At what point do you stop talking to a LEO at home?

Status
Not open for further replies.
But I like living in Mayberry! :D

If Deppity Martin or Deppity Xavier shows up at my place, I'll walk outside and Howdy and see if I can help him with whatever problem he might have.

We had one young deputy for a while, nickname of "Roadblock". He played a pretty good game of horseshoes, at our local pit. Nice guy.

Back when Joaquin Jackson (6'-4" plus cowboy boots and western hat) was our Ranger, a little short guy got introduced to him one day, down at the "Straight Store" cafe. Shorty looks up--and up, and up--and sez, "My Gawd! You're taller than they said you was!"

One day Cowboy Doug, a local picker, arrived at the post office at the same time as Constable Richard.

Richard: "Doug, your license plate's expired."
Doug: "Yeah, and I don't have any insurance or inspection sticker, either, but don't tell the law."
Richard: "Doug, I AM the law."
Doug: "Well, just forget I said anything."
Richard: "Okay."

Some folks just don't live in the right place, is all...

Art
 
Ok, Art, I can see how someone reading my post could call me a 19-year-old. Reason: if you're living in Mayberry (which some people here are living in) then my response is in fact absurd mall-ninja talk. I'm not living in Mayberry. I'm living in the big city and was dealing with very high-level LEOs who are not by any means Mayberry cops. These were serious people who were seriously ready to destroy my life.

Yes if I were in Mayberry and some Mayberry-style officer comes to my door, I would say hello, welcome him in, offer him a cup of coffee, etc. I guess I'm so far from Mayberry and the cops I was dealing wtih (think ATF or something like that) that I didn't even think of that.

Ask yourself: if an ATF officer showed up and your door and wanted to talk, is there ANYTHING you could say that could conceivably benefit? No. If Mayberry PD shows up is there anything you could say that would be beneficial? Sure, a whole lot. Know which one is which.
 
i apologise

to liberal gun nut
it appears that the brush i swung there covered a broader area than i intended. i woulda nhave excluded him from its scope. and my reaction to atf would probably be the same as his.
 
:)

Knock, knock...pound...pound!!!

Police: Open the door! :fire:

Me: But... :scrutiny:

Police: Open the door!! :fire:

Me: But my... :scrutiny:

Police: Open the door!!! :cuss:

Me: But... Huh??? Send out my attack dogs??? Serious??? :what: Ooooookay!

I tried to tell them I didn't want to open the door. My dogs are trained to hate weapons!!! :D They should have had CCWs!

Doc2005
 
I've got one to share of my youth

They cannot come in without a warrant. In my high school days there were a bunch of us partying at someone's house that had the parents away for the weekend. Very typical high school antics. Some beers, maybe a doobie, maybe even more being it was the cocaine heavy 80's, not sure. It was about 1986 and the seniors had just graduated. So a lot of us were discussing the future and where we hoped to be in a few years. Normal graduation stuff, nothing more.

The cops came because we were being loud and obnoxious, like the high schoolers we were.:evil: Everyone started freaking out and I went to the front door to guard it from getting opened and almost tackled the guy that was about to open the door. I explained to the person who resided there that they could not break the door down or force their way in without a warrant. Meanwhile, it got very quiet. A few people took off out the back door, some hid in closets, all the lights got turned off. I stood and talked to the officers through the door and they told me, and I quote. "Open this door or I'm going to kick it down." To which I responded, You and I both know you cannot do that sir. He then restated that he was going to kick it down. I said, let me see the warrant first sir, hold it up to the peephole. He said, "I don't need a warrant." I said, "Oh yes you do, or this door would already be knocked down wouldn't it." I turn to the people in the house, close ALL the curtains, lock everything, which they did.

Peering out the peephole, I see one officer click on his light and start to circle the house. I communicate this to everyone left inside and reiterate the "shut up and be quiet, they'll be gone soon." I post the homeowner at the back door and reiterate, do not open the door, no matter what they say, don't do it, they will be gone in 5 minutes. Trust me if they break the door down, it'll get them in more hot water than us drinking beers.

One circle around the house and they reconvene on the porch to try one last time to convince me to open the door, which I deny, of course. I have to admit I was a bit of a smartass regarding my rights in the last few sentences of the conversation and I could see thru the peephole that they were not pleased by it, but they also couldn't do anything about it. :neener: :neener: :neener:

They left, the party was over and everyone came out of their cubby holes and thanked me for not letting them in. We all learned something that night. Unless they have a warrant, you don't have to open the door and it is in your best interest not to. In this case, it saved a whole house full of kids from MIP tickets that night. We eventually left one by one and all went different directions. Oh the reckless youth days, good times. Those days are long dead for me now. If there are any of you underage types in here, please take heed to this story and brush up on your rights.

Today, if the police come over due to elevated ruckus levels and a noise complaint from my neighbors, I open the door and talk to them. I get the "You're being loud, Wow, you're not teenagers....keep it down, don't make me come back tonight and start writing tickets" speech. Well, when you have 20-30 people on your back deck (none of them shy, quiet types) and a keg of beer over half gone, after 10pm, you have to settle down by city ordinance. You can be as obnoxious as you want, just not loudly. In response to that, we now start our parties much earlier and get the loud and rowdy part over with before 10pm, just like the neighbors do. Makes things much easier that way and no police have been to the door for over 7 years now.
 
Aw, we have Customs, Border Patrol, DEA, FBI, Park Narcs and Lord knows what else running around the Border. I've not seen nor heard of any rousts of "just folks" in these last 24 years, and the "cactus telegraph" is pretty good at keeping folks informed.

But, like I say, "common sense". If some Truly Official Sort shows up and wants into my house, he's gonna have a warrant or we sit on the porch. I've noticed I need the A/C a lot less than most folks. They most likely wouldn't want to stay long.

Art
 
But, like I say, "common sense". If some Truly Official Sort shows up and wants into my house, he's gonna have a warrant or we sit on the porch. I've noticed I need the A/C a lot less than most folks. They most likely wouldn't want to stay long.

Art
Click to expand...

So I guess you live on the outskirts of Mayberry? :D
 
Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I just laughed, and said, "Would yall like some lawn chairs while you wait for a warrant?"

They got pissed and left, and didnt come back. So despite being a smartass, it worked.
Click to expand...


What counts is they knew that you were fully aware of your rights. Better to be a smart ass who knows your rights than a dumb ass who let's them come right on in and screw said dumb ass out of a few years of freedom.
 
I have been pulled over while carrying a gun, and a "large sum of cash". Both red-flags to LE. I was totally legit...I have a CCW, and I had my cash in my pocket, along with the withdrawal slip from my bank. I was going to Prescott, AZ to J&G Sales on a buying trip. I had in mind to buy a few pistols, and a couple of rifles, and generally scrounge the Prescott gun shops for deals. So, I took cash....the best "bargain motivator" there is.
Click to expand...


Now days with the current court precedents in place if the police found said cash even with reciepts, withdrawal slips and fully supporting documentation you would almost certainly lose the cash forever. They would "arrest" the cash, charge it with complicity in drug activity and make it magically disappear forever. Cash does talk, unfortunately if LEO finds out you're carrying very much the only thing you are liable to here it say is good bye.
 
about the cash? really?

i tried to find some clear cut cases of folks who could prove the money was legit not getting it back and failed? could you point me to some?i pretty regularly handle a lotta cash and have only once been beefed for it. and in that case i got it all back and my story was i won it in a card game. i did have to report it to the irs. that was in the war on drugs infancy though.
 
I have often seen you make the statement here to "do your own research".

The internet has many reports of citizens having money confiscated and not having it returned even with evidence to support it's legitimacy. If even 10% of these reports are actual representations of confiscation without justification than the problem is enormous. Do your own homework. I have read about enough instances of this occuring to support my personal belief that it is a real and present danger to citizens and our freedom.
 
I think that the seminal question is: why should we have to justify to any official our reasons for carrying cash?
We seem to have lost track of some very basic ideals.
This makes no sense to me.

Biker
 
i tried to find a good example

and thus far all i find are blogs or cases that are very ambiguous, there are a ton of my cousins husbands brother on the other side of the country told me type variants. buts its cool if you can''t/won't remember or point me in the direction of this series of egregious offenses you've documented to validate your completely fairminded and reasonable reaction to the cops i can certainly understand that. actually i can tell you that i kinda anticipated that answer.
 
Now days with the current court precedents in place if the police found said cash even with reciepts, withdrawal slips and fully supporting documentation you would almost certainly lose the cash forever. They would "arrest" the cash, charge it with complicity in drug activity and make it magically disappear forever. Cash does talk, unfortunately if LEO finds out you're carrying very much the only thing you are liable to here it say is good bye.
Click to expand...

I gotta throw the BS flag on this one. If you believe this, you're wearing a permanent tinfoil hat.
 
Some examples:

Police stopped 49-year-old Ethel Hylton at Houston's Hobby Airport and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had scratched at her luggage. Agents searched her bags and strip searched her, but they found no drugs. They did find $39,110 in cash, money she had received from an insurance settlement and her life savings; accumulated through over 20 years of work as a hotel housekeeper and hospital janitor. Ethel Hylton completely documented where she got the money and was never charged with a crime. But the police kept her money anyway. Nearly four years later, she is still trying to get her money back.
Click to expand...


Rep. Hyde: Guilty Until Proven Innocent
by Rep. Henry Hyde, USA Today, July 11, 1995

Now's the time to change the law that allows police to confiscate your property without recourse

(No person shall) be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.
- Excerpt, Fifth Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Federal and state officials now have the power to seize your business, home, bank account, records and personal property--all without indictment, hearing or trial. Everything you have can be taken away at the whim of one or two federal or state officials. Regardless of sex, age, race or economic situation, we are all potential victims.

Just ask Willie Jones, owner of a Nashville landscaping business. In 1991, he made the mistake of paying for an airplane ticket in cash--behavior deemed to fit a drug courier profile. Jones was detained and his luggage searched. No drugs were found. But in his wallet was $9,600 in cash. The money was seized, but Jones was not charged with any crime. After two years of legal wrangling, Jones' money was returned.

During a fruitless seven-hour search for drugs aboard Craig Kline's new $24,000 sailboat in 1989, federal agents wielding axes, power drills and crowbars nearly destroyed his boat. No evidence of contraband was found. The boat was sold for scrap, and only after Congress intervened did Kline receive a reimbursement of over $9,100--a third of the boat's value.

Over the course of several years, Florida police routinely confiscated cash (an estimated $8 million total) from motorists who fit profiles of drug couriers. Criminal charges rarely were filed in these cases, and in only three did individuals have funds returned.

Increased government and police powers, rising criminal activity and violence, popular anxiety about drug use--all have become justifications for curtailing the application of the Bill of Rights and the individual security it once guaranteed. Consider the following:

*Confiscation but no crime: According to one estimate, in more than 80% of asset-forfeiture cases the property owner is not charged with a crime, yet government officials usually keep seized property.

*A flimsy standard of proof: To justify its seizure, the government need only present evidence of what its agents see as "probable cause." This is the same minimal standard required to obtain a search warrant, which allows police only to seek evidence of a crime, not to permanently seize property. Even worse, under current law the burden of proof then switches to the property owner, who must establish by "a preponderance of the evidence" that his or her property has not been used in a criminal act.

*Guilt by ownership: The basic American presumption--innocent until proven guilty--has been reversed. Property owners who lease apartments, cars or boats risk losing their property because of renters' conduct over which the owner has no control--and sometimes, by law, can have no control.

*Perverted procedures: To contest government forfeiture, owners are allowed only days in which to file a claim and post a 10% cash bond based on the value of the property. Even if the owner gets his property back, the government is not liable for damage.

*Questionable official conduct: Perhaps worst of all, some police and prosecutorial authorities are engaging in questionable conduct themselves. In 1992, former New York City police commissioner Patrick Murphy admitted that "the large monetary value of forfeitures ... has created a great temptation for state and local police departments to target assets rather than criminal activity."

Criminal-asset forfeiture--following a criminal conviction--is an appropriate punishment of the guilty who have been accorded due process. Civil forfeiture even has a proper place in the prosecution of the war on drugs, but not as it's now being widely abused.

Happily, changes are on the way. Beginning this autumn, the House Judiciary Committee begins work on much-needed reforms to federal seizure law.

The legislation, among other things, revives the notion that property, like individuals, is innocent until proven guilty; allows owners to recover for damage done to property while it is in the custody of law enforcement agencies; protects innocent property owners unaware of illegal activity; and extends the period of time for appeal of a seizure from 10-20 days to a more reasonable 30 days.

Reform is long overdue.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde is author of Forfeiting Our Property Rights: Is Your Property Safe From Seizure?
Click to expand...

I didn't even have to quote the most recent case originating in Nebraska.

I could give you more but I'd be wasting bandwidth. It's available if you
want to actually look for the data and believe what you read. If you dismiss everything out of hand as second hand gossip, misinformation and lies of course there is no "evidence", but you would still be wrong.

The government at virtually every level seizes cash and other assets countless times each year and simply keeps it without filing any criminal charges or offering any proof, the kind that would stand up in court, that the
cash or assets siezed were in fact crime related. It is driven by simple greed.

What is really sad is the article by Rep. Hyde is 12 years old, the ruling from the Nebraska case is from a 2003
traffic stop. This deplorable conduct shows no signs of ending.
 
can anyone

help me find out what happened to Ethel Hylton ? cash was snatched in 89 and in 94 her case stopped being good blog fodder and i can't find any final disposition.
 
Cdaddy...

Whatever the final disposition of the case, they took her money for at least 5 years. Can you justify this?

Biker
 
absolutely not!

but i am concerned about the final disposition. i believe the system screws up but i also believe that the system provides for relief. and tagging some crooked sobs cash is a great way to get em. i mean i gotta figure if you let the law snatch 650 k and take 500 leave town on a bus and never come back you might not be a boyscout. and in one of the stories posted here the sytem did work and the guy got his cash back. they tout the huge number of seizures then trot a case that seems a most egregious abuse. i want the abuse rectified but i want to hear more about the rest of the seizures too.
 
One of the minor details in the cash confiscation racket is that since the police appear to be reluctant to actually charge the former owner of said cash with any actual criminal offenses we have a paucity of official records.
Kind of convenient ain't it. Lots of times the only actual record is what is printed in the newspaper since those who do the confiscating are best served by the "no comment" comment if asked by the news media.
 
Last edited:
You are quite right in that taking the bad guys money is a good disincentive to get him out of the bad guys business. The problem is the disposition of said money gives the police a very big incentive to confiscate every dime they can. And since the laws are stacked in such a way as to make the money the object of any official legal action and the former owner of said money is granted no legal standing it make it very hard to get your money back once it's been taken. When you have a court case titled "The people vs $xxx,xxx dollars" instead of "the people vs Joe Blow" who was found in possession of $xxx.xxx dollars you it should give the average person grave cause for concern.

It would be simple to solve this problem. Tie the seizure to a criminal conviction where the item or cash seized can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt to be connected to the crime as charged. Otherwise give it back. No excuses, no exceptions. The same standard for convicting for the crime should apply for seizing the asset or cash. Anything else is incentive to steal.
 
Is it against the law to just simply ignore the door?
Not answer and not respond.
For example you are sitting in your favorite chair with a pair of headphones on enjoying some good music
Click to expand...

That's what happened to me!

When the LEOs came to serve a restraining order on me, I genuinely slept right through it at 2pm on a weekday. I'm a light sleeper usually, but I was working nights at the time, the doorbell doesn't work and the front door is a little bit far from my bedroom. Since they never served me, it never went into effect. :neener: (Eventually they dropped the charges when the Counties witness turned out to be unreliable.)

My dad says when he used to be a landlord in SoCal, that a tenant actually stood in the window and told the LEOs that "she wasn't home and that my dad, (the landlord,) couldn't come in because he hadn't attempted to make prior arrangements with her." The Leos told him that if he used his key to enter, they would arrest him. He pointed out that he had summoned them to evict her for nonpayment of rent, but they said they couldn't do anything because she said she wasn't home and wouldn't open the door.:banghead:
 
Last edited:
The only time a cop ever knocked on my door, it was the state PD. He asked me if I knew a particular guy on my block. Apparently he had applied to the state PD and this cop was investigating him. He handed me his badge and I held it for the entire conversation. Asked me all kinds of questions, especially character traits. He was a pleasant enough guy, and my neighbor got the job.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

J
  • Locked
At what point should you STOP talking to an LEO during a traffic stop or at home??
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
125
Views
6K
Art Eatman
A
B
  • Locked
I met my first pro-gun LEO, a very good experience!
Replies
17
Views
1K
jfrey
J
M
  • Locked
Do you ever reach your boiling point?
2
Replies
40
Views
1K
Gordon Fink
G
S
  • Locked
How would you handle this encounter with law enforement?
2
Replies
38
Views
2K
Art Eatman
A
D
  • Locked
How much do you value a Police Officer's life?
Replies
7
Views
526
Preacherman
P
Back
Top