Several years ago, when Miami Lakes was initially hiring police personnel after having formed their department, a very dear friend of mine was recruited to go to work for them. He went so far as to go for an interview - they were offering excellent money and benefits, and made it clear that they were looking for “good, old fashioned cops.” My friend is an excellent, experienced officer, and really could have used the money. Turns out, though, that “good old fashioned cop” was sort of code for “we see that you’re older than middle age, and a native of south Georgia, and we really want someone to help us keep ‘those people’ under control.” Friend wasn’t willing to work within that type of system…
Just an anecdote, but after hearing that, I wasn’t surprised to see the dateline on the article.
This is from the longer article cited by Der Trihs. People hanging around stores with open containers of alcohol? That paints a vivid picture of where this store is at. I’ve stopped at places like that on my way home from work for gas, sodas, and milk during the summer. Rap music thumping, teens hanging around, it gets scary sometimes. I won’t stop there in the winter because its already dark when I leave work.
Anyway, the cops behavior is way out of line. I see lawsuits against the city and police dept coming. They’ll probably win and it will cost the city a bunch of money.
Just because it’s not your cup of tea, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. There are plenty of stores I don’t like either - doesn’t mean I think everyone there should be arrested.
I agree the cops are in the wrong. They’ve clearly harassed that guy and the other people in the store. That’ll have to stop. There may even be a Federal civil rights investigation needed.
Question: is there anything at local, state or national level in the USA akin to our Police Complaints Commission? This the body in the UK where I would go straight to if I was getting any excessive hassle from the Police. Otherwise, they really sound like a law unto their own.
That’s what’s really sad about this story. There’s apparently a real need for some genuine police work at this location. The store owner realized this and initially asked the police for help.
But the police apparently decided that asserting their authority has become more important than doing their job. And instead of helping the store, they’ve become a bigger problem than the street crime.
I don’t believe there’s any specific body until you get to the FBI (which would get involved if the police were involved in serious criminal conduct that couldn’t be dealt with at a local or state level). The Mayor’s office often has oversight responsibiity for the police but even that varies by location.
What’s more likely to resolve this is 1) the civil lawsuit, which is likely to be settled out of court in a large part because of 2) the huge amount of national publicity the case is attracting.
What mystifies me is that arrests are being made for trespassing in this case, whether the employee or others on the premises are targeted. In our jurisdiction a charge of trespassing on private property is simply impossible to uphold absent a complaint from the owner/renter of a premises.
This is one of the biggest things that I don’t understand about this story. If the owner of the store says to the police, “Hey, that guy isn’t trespassing. He works here.”, then how can they arrest him for trespassing?
The charges almost certainly go nowhere. The police are just harrassing Sampson by dragging him down to the police station and making him go through the process even if the charges end up getting dropped.
I’d guess some of the customers hanging around that store would sell you a blunt if you asked nicely. They might even approach you to offer while you’re pumping gas. It used to happen to me years ago when I had my longer hair and beard.
But the cops are clearly harassing the store and its customers. Which is stupid because it will backfire on the cops. Theres no excuse for almost constant police searches and arrest of people there.
They’re being awfully bad about their extortion attempt if there’s no “shame if anything happened to your business” commentary in the four years that they’ve been pulling this stunt. And I’m pretty sure that little detail would have been included in the owner’s complaint if it had happened.
“Man, this guy’s a real hard case–he still hasn’t paid up!”
“Tell me about it!”
“You think maybe you were too subtle with the ask or something?” “…Uh, dude–you were supposed to be the one to hit him up for the money.”
“No way–I put the ask on that nightclub–you were supposed to…Aw, crap!” :smack:
interesting idea but according to what’s been said this is more likely a location that developers would want to leave via armored vehicle as soon as possible. So, maybe a low-income housing unit?
I’m about to go to bed and am too tired to read all these articles.
Here is my impression of what is happening. Can anyone verify or correct it?
The store owner wanted extra police protection so he signed some of his rights away. The police were very aggressive, making the store owner, employees and customers angry. They reported the police to internal affairs for abuse and intimidation. The police have retaliated by abusing their extra authority to harass the store owner and his employees because he complained to their superiors.
They might even approach you to offer while you’re pumping gas. It used to happen to me years ago when I had my longer hair and beard.
“…Uh, dude–you were supposed to be the one to hit him up for the money.”