The Greensboro City Council is supposed to vote on Tuesday, Sept. 15 on a policy requiring police officers have a form signed before conducting a consent search.
A consent search is when a police officer requests permission to search, usually a vehicle, and the driver agrees to allow the officer to search. If a police officer has “probable cause” to search, the officer has a legal right to search and is not required to obtain consent.
The Greensboro Police Officers Association (GPOA) continues to be opposed to requiring a written consent form to be signed prior to the search, and GPOA attorney Amiel Rossabi sent another letter dated Sept. 1 to Mayor Nancy Vaughan and members of the City Council this week expressing the GPOA’s opposition, that letter can be found here: https://www.greensboropoa.com/
In that letter Rossabi states that Vaughan called him after the first letter to complain about “three alleged inaccuracies in the letter; (a) that the City Council does not have anything to do with the hiring of the police chief; (b) that the City Council did not take a vote on August 11; and (c) that the City Council has never requested additional police presence downtown.”
Rossabi notes that at about 1:26 in the video recording of the meeting Councilmember Justin Outling asked for an explanation of what he had “voted” for. He also notes that after reviewing the video it was apparent that “several councilmembers believed that a vote was taken.”
He also notes that although it is the city manager’s responsibility to hire the police chief that from his long experience dealing with city government he believes that “that hire has never happened without the extensive involvement and approval of the City Council.”
Rossabi included eight exhibits attached to his letter including information about consent searches and what has happened at other police departments when signed forms were required for a consent search. The documentation generally shows that the number of consent searches decreases after a written consent form is required.
Exhibit C is a memo detailing four recent consent searches conducted by Greensboro police officers. Rossabi states this is in response to a request from Vaughan for “real life” examples of why consent searches without the requirement of a signed form “are helpful to deter crime and keep citizens safer.”
In three of those cases police officers stopped a vehicle for a traffic violation and in each case a consent search resulted in a handgun being discovered in the vehicle. One consent search was the result of someone arriving in their vehicle at a location where a search warrant was being executed. The driver consented to a search of their vehicle and a handgun was discovered.
Rossabi notes that Police Chief Brian James has proposed and the GPOA supports documenting consent searches with body worn camera videos.
Didnt we pay Rossabi’s bill when the mayor hired him when to represent her during the eric robert vs the city lawsuit? Something about an affair i think. John?
I never quite understood “probable cause”. To me, it meant that the officer could always find a way to conduct a non-consensual search. There are so many laws on the books, that no one knows, or knows how to apply them.
Whether hiding anything or not, it feels like an expression of that would indicate probable cause. Which it isn’t. Refusal to incriminate oneself is protected, and is not an admission of guilt.
On the other hand, there are predatory jurisdictions throughout the US looking to confiscate things of value, like cash. Try getting it back.
If you’ve ever noticed that blue streak down the center of a $100 bill, thinking it was there to protect from counterfeiting, you were mostly wrong. That blue strip contains metal, and is detectable from a distance. Such as a metal detector, another automobile, and even an airplane passing overhead. This is another way to discourage the use of cash, and to move to a cashless society. That is tyranny.
I wonder if the pallet of cash the President Obama flew to Iran was detected in this manner. He didn’t say a word about it until it was discovered. He had his answer ready. Iran is a world-wide enabler of terrorism, and we helped pay for some of that. Even perhaps Antifa & BLM.
It’s Pelosi-gate!
If the City Council has so much expertise in Law Enforcement they should be on the street during riots and civil disturbances. Next I guess they will want to review all investigations before they are presented to the District Attorney. A little authority makes the heads of some people grow extraordinarily large.
It’s absolutely absurd to think our police would require a WRITTEN consent to search. Isn’t a video record from the officer’s body cam sufficient? Often times it’s difficult enough to get a detained person to agree to any search without the officer trying to also get a written hard copy. BLM not withstanding, it is our police officers duty to serve and protect….NOT babysit potential perps.
I see no value in a consent form for our officers of the law. This starts a slippery slope from which there is no reasonable return.
Next we’ll be asking armed felons to sign a form before attempted apprehension.
Simply a dumb idea.