Sep 22 2009
Boston Cops Trick Rally Goers Into Being Searched
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This post was written by Redankulous, Click here to read more by this author
As we noted before, this past weekend saw a very successful Boston Freedom Rally. However the Boston Police Department just did not want to be part of the fun. After video taping the main stage, for reasons unknown to rally organizers and attendees, the BPD began doing something quite unexpected.
It was a pretty safe bet going into Saturday morning that there would be a lot of police and a lot of tickets, but then things just get weird. The police start bringing people to a tent over by the second stage to be searched. Most of the rally goers are were unaware of this as events started to transpire. The police essentially started tricking people into being searched for something that isn’t criminal.
Since Question Two made marijuana possession in Massachusetts a civil fine, there is no legal grounds for officers to search you just because they give you a citation. It would be like a cop standing next to a car he gave parking ticket, waiting for the owner to comeback, and telling him he was going to search it. Many people, of the 1o0 ticketed by midday, were unaware of their rights to not be searched and ended up being brought to this tent.
Eventually MASSCANN President Keith Saunders jumped on stage and handled the situation. After explaining what was going on Saunders implored the crowd not to go anywhere with the police, simply because they just didn’t have to. MassCann is in the process of setting up the email policeencounters@bostonfreedomrally.com. Hopefully a more effective know your rights strategy can be in place next year to keep rally goers safe from the BPD’s antics.
We’ll update the info once the bright legal minds over at NORML have figured this out.
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Depending on exactly what the police said I would think that could be grounds for a lawsuit at the very least – but only if they weren't smart enough to phrase their request in a way that it was a request and not a direct order. We will see I suppose.
All you need to do is bring a camera. I had one but I was producing the show. I helped one guy out that was being searched though. They were searching his bag in front of the main stage area, I pulled out my cam and pointed at them. One cop waved, "no camera" and I said "i'm not putting it away". Guess what happened? The guy was let go in less than 30 seconds….The message we will get out next year is don't consent but bring a camera and document any illegal searches you see!