submitting to humiliating searches, he is always ‘cleared’ to leave. When he finally filed a lawsuit, he learned that many U.S. citizens of Arab or South Asian descent suffer the same degrading fate. The committee should question Secretary Chertoff about the department’s targeting of American citizens.

“The committee also needs to investigate reports of racial profiling at the immigration checkpoints that involve Latino residents being disproportionately stopped,” Fredrickson said.

Chertoff defended one border program, referred to as Operation Streamline, in a speech last month. According to the Dallas Morning News DHS credits the zero-tolerance border policy with reducing the flow of illegal immigrants.
“These illegal migrants come to realize that violating the law will not simply send them back to try over again, but will require them to actually serve some short period of time in a jail or prison setting – and will brand them as having been violators of the law,” Chertoff said in a speech last month.

The ACLU says the cost of such programs is too high and denies too many citizens their rights.

“The presence of DHS and National Guard agents in the Rio Grande Valley as far as 150 miles into the U.S. has transformed many towns into militarized zones. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have immigration checkpoints in the Texas towns of Sarita, Falfurrias and Laredo,” Fredrickson said. “This past May CBP made announcements in the media that it intended to continue screening for immigration status at these checkpoints during natural catastrophes and emergency situations. Fortunately, when Texas Governor Rick Perry pointed out that the checkpoint delays could cost lives, CBP retracted its statement but has yet to fully communicate this to the residents of the Rio Grande Valley.”

ACLU
Tuesday September 18, 2007

WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union today announced the launch of a new “Surveillance Society Clock” to symbolize the reality that we are fast approaching a genuine surveillance society in the United States. The clock is set at six minutes before the “midnight” of a dark end to privacy. Also being released is a new report summarizing the state of privacy today and the video of a new piece about surveillance by spoken-word artists Steve Connell & Sekou (tha misfit).

“We are rapidly moving toward a future where our every move, our every transaction, our every communication is tracked and may be used against us,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project. “Too often that big picture is lost amid the stream of daily privacy stories. The Surveillance Clock is part of our efforts to keep people focused on that big picture and dramatize what’s happening to America.”

In conjunction with the clock, the ACLU released “Even Bigger, Even Weaker: The Emerging Surveillance Society.” A follow-up to the ACLU’s widely cited 2003 report “Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains,” the new paper provides an update on how diverse developments in technology, law and government are working together to bring us toward a surveillance society.The ACLU also released a video of “Monster Among Us,” a spoken-word performance piece dramatizing the growing surveillance society, which Connell & Sekou wrote for the ACLU.

“The trend toward greater tracking and surveillance of individuals has intensified rapidly in recent years,” said Steinhardt. “National identity systems, mass surveillance and data mining, the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program, DNA data-banking, search engines that store our every query, even satellites – it’s worse than ever.”

The ACLU also made available Web buttons that individuals can put on their own Web sites to spread the word about out-of-control surveillance.

The ACLU said it would push the clock forward or back in response to developments that worsen or improve the movement toward mass surveillance. The Surveillance Society Clock was inspired by the “Doomsday Clock” created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to warn about the potential for nuclear war.

“The United States is at a crucial crossroads,” said Steinhardt. “As Americans, we must rise to the challenge, confront the implications of new technologies before it’s too late, and protect the privacy that Americans have always valued.”

The Surveillance Society Clock, Report and Video are available online at: www.aclu.org/clock