Girl buys water, spends night in jail

[Nightfyre]

I found this story interesting/entertaining.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...181104442.html

Felony charges were dropped on Thursday against a 20-year-old University of Virginia student who says she panicked when undercover agents from the state's Alcohol Beverage Control division mistook her water purchase for beer.

According to Charlottesville (Va.) Daily Progress, the student, Elizabeth Daly, was walking to her car on April 11 at approximately 10:15 p.m. with a box of sparkling water, cookie dough and ice cream she had just bought from a local supermarket when the agents—six men and one woman, all in plainclothes—approached suspecting the box, a blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water, to be a 12-pack of beer. One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun, Daly said, as her roommates seated inside looked on in horror.

"They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," Daly wrote in an account submitted to the court. "I couldn't put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were ... terrified."

Daly's roommate in the front passenger seat told her to "go, go, go"—and that's what she did, apparently "grazing" two of the agents in the process.

The students called 911 as they left the parking lot, police said, and were pulled over by another agent driving a vehicle with lights and sirens, Charlottesville Commonwealth Attorney Dave Chapman told the paper.

Daly apologized when she realized who they were, Chapman said, but agents arrested Daly and charged her with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and one count of eluding police—each carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and $2,500 in fines. She spent the night in Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.

"This has been an extremely trying experience," Daly wrote. "It is something to this day I cannot understand or believe has come to this point."

Either can Chapman.

"It wouldn't be the right thing to do to prosecute this," he said.

Nonetheless, Chapman "stood by the agents' decision to file charges, citing faith in a process that yielded an appropriate resolution."

"You don't know all the facts until you complete the investigation," he said.

Is it common practice to draw a weapon on an underage person suspected of purchasing alcohol?

[Raiderhater]

Originally Posted by Donger

It was intentional.

I'm still not convinced that teedubya is being serious with his accusations, though. I think he's just being silly.

So it was intentional but, you asked me what was funny. I asked if you didn't see the irony and you said no. But it was intentional.

Now I'm just confused.

[Dartgod]

Originally Posted by Raiderhader

So it was intentional but, you asked me what was funny. I asked if you didn't see the irony and you said no. But it was intentional.

Now I'm just confused.

Mission accomplished.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Raiderhader

So it was intentional but, you asked me what was funny. I asked if you didn't see the irony and you said no. But it was intentional.

Now I'm just confused.

Yes.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

Mission accomplished.

[Raiderhater]

I am fairly positive this is the first time I have been mind fucked by Donger. I am normally sitting back laughing as I watch him do it to others.

[houstonwhodat]

Good thing they weren't ninjas or they would have really been in deep shit.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by houstonwhodat

.

Really?

[underEJ]

I had a cop speed up to me, a pedestrian on a side street, screech to a halt pointed at the corner where I stood, leap out of his car, grab my bag, dump it all over the hood of his car, find my ID, grab me and throw me onto the hood with all my stuff, repeatedly scream at me to tell him my name, pull my arm up behind my back, lean on me while he lifted my skirt up over my ass and did way more than "pat me down."

I was a 26 year old white woman, and I found out later he was looking for a 16 year old black girl who allegedly robbed a bank. I'll never cooperate with a cop ever for any reason. I have my ACLU phrases ready to be as law abiding as I can, but that will never happen to me again, or I'll be dead from resisting.

p.s. the universe agreed with me and that jackass is dead, killed in the line of duty.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by underEJ

I had a cop speed up to me, a pedestrian on a side street, screech to a halt pointed at the corner where I stood, leap out of his car, grab my bag, dump it all over the hood of his car, find my ID, grab me and throw me onto the hood with all my stuff, repeatedly scream at me to tell him my name, pull my arm up behind my back, lean on me while he lifted my skirt up over my ass and did way more than "pat me down."

I was a 26 year old white woman, and I found out later he was looking for a 16 year old black girl who allegedly robbed a bank. I'll never cooperate with a cop ever for any reason. I have my ACLU phrases ready to be as law abiding as I can, but that will never happen to me again, or I'll be dead from resisting.

p.s. the universe agreed with me and that jackass is dead, killed in the line of duty.

That's terrible. Sorry that you had to endure it. I hope that you pressed charges, or something?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by underEJ

I had a cop speed up to me, a pedestrian on a side street, screech to a halt pointed at the corner where I stood, leap out of his car, grab my bag, dump it all over the hood of his car, find my ID, grab me and throw me onto the hood with all my stuff, repeatedly scream at me to tell him my name, pull my arm up behind my back, lean on me while he lifted my skirt up over my ass and did way more than "pat me down."

I was a 26 year old white woman, and I found out later he was looking for a 16 year old black girl who allegedly robbed a bank. I'll never cooperate with a cop ever for any reason. I have my ACLU phrases ready to be as law abiding as I can, but that will never happen to me again, or I'll be dead from resisting.

p.s. the universe agreed with me and that jackass is dead, killed in the line of duty.

Were you carrying water?

[crazycoffey]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Were you carrying water?

No but she has been living in a disability check since the age of 25.

[underEJ]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Were you carrying water?

Ha! In fact, yes I was. Who knew that was such a trigger.

[Garcia Bronco]

My dad was a police officer for 25 years in Virginia and that's just not how they handled things. Of course in his day, a man that could die for his country could buy a beer.

[crossbow]

This is clearly the Bush Administration's fault.

[underEJ]

Originally Posted by Donger

That's terrible. Sorry that you had to endure it. I hope that you pressed charges, or something?

I did press charges, but he died very soon after that so it never went past the initial investigation. I saw his funeral on tv with the heroic montage of images and wanted to scream to everyone what he really was (my complaint was the third on his record, problem with the system for sure,) but then I saw his wife and kids and dropped the complaint because the department meant to take his death benefit from her. I don't know if the other two complaints were dropped or if he essentially screwed his own family over too.

I look at it as a huge learning experience and I frequently help people know how to handle LEO interactions as legally as possible without giving up our rights. I made mistakes in that encounter. The extreme nature of the ordeal is definitely unusual in my case, but the basic transaction is pretty similar to what other people not accustomed to being suspected of something will face. And quite frankly, I totally failed from the first moment, and they count on that. When he first got out of his car and said "give me your bag," I should have replied that "I do not consent to any search of my person or belongings." Then if he took it anyway and searched it, he would have violated my civil rights. Depending on the circumstance, I would have at least had to bear a cursory resemblance to the description of the suspect being sought to qualify for reasonable suspicion, but courts have ruled that not expressly stating your refusal of consent is equivalent to consent so I effectively consented.

I made other mistakes too, answering things I needn't have, questions designed to get me to give up other rights without knowing it, but I'd already screwed up from the first moment. If I had not made the first mistake, we'd maybe never gotten away from the sidewalk to the hood of the car where it all went bad. We just live in a world now where it isn't enough to be innocent. You have to be innocent and savvy at the same time. Now I am.