Police use doorknob swabs to detect guns, drugs in homes

[Car Knocker]

Summary: Police in Utah are using swabs taken from the doorknobs of homes, using an Ionscan to look for microscopic particles of drugs or gunpowder, and using the subsequent results to apply for search warrants. One person is awaiting trial on a charge of possession of ammunition by a convicted felon after police found a box of ammunition in his home.

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2408571

Note that in one case, the police swabbed the screen door handle then open the screen door to swab the inner door.

 

[one45auto]

Now I'm all for law enforcement, but that kind of behavior is distinctly unnerving.

 

[Sindawe]

To paraphrase what a freind said years ago...

BLATANT need for proximity detectors, home defense AI and nozzles that shoot pressurized flaming NAPALM!!!




Extreme, yes. But this kind of FRELLING DREN really torques me off...

 

[charby]

And people wonder why we call them jack booted thugs. Every freaking day it seems like our lives are getting closer in simularity of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

 

[HankB]

Wait a minute here . . . they tresspass on private property, take samples from private property, open the screen door to test the inner handle of a door on private property . . . and THEN they apply for a warrant???

And, as stated in the story, everyone and his brother has access to the front door - Jehovah's witnesses, salesmen, delivery personnel, pranksters, police - even if the outside of a house is ruled "public" how can tests done on a "public" area justify a warrant to search a "private" dwelling?

This is so wrong on so many levels . . .

Prediction: If this is upheld, expect druggies and such to start dusting large numbers of doorknobs with their product. Mayor, police officials, DA . . .

 

[foghornl]

Hmmmmm

Time to carry a large can of those "Clorox wipes" or something like that. Every time you opne your door, once inside, re-open door & swab it down.

 

[carpettbaggerr]

What exactly are they testing for? I'm thinking they'd get a LOT of false positives. Like you fertilize the lawn and it gives a positive result for explosives residue.......

 

[flatrock]

What happened to Judges protecting the rights of people. Anyone touching the door nob could leave the residue.

If the police are able to walk up and test it, then anyone else could walk up as well.

There's no evidence there that couldn't easily be contaminated by other people.

The judge who granted the warrant didn't do his job.

 

[Erich]

Didn't we just talk about this, or was that another forum?

 

[madcowburger]

HankB, everybody and his brother should *not* have access to your front door. There needs to be a *high* fence, with a *locked* gate, or better yet a *wall* surrounding your property.

And if anybody *does* get to your door, it should be locked too, and *really* hard to kick, ram, or otherwise force in.

But this is truly sickening. It's just so un-freaking-American.

I used to be one of the most pro-cop people alive. My Dad was a cop, and my grandfather was a cop, and I loved them. I actually had cop *friends*, or rather I *thought* I did. (I found out that most of them were just looking for something, *anything* to bust me for all along, and that they laughed at me and considered me a fool for being open and frank and friendly with them.)

No more, brother. Never again, as the Israelis say.

But they still don't get it. They still think the only people who don't like or trust them are natural-born crooks and dope addicts and "long-haired-hippy-type-pinko-fags."

They have no clue, no matter how many times they are told, that they have forfeited the support and friendship of the very people who were once their firmest supporters. It's a waste of breath and time trying to tell them. They're so convinced of their own righteousness and perfection and God-like infallibility that they can't even hear what you're saying.

So save your breath for fence- or wall-building and door-bracing.

MCB

 

[Pilgrim]

They have no clue, no matter how many times they are told, that they have forfeited the support and friendship of the very people who were once their firmest supporters. It's a waste of breath and time trying to tell them. They're so convinced of their own righteousness and perfection and God-like infallibility that they can't even hear what you're saying.

Very foolish of them. They don't realize how vulnerable they are.

Pilgrim

 

[fjolnirsson]

:banghead:

Words fail me.

 

[PBIR]

Preposterious. While I hope these cases are thrown out, I fear that the apathy of our Country might prevail.

 

[Coronach]

Well, lets keep things in perspective here.

1. If the cops were randomly going around swapping doors and applying for warrants, I'd agree with you. In some ways, I still do. But I'm allergic to hyperbole and I think that you weaken your argument by making grandiose claims and grandiose assumptions, which do not seem to be supported by the newsblurb (to which my normal caveats apply).

2. What seems to have happened was this: the gentlemen in question were under investigation for numerous and sundry things, and the police already had some evidence against them. They swabbed the doors to, in the words of the newsblurb, bolster the case against them.

Using a novel investigative tactic against a Known Bad Guy is quite a few steps from Brave New World, 1984 and Farenheit 451, where such techniques are used routinely on us all. Don't think it is? Consider the olde fashioned 'stakeout.' No warrants required. Common police practice. Used against Known Bad Guys. No cries of Big Brotherism there.

As always, however, I'm leery of the government's ability to cross the divide between the two extremes, and I'm curious what the courts will say. I think there is a privacy question to be resolved, and I'm also worried about the less-than-definitive nature of the test.

But, as I said, lets keep it in perspective.

Mike

 

[PBIR]

According to the article what the cops did is trespass onto private property and swab the doors to bolster their request for search warrants. They should have gotten the warrant before they swabbed the door.

 

[Coronach]

Again, a matter for debate.

There was, apparently, a sign directing people coming to the front door to go to the back.

Question:

You, as a random person on the street, walk up to a house to knock on the door, and see a sign telling you to go around back. What would you do? Well, you'd go around back. Having gone around back, are you guilty of criminal trespass?

If the answer is no, then the police did not commit a trespass, either.

Mike

 

[PBIR]

What were they doing at the door in the first place? The front door/back door isn't the issue, it is the fact that they went onto private property and collected evidence without a warrant when they had no business being at either door.

 

[Coronach]

Ah. The crux of the privacty issue.

Well...the cops can go up to a door. They don't need a warrant to proceed to the threshold of a house, nor should they. The question becomes, can they gather 'evidence' at this location? Well...if a cop comes to your front door and can see through the window that there is a crime scene inside...they have gathered evidence, without a warrant, and it is admissible. So...if they do it with a swab...is it admissible?

I dunno. They're kindasorta the same thing, kindasorta not.

Mike

 

[PBIR]

<shake head> Guess we're all going to have to post "no trespassing" signs in our yards now to protect our rights.</shake head>

 

[madcowburger]

I don't think they pay much attention to "No Trespassing" signs. Really high fences or walls with *locked* gates might discourage them from just casually moseying in, though.

As for this business of peeping in someone's windows and observing a "crime scene," who really knows what's a crime anymore? I know of a case where a woman, a single mother, was sitting in her living room watching TV and drinking a beer one night. A local cop peeped in through her (unfortunately not blacked out) window, and observed her drinking a beer. He just happened to know somehow that she owned a .38 revolver. It was locked in a drawer in anoother room. I mean she wasn't sitting there dry-firing it at the politicians on TV or anything.

But somehow the mere fact that he knew she *owned* (possessed) a gun, and had a kid (asleep in another room), and was "observed" drinking a beer was enough for the peeping policeman to charge her with some sort of wanton endangerment or child endangerment or something. I don't know if they did the "dynamic entry" thing with the rams and ski masks and concussion grenades or if they just knocked on the door or what. I don't believe she was actually jailed for long, but they did confiscate her .38 and they (or rather the social workers they brought in) took her child away.

I keep all my windows heavily draped, day and night. I reinforced my door as much as my limited means and renter status allowed. I don't answer knocks at the door unless I'm *expecting* someone I've *invited.

MCB

 

[Car Knocker]

Let's look at it from a different perspective. When the cops swab the doorknob, they remove whatever was on the doorknob with them. Don't they have to have a warrant to remove what's yours from your property? Before they remove it?

 

[DMF]

Car Knocker, that's a great argument. "Your honor the local PD stole my heroin from the doorknob." "Yes, it was my heroin, and I did not give consent for them to take it." Oh yeah, I'm dying to hear that case made in court.

 

[Langenator]

Having a police officer (an agent of the State) come onto my proprety and up to my front door collecting for the widows and orphans charity, or just to say hi, I'm Officer Bob, and I'm new on the beat here in your neighborhood is inherently different from having a police officer (an agent of the State) enter my property with the intent of collecting evidence of any sort against me.

It's the intent that makes it unlawful, not the fact that Officer Bob is on my property.

 

[madcowburger]

Heroin? Why does it have to be about heroin? Why must these things always be framed in terms of drugs? IIRC, they weren't just looking for microscopic drug residue, but for *gunpowder* residue.

I haven't had a place to shoot for a long time, but if I ever do I hope to do a fair amount of shooting. I imagine I'll leave some mocroscopic trace of gunpowder residue on my door knobs, and on my car's door latches too. I'll bet a dog trained to sniff out gunpowder residue would "alert" to my car. What happens next?

Last time I checked, it still wasn't necessarily a crime per se to be a gun owner, at least not in most parts of the country. Not yet. Of course it may get to be, especially when Kerry or Hillary gets in there and packs the Supreme Court and all. But this sure opens the door (no pun intended) to detecting all us soon-to-be outlaws, no matter how low-key and discreet we may be.

I don't have any heroin or any pot or any other currently illegal drugs, and I don't want any. I *do* want the full, free exercise of all my rights supposedly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. If I have to put up with a few potheads and junkies getting high and getting away with it in order to have my own freedom and privacy secured, then so be it.

MCB

 

[PBIR]

I'm pretty sure that a no trespassing sign would be enough to get this type of illegal search and seizure thrown out of court, at least here in TN. If they don't have a warrant and you have a posted no trespassing sign they have no business on your property - not that they do without the sign there anyway.