St. John v Alamogordo Public Safety
A win in New Mexico. Guy was carrying openly at the movies, lawful in NM. Someone calls the cops and they came and disarmed him. And:
The court stated that “the firearm alone did not create a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity”. The court went on to state that the “Defendants (LEO) had no legitimate reason to engage Mr. St. John in the first place”, also the “Defendants (LEO) had no reason for seizing Mr. St. John”, “Mr. St. John had done nothing to arouse suspicion”.
The judge did rule that the Defendants (LEO) did violate Mr. St. John’s Fourth Amendment rights.
Lastly and the best part of this case was that the judge stated that the “Defendants (LEO) motion for summary judgment is denied with regard to qualified immunity”.
The officers can be sued for violating someone’s civil rights.
September 17th, 2009 at 10:30 am
The last part is very good. It might, perhaps, give pause to those jurisdictions where the police chief’s view is to throw ’em on the ground then see if their carry is legal. If they can’t hide behind feigned ignorance of the law, then it puts the officer at personal liability for harassing lawful carrying.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Markie Marxist sez: “That’s impossible! The cops can’t be sued for violating the law! America is not a nation of laws; it’s a nation of political correctness according to Marxist values! Those cops were acting like good Marxists by disarming a private citizen. Every good Marxist knows that only the government should have guns and private citizens should be disarmed. They were perfectly politically correct to take his gun away! We may have to shut this down at the Supreme Court level. Where did I put Sotomayor’s number? I know I left it around here somewhere.”
September 17th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Now all we have to do is make the juridprudential (word?) leap that “gun control” is a violation of our civil rights perpetrated by politicians…
Though, I do have to admit, it is impressive how vociferously some people object to that concept…
September 17th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
s/juridprudential/jurisprudential
*sigh*