By MassPrivateI
For six-plus years, the LaSalle County State’s Attorney, Brian Towne, formed an illegal police task force called the State’s Attorney Felony Enforcement, or SAFE, unit. (Click here to see Brian Towne’s State Attorney video.)
Calling an illegal group of law enforcement officers SAFE, is the most disturbing disregard of our civil rights that I have ever seen.
During those years, SAFE officers illegally stopped and arrested 77 motorists and stole more than $1.7 million from them.
Last year, Alyssa Larson and Jeffery Straker filed a class action against LaSalle County claiming Towne’s “vigilante police force” violated their civil rights. The lawsuit claimed SAFE officers targeted out-of-state drivers; pulled them over for minor traffic offenses and conducted drug dog searchers without probable cause.
“Police officers are not allowed to stop vehicles based solely on the fact that they have out-of-state license plates,” the lawsuit repeatedly says. (Source)
The lawsuit also sought damages for unreasonable search and seizure, false arrest, emotional distress, and unjust enrichment.
According to numerous newspaper articles, the Illinois Supreme Court declared SAFE illegal.
Justice Charles Freeman said, “(Nowhere) does (the statute) prescribe that a state’s attorney patrol the highways, engage in law enforcement and conduct drug interdiction. Our dissenting colleagues contend that the state’s attorney’s duty to investigate suspected illegal activity is boundless and unrestricted. We disagree.”
In 2017, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the SAFE unit was illegal and police could not search vehicles without a warrant.
Do you feel SAFER knowing law enforcement illegally ticketed an unknown number of motorists, arrested 77 people and stole millions from the public?
So now that the courts have declared SAFE illegal, one would think a class action lawsuit would be a slam dunk, right?
Wrong.
Public should know when police create illegal task forces
image credit: The Liberty Doll
Three days ago, an Illinois District Court claimed that motorists should have known that the police task force was ILLEGAL.
“Larson’s Section 1983 claims are time-barred,” St. Eve wrote in a 12-page ruling. “SAFE’s stop, seizure, and search of Larson and the car occurred sometime in October or November 2012. Larson knew (or should have known) then that the officers lacked probable cause or justification—as she claims, she had violated no ‘traffic, city, state, or federal law[s],’ yet the officers had put her in an unmarked vehicle, leaving her grandmother in her car, and without consent took a drug-sniffing dog around and into it.” (Source)
But wait, it does not end there.
Judge Amy St. Eve claimed the public should also have known that SAFE police were illegally stopping motorists.
St. Eve claimed,
“that Larson knew SAFE targeted out-of-staters and that her stop and search lacked suspicion or cause at the time the officers pulled her over,” St. Eve said. “Even if Ringland was Larson’s first indication that SAFE was not authorized to conduct traffic stops, the complaint does not allege that such illegitimate authorization gives rise to a constitutional injury.” (Source)
So if the public should have known that some police task forces are illegal, what are we supposed to do?
Should motorists speed up and ignore them? Should motorists refuse to hand over their driver’s license and registration?
The courts ruling is absurd and proves once again that they no longer care about our civil liberties.
If the courts won’t protect the public, who will?
FYI, I included the above picture of a police task force entering homes in Long Island, New York, searching for illegal tenants as one more example of illegal police task forces in the U.S. (Click here & here to learn more.)
You can read more at the MassPrivateI blog, where this article first appeared.
Image credit: TFTP
“The courts ruling is absurd and proves once again that they no longer care about our civil liberties.”
This goes far, far, beyond what appears to most people reading about this activity. What is understood by only a small percentage of the population, namely those able to read with real understanding of what they read AND who are not “too busy” to read, is that George W. Bush was almost perfectly correct when he said, “The constitution is just a damned piece of paper.” Almost, because it was written on parchment; otherwise he had it stated correctly. This country has not been a constitutional republic since just prior to the onset of hostilities on April 12, 1861 near Charleston, South Carolina; the start of the War of Secession. During that war, and following the war until February 23, 1871, the Union and the former Confederate States of America were ruled as a military dictatorship. After the end of the war in August of 1865, the confederate states were ruled as an occupied country; which it was. After February 23, 1871, the entire country became ruled by deception by a private municipal corporation. It was essential that the corporation preserve the illusion of it being a republic in order to prevent a revolution, should the people of that day find out the truth. Now that the international bankers, their corporate cronies, and the criminal class corrupted by their money, have had time to get a majority of the people sufficiently “dumbed down”, financially subservient, and deprived of any readily accessible truthful information, they are able to openly disregard every part of the constitution except what little of the second amendment in the Bill of Rights still remains in people’s minds. That little bit will be overcome very shortly, as there are now too few people left with any real inclination to resist to be a significant obstacle to forcible suppression. Most will simply be conned into surrendering their arms, just as was the case in Europe and elsewhere when tyranny was established.