Rarely a day goes by that Americans don’t hear news of police wrongfully arresting someone. In many ways, Americans have grown numb to the fact that police and other government officials routinely violate our Fourth Amendment rights. But today, an Arkansas family working with the Institute for Justice (IJ), a nonprofit public interest law firm, has asked the United States Supreme Court to reaffirm one of this country’s most important founding principles: that when government officials violate our constitutional rights, citizens can hold them accountable in court.
The case started in January 2018, when Haden and Weston Young—two boys, aged 12 and 14—were heading home from their grandparents’ house after a family dinner. As they approached their home, a police car came around the corner with its lights on. The car stopped and the officer emerged with his gun drawn. He had no reason to believe that two boys who were walking calmly toward his car posed any threat. And yet, within moments, the officer—who was looking for two grown men who’d fled from police earlier—shouted “get on the ground,” handcuffed the boys, and held them at gunpoint.
The boys’ mom, Casondra “Cassi” Pollreis, watched the scene unfold from her front yard. She rushed to the scene and pleaded with the officer, “They are my boys!” The officer ignored her pleas, pointed his Taser at her and shouted to get back inside. For six terrifying minutes the boys lay face down on a sidewalk while the officer paced around them with his gun pointed at their backs. Eventually the officer’s sergeant arrived, assessed the scene, immediately realized a mistake had been made and let the boys go. The officer got back in his car, closed the door, and said to himself “duuummb.” He knew that what he did was wrong.
The incident didn’t end that night. Cassi and the boys talked with a lawyer and decided to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the officer for making a wrongful arrest. The district court agreed and found that the officer had violated the boys’ Fourth Amendment rights, writing that “handcuffing two boys laying facedown on the ground, at gunpoint,” was “more intrusive than necessary.” But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a divided opinion, found that the boys had never been “arrested” at all. Instead, it said that what constitutes an arrest “can be hazy,” and that the officer’s conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Now, with the help of IJ, Cassi and her boys have asked the United States Supreme Court to take up their case. Today they filed a Petition for Certiorari asking the Court to rein in the ever-expanding doctrine of “stop and frisk” and make clear that the Fourth Amendment protects citizens from being arrested without probable cause.
Police brutality caught on tape and victim wins
Marcus Jeter talks to the Morning Show about his encounter with the Bloomfield’s Police and his road for justice.
Recording police brutality: how one snap decision changed this town
Recording police brutality: how one snap decision changed this town
As Black Lives Matter protests have spread across America, more and more people have begun sharing clips of police violence online. It’s not just happening at protests, either: sometimes police violence is captured in everyday life.On June 2nd, a traffic stop in Baytown, Texas turned violent when a couple friends began to question the arrest of a black man. One man recorded the clip and it went viral, but it didn’t end there. It set off a ripple effect across his life and the city of Baytown, Texas.
What happens when someone uses technology to glare back at police interactions? For Isaiah Benavides, it may have put him in harm’s way.
This video is part of a larger project at The Verge that looks at the power and consequences of filming police violence. Verge Science investigates what police body cameras don’t show you — check that out here: https://bit.ly/2YNuFFY
Vietnam Vet Beaten by Police in Unprovoked Assault at VA Hospital
José Oliva survived the bloodiest year in Vietnam, but he most feared for his life when he was brutally beaten in an unprovoked attack by federal officers in a Veterans Affairs hospital in his hometown of El Paso. If the Fourth Amendment doesn’t protect a 70-year-old veteran beaten by federal police inside a veterans’ hospital for no reason, it doesn’t protect anyone. That’s why, on January 29, 2021, the Institute for Justice filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to reverse the clearly erroneous 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which ruled that federal officers, such as those in a VA hospital, may act with impunity and not be held accountable for their actions, no matter how unconstitutional.
José is a native of El Paso, Texas and a Vietnam War vet, who served nearly three decades in law enforcement, and advocated on behalf of veterans in his hometown and nationwide.
In February 2016, federal police working as security at an El Paso VA hospital assaulted José as he was entering the hospital for a dentist appointment. They then charged him for disorderly conduct—charges that were later dismissed.
When José sued the officers, a predictable thing happened. The officers invoked qualified immunity—a controversial doctrine that the Supreme Court invented in 1982 to protect government workers from being sued for unconstitutional conduct. To its great credit, the district court denied the officers qualified immunity—a decision that the officers promptly appealed. The 5th Circuit agreed with the officers and reversed the district court, holding that even if qualified immunity were not available, José still can’t sue because he was assaulted by federal, and not state, officers.
This decision is wrong. Federal officials are not above the Constitution. The 5th Circuit’s decision disregards Supreme Court precedent and departs from the consensus of other courts of appeals that have considered this same issue. As a result, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi are now constitution-free zones, as far as federal police are concerned. IJ is not going to let that happen. That’s why we teamed up with José to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the 5th Circuit’s decision and let the case proceed to trial. IJ, through its Project on Immunity and Accountability, seeks to ensure that the Constitution serves to limit the government in fact, not just in theory, and that promises enshrined in its Bill of Rights are not empty words but enforced guarantees.