This is definitely their way of trying to get around our First Amendment rights. The city owns the land, but it’s managed by a private company!!! This must be challenged in court.Just saw a press conference where the officials said they would crack down on visitors for anything they deem unwanted, not illegal, because they can.
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If anyone would be willing to upvote this in hopes of increasing the likelihood of Jeff responding, I would be incredibly grateful.
Can’t wait to hear the rest of this story. I’m trying hard to imagine the relationship of the citizens to a future Urban State where all property is leased to businesses.
Good job identifying this problem, Jeff. Please challenge it.
To anyone who thinks this is okay, it may seem like a small matter for some private company to “manage” a public park, but it is still a public park. It is still owned by the city and is still being funded with public money even as members of the public are capriciously denied access to it. If a company wants to put money into making it better, great! We should welcome investment into our communities, just like we would from a volunteer group doing clean-up work or whatever. But at no point should the company or the volunteers become empowered to decide who can and can’t use the park.
If a company wants to own a park, it can make its own park on truly private property. There’s no rule against it. What’s happening here is some kind of unholy alliance between corporations and local authorities who want to be able to do things they’re prohibited from doing under the law. Normally the cops can’t kick Jeff (or any homeless person, or any person period who’s acting lawfully) out of the park, but now all of a sudden they have this new authority thanks to some questionable public-private deal.
This is wildly unacceptable. Do we have to worry soon about corporations “managing” public sidewalks and other city services so that they can exclude people at their pleasure?
“We appreciate with what you are doing but we are still going to stomp on your rights.” What kind of person prostitutes themselves in this manner? How does a city lease public property out to a private entity specifically to restrict public access to public property? I’d love to see how this works through the courts.
How offensive that the city thinks it can ignore the constitution by entering into a public private partnership or that a corporation like Brown and Brown who could use their significant resources to compassionately assist people experiencing homelessness instead choose to bribe the city to allow them to instead banish them. This isn’t just unconstitutional, it’s morally wrong. The city can’t outsource its unconstitutional actions. Their intent was clear in the statements made in advance. They should be ashamed of themselves and be held legally accountable for their egregious violations of the constitution.
“You’re not even being trespassed.” Immediately followed up by: “If you go back on there, you’re going to jail.”[/bg_collapse]
Civil Asset Forfeiture makes it Legal for Cops to engage in Highway Robbery
Washington Post: A former Marine was pulled over for following a truck too closely. Police took nearly $87,000 of his cash.
- The officers did not arrest Stephen or charge him with any crime. They just took his life savings and left him on the side of the road without enough money to even afford gas to drive home.
- He is considered guilty of having illicit cash until he can hire a lawyer to prove that he is innocent.
Greenville News: Civil Asset forfeiture hurts African Americans most
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- Stephen is a 39-year-old retired Marine from Lubbock, Texas. He is a devoted father of two teenage daughters and, once a month, he drives from Texas to see them in California, where they live with their mother. Eager to be closer after spending the pandemic in Texas caring for his elderly parents, he has been shopping for a home near the California-Nevada border.
- In February 2021, Stephen was making his usual trip west through Reno when he was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol for supposedly following a tractor-trailer too closely.
- The officer complimented Stephen’s driving, thanked him for observing the speed limit, and explained that NHP was “conducting a public information campaign” to help drivers avoid danger. Confident that the officer was only there to help, Stephen cooperated with his escalating investigation, even volunteering that he was carrying a large amount of cash.
- Ninety minutes later, Stephen had been robbed of his life savings—$86,900—which he carried with him after a spate of robberies in his parents’ neighborhood. The officer who pulled Stephen over wanted to let him go; he was overruled by NHP Sergeant Glenn Rigdon, who ordered the money seized specifically so that it could be “adopted” by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
- “Adoption” is a process by which federal law enforcement agencies can take over a seizure by state and local law enforcement. If the federal government is successful in forfeiting the property, its “equitable sharing” program guarantees the state or local agency that seized the property up to 80% of the proceeds for use in the agency’s budget.
- In Stephen’s case, the DEA sat on his life savings for months, ignoring the legal deadlines requiring it to charge Stephen with a crime, begin a civil forfeiture case against his property, or return the money within six months of seizure. The DEA did none of those things. So, on August 30, IJ sued it in federal court on Stephen’s behalf.
- Early the morning of September 1, the agency announced it would return all of Stephen’s money. In less than 24 hours, it had learned of our lawsuit, answered hard questions from The Washington Post, and committed to reviewing its policies for federal adoptions.
- When we learned he would be getting his money back (filled with joy), he told us, “This isn’t over.”
- And it isn’t. At the same time we filed in federal court, we also filed a major constitutional challenge in state court. Our state case aims to make federal adoptions impossible in Nevada as violations of the state constitution’s guarantees of reasonable seizures supported by probable cause and due process of law—not based on mere suspicion or for the financial benefit of the seizing agency. If we are successful, it will be the first time a state court has struck down federal adoptions. And a victory will take the profit motive out of roadside seizures.
Filmed with a Canon C70 with a 50mm 1.2 lens. Aputure 300d, 120d, and amaran.
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Was a Racially Motivated 911 Call Responsible for Police Overreaction?
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- Why is she continuing to search his pockets and keep him handcuffed after she knows he’s a realtor and there was no forced entry? The retired officer should be charged for false reporting.
- Apart from the obvious racism in this case and others, do you as Americans realise just how heightened and anxious these encounters are because everyone involved is worried that someone has a gun? As an Englishman, I’ve had and witnessed run-ins with the Police, but there has NEVER been any worry that anyone might have a gun in a glove box in a car or in an inside pocket.
- That retired cop that called it in knew exactly what he was doing, using the precise terminology, “forced entry/forced their way in”, because only then would the police on-scene be SURE to have all the probable cause they need to do what they did. Most people that would call for what they believe to be suspicious activity would just say something like they went into the place and they aren’t sure if they should be there, or something generic like that, but this former cop knew if he said they forced entry that they’d get the full-cavalry treatment
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