During the Boston bombing, the Boston PD locked Boston down pretty good. Short of the actual declaration of martial law, could the Boston PD really keep me from simply choosing to walk down the street?
The police can prevent you from entering a crime scene. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, the marathon site for several blocks around was cordoned off and treated as a crime scene. You can be arrested and charged for entering a crime scene without permission.
As for the rest of it during the manhunt, the police strongly requested that people remain in doors. There was no enforced curfew or anything like that, although enforcing curfews is well within police power without having to resort to martial law.
They allowed the folks at various doughnut shops to open their businesses as usual, so I doubt they could do much against a determined-but-law-abiding citizen without risking a huge outcry.
As it is, they’re taking flak for specifically exempting the doughnut folks from the general lockdown.
Interfering with a police investigation is a variation on Obstruction of Justice, is it not?
Donuts are an essential service - ask any police officer.
That’s right. It was voluntary.
(But who the hell wouldn’t have wanted to cooperate by that point?)
The are media reports, including video, of people being forced out of their homes at gunpoint with their hands raised, so authorities could search their homes for the suspect.
[ul]
[li]If I were a homeowner within the cordoned off area, would the police be required to produce a warrant to legally search my home?[/li][li]If no warrant, what specific legal authority did the police have to search my home?[/li][li]Was this legal authority publicly declared to all residents within the cordoned off area?[/li][li]If this was truly voluntary, what if I refused entry to the police without a warrant?[/li][/ul]
I’ve had one question about this that I’ve been unable to find answers for.
Were residents of the crime scene essentially stranded either inside or outside of their homes?
I was talking to a young woman at around 5:30pm on the day of the bombing. She didn’t even try going home, she headed over to her sister’s instead. She didn’t even try going home, figuring police wouldn’t let her.
A friend tells me that she has a frind who lives in that neighborhood. She told police that she had to get into her apartment because that’s where her meds were. They told her that she could go in, but she wouldn’t be allowed out again.
Aside from these anecdotes, I have no idea what the truth is.
The police don’t need a warrant to search your property if there’s an urgent reason for it. Usually, this is because the cops are in hot pursuit and the suspect just jumped the fence into your back yard, or the police just heard a blood-curdling scream coming from your bedroom, or something along those lines. Warrantless searches during a general dragnet of the area would seem to cross the line IMHO. That is exactly the sort of “fishing expedition” which the courts pretty consistently rule are unconstitutional.
I think the legal principle in play is exigent circumstances:
Emphasis mine.
No, I’m not a lawyer. Still, looks like a plausible excuse in the hours immediately after a terrorist attack, with the suspects still at large and possibly close-by to the scene of the event.
Edited to change wording. At one point, I originally used the phrase “reasonable rationale”, but realized after pushing “submit” that I made it sound like I thought these searches were obviously reasonable in the constitutional sense. That’s not what I meant. I just meant that the police, at least, thought warrantless searches were justified by the exigency of the circumstances. I rather doubt anyone will challenge them on that question, really.
As mentioned, the police searching houses in Watertown near the Friday fire fight where the younger of the bombers escaped was basically “hot pursuit”. You can make the argument that it was far enough removed from the scene where he was last spotted but the legal reasoning behind it seems pretty solid. I don’t believe there were any other searches conducted like that during the days immediately after the bombings.
People very close the bombings during the marathon were removed from their homes and not allowed back in until the crime scene was cleared and safety checks were conducted on the buildings to make sure there was no structural damage. It sounds like some were allowed back in briefly to get items (like medicine or pets) but most weren’t. An on-air personality on one of the local sports radio stations lived in the building where the second bomb went off. His wife is in chemo and wasn’t allowed back in to get her drugs - they got more at the hospital instead.
I had friends told by the cops to return to their houses when they went on walkabout that Friday, but no one pushed the issue to point where it was a conflict. They all returned to their homes and didn’t argue with the cops.
I’m from Cambridge, MA (right across the river from Boston and just over two miles away from the site in Watertown) and we were on lockdown (officially “Shelter in Place”) along with Watertown, Boston, Belmont, and Newton. The schools and businesses closed and people were strongly advised to stay where they were, but unlike during Winter Storm Nemo, travel was not banned and there were no fines for people who ventured outdoors.