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Sunday, February 27, 2011
Deputies Seek Protection After Threatening Family
Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily
Several Maricopa County, Ariz., deputies are seeking protection from the courts after threatening to take children away from their parents because the homeschooling family was unwilling to allow social workers inside their home for an inspection based on an unsubstantiated anonymous rumor.
But officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association have responded to the court filing by the deputies, explaining that they must answer for their actions in a court of law.
The case stems from a conflict in 2006 between social services in Arizona and John and Tiffany Loudermilk.
A judge previously ruled that their lawsuit over civil rights violations by the social workers and the deputies can move forward. But the deputies appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that they should be exempted from liability.
Social workers, told earlier by the court that they must respect the U.S. Constitution regarding privacy and parental rights, did not appeal that ruling, and the case, pending in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will move forward at the district court level once again when the deputies' requests have been resolved.
So far the court has suggested the social workers, accompanied by Maricopa County deputy sheriffs, made unsupported threats to place a family's children in custody and arrest the parents if they were not allowed to make what ended up being an allegedly illegal search of the family's home.
No intellectually serious argument can be made to support the [deputies] incredulity about why an innocent man would wish to keep a government official from intruding into his home without legal authority," the HSLDA brief in opposition to the deputies' requests said.
"The deputies were not merely bystanders. They were active participants in coercing consent to search. It was clearly established law that the threatening presence of several officers is an important factor in determining whether consent to search is voluntary and whether a person is seized," the HSLDA said.
"They cannot claim that they were merely present or merely 'standing by.' Indeed, the physical presence of a single uniformed law enforcement officer is considered to be the use of 'force,'" the brief said.
"After Sgt. [Joseph] Sousa arrived on the scene he determined that there were no grounds for arrest … and that there was no justification to enter the Loudermilks' home without a search warrant. The written policy of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office about consent searches further put Sgt. Sousa and the rest of the MCSO defendants on notice that, 'any consent to search must be voluntary, without fear, threats or promise.'
"Sgt. Sousa was the patrol sergeant. He had the authority to order the deputies to leave the Loudermilks' home, but he did not do so. Each of the deputies individually and all of them together were active participants in the violation of the Loudermilks' constitutional rights," the brief argues. "Their conduct was contrary to clearly established law; it was contrary to their training; and it was contrary to the sheriff's written policy about 'consent searches.'"
"Deputies argue that the district court erred in denying their motion for summary judgment and that they should be granted qualified immunity. This is wrong," the brief said. "The law of the Fourth Amendment in relation to warrantless searches in child protective investigations is clearly established and has been since at least 1999.
"There was a clear violation of the Loudermilks' constitutional rights to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures," the brief said.
Earlier, U.S. District Judge Earl H. Carroll decided that the lawsuit by the family against the social workers, sheriff and deputies, would be allowed to continue, because the social workers' concerns were based on "an anonymous tip that the … Loudermilk children were being neglected and that plaintiffs' home was uninhabitable."
However, the judge said that under federal law, an anonymous tip, "without more, does not constitute probable cause."
The Loudermilks are members of the Home School Legal Defense Association, a Virginia-based organization leading their defense.
"Social workers and sheriff's deputies had come to the home … demanding entry based on a six-week-old anonymous tip that the newly constructed home was unsafe for children," the organization said.
The judge's ruling had directed the case toward a jury trial, except the process was interrupted by the deputies' demand for protection from the courts against accusations of civil rights violations.
Authorities have alleged the Loudermilks voluntarily allowed the search of their home, which produced no evidence that the rumor, in fact, was true.
The HSLDA said, however, that "assertion ... ignores the fact the social worker had said the Loudermilk children would be removed for 72 hours if the parents did not permit entry."
According to the HSLDA, social workers responding to the six-week-old tip demanded entry into the home.
"After an escalating confrontation at the front door that lasted 40 minutes, the social workers, backed by no fewer than four deputies, threatened to take the Loudermilks' children into custody and place them in foster care if the Loudermilks continued to deny them entry into their home. An assistant attorney general repeated this threat to HSLDA Attorney Thomas Schmidt, who was assisting the Loudermilks by phone during the confrontation.
"Under this duress, Mr. and Mrs. Loudermilk allowed the social workers and sheriff's deputies inside. Within five minutes, the social workers determined that the anonymous tip was false and left," the HSLDA said.
The family's subsequent lawsuit filed by the HSLDA alleged violations of the Fourth and 14th Amendments.
The lawsuit names Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, deputies Joshua Ray, Joseph Sousa, Richard Gagnon and Michael Danner, social workers Rhonda Cash and Jenna Cramer, and Assistant Attorney General Julie Rhodes.
The judge, in handing authorities a previous courtroom loss, noted that the social workers misrepresented that they had a court order for an inspection of the home. He also noted the deputies were uncooperative, refusing to provide their cell phone number so the HSLDA attorney could talk to them.
The judge ruled that verbal threats generally are not actionable in a federal civil rights proceeding, but in this case, "courts have held that a threat constitutes an actionable constitutional violation in certain circumstances, including 'when the threat is so brutal or wantonly cruel as to shock the conscience.'"
View Article With Links Here
View Related Article HERE
WorldNetDaily
Several Maricopa County, Ariz., deputies are seeking protection from the courts after threatening to take children away from their parents because the homeschooling family was unwilling to allow social workers inside their home for an inspection based on an unsubstantiated anonymous rumor.
But officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association have responded to the court filing by the deputies, explaining that they must answer for their actions in a court of law.
The case stems from a conflict in 2006 between social services in Arizona and John and Tiffany Loudermilk.
A judge previously ruled that their lawsuit over civil rights violations by the social workers and the deputies can move forward. But the deputies appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that they should be exempted from liability.
Social workers, told earlier by the court that they must respect the U.S. Constitution regarding privacy and parental rights, did not appeal that ruling, and the case, pending in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will move forward at the district court level once again when the deputies' requests have been resolved.
So far the court has suggested the social workers, accompanied by Maricopa County deputy sheriffs, made unsupported threats to place a family's children in custody and arrest the parents if they were not allowed to make what ended up being an allegedly illegal search of the family's home.
No intellectually serious argument can be made to support the [deputies] incredulity about why an innocent man would wish to keep a government official from intruding into his home without legal authority," the HSLDA brief in opposition to the deputies' requests said.
"The deputies were not merely bystanders. They were active participants in coercing consent to search. It was clearly established law that the threatening presence of several officers is an important factor in determining whether consent to search is voluntary and whether a person is seized," the HSLDA said.
"They cannot claim that they were merely present or merely 'standing by.' Indeed, the physical presence of a single uniformed law enforcement officer is considered to be the use of 'force,'" the brief said.
"After Sgt. [Joseph] Sousa arrived on the scene he determined that there were no grounds for arrest … and that there was no justification to enter the Loudermilks' home without a search warrant. The written policy of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office about consent searches further put Sgt. Sousa and the rest of the MCSO defendants on notice that, 'any consent to search must be voluntary, without fear, threats or promise.'
"Sgt. Sousa was the patrol sergeant. He had the authority to order the deputies to leave the Loudermilks' home, but he did not do so. Each of the deputies individually and all of them together were active participants in the violation of the Loudermilks' constitutional rights," the brief argues. "Their conduct was contrary to clearly established law; it was contrary to their training; and it was contrary to the sheriff's written policy about 'consent searches.'"
"Deputies argue that the district court erred in denying their motion for summary judgment and that they should be granted qualified immunity. This is wrong," the brief said. "The law of the Fourth Amendment in relation to warrantless searches in child protective investigations is clearly established and has been since at least 1999.
"There was a clear violation of the Loudermilks' constitutional rights to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures," the brief said.
Earlier, U.S. District Judge Earl H. Carroll decided that the lawsuit by the family against the social workers, sheriff and deputies, would be allowed to continue, because the social workers' concerns were based on "an anonymous tip that the … Loudermilk children were being neglected and that plaintiffs' home was uninhabitable."
However, the judge said that under federal law, an anonymous tip, "without more, does not constitute probable cause."
The Loudermilks are members of the Home School Legal Defense Association, a Virginia-based organization leading their defense.
"Social workers and sheriff's deputies had come to the home … demanding entry based on a six-week-old anonymous tip that the newly constructed home was unsafe for children," the organization said.
The judge's ruling had directed the case toward a jury trial, except the process was interrupted by the deputies' demand for protection from the courts against accusations of civil rights violations.
Authorities have alleged the Loudermilks voluntarily allowed the search of their home, which produced no evidence that the rumor, in fact, was true.
The HSLDA said, however, that "assertion ... ignores the fact the social worker had said the Loudermilk children would be removed for 72 hours if the parents did not permit entry."
According to the HSLDA, social workers responding to the six-week-old tip demanded entry into the home.
"After an escalating confrontation at the front door that lasted 40 minutes, the social workers, backed by no fewer than four deputies, threatened to take the Loudermilks' children into custody and place them in foster care if the Loudermilks continued to deny them entry into their home. An assistant attorney general repeated this threat to HSLDA Attorney Thomas Schmidt, who was assisting the Loudermilks by phone during the confrontation.
"Under this duress, Mr. and Mrs. Loudermilk allowed the social workers and sheriff's deputies inside. Within five minutes, the social workers determined that the anonymous tip was false and left," the HSLDA said.
The family's subsequent lawsuit filed by the HSLDA alleged violations of the Fourth and 14th Amendments.
The lawsuit names Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, deputies Joshua Ray, Joseph Sousa, Richard Gagnon and Michael Danner, social workers Rhonda Cash and Jenna Cramer, and Assistant Attorney General Julie Rhodes.
The judge, in handing authorities a previous courtroom loss, noted that the social workers misrepresented that they had a court order for an inspection of the home. He also noted the deputies were uncooperative, refusing to provide their cell phone number so the HSLDA attorney could talk to them.
The judge ruled that verbal threats generally are not actionable in a federal civil rights proceeding, but in this case, "courts have held that a threat constitutes an actionable constitutional violation in certain circumstances, including 'when the threat is so brutal or wantonly cruel as to shock the conscience.'"
View Article With Links Here
View Related Article HERE
Mob Robbers And Rampant Looting: Is This The Future Of America?
The Economic Collapse Blog
Have you ever heard of mob robberies? What happens is that dozens of young people storm a store at the same time, take whatever they want, and then storm out as powerless store clerks watch helplessly. Most of the time these "mob robbers" end up getting caught, but unfortunately "group crime" is a trend that is rising. Is it a sign of the times that large groups of people are starting to recklessly invade retail establishments? Is this the future of America? As I have written about so frequently, the U.S. middle class is being destroyed by this economy and large numbers of our young people are losing hope. Frustration and anger are rising from coast to coast and millions of Americans are losing faith in the system. The thin veneer of civilization which we all take for granted is already starting to disappear. So what is going to happen when the economy collapses? As our economic system fails, mob robberies and rampant looting are only going to become more common. Let us hope that the economy can hold together for at least a couple more years, because once society falls apart things are going to get really, really ugly in our major cities.
Are you prepared for what America is going to look like during the next Great Depression? It isn't going to be pretty. Over the past couple of decades we have gotten hints of what America is going to look like when society breaks down, and those hints have been very frightening.
This first video is a news report about the mob robberies that have taken place in Minnesota recently. What would you do if you were a store clerk in this situation....
Unfortunately, these mob robberies are not just an anomaly. The American people really do seem to be losing it. Over the past couple of years, some almost unbelievable brawls have been breaking out in restaurants and in retail establishments all over the nation.
In addition, who could forget the wild mob scenes that erupted at stores all over America during the most recent Black Friday holiday sales?
Of course we all remember what happened during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. All along the Gulf Coast looting was rampant. Sadly, people were even openly looting stores in front of television news cameras....
This third video contains a compilation of footage from all over the United States over the past few decades. Is this what America is going to look like when the economy breaks down and people are going wild in the streets?....
But don't think that Americans only act this way in the big cities. The truth is that human decency is breaking down everywhere. This was perfectly illustrated by a recently reported case of horrific child abuse in Oklahoma.
According to CNN, a 9-year-old girl, an 11-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy were actually forced to eat pet food and had suffered burns all over their bodies due to the nightmarish abuse that they had received from the couple that adopted them.
The 15-year-old boy in this case told authorities that at one point he was forced to live in a plastic dog carrier for two months and that all three of the children have had their tongues burned with a hot spoon by their "parents".
The following is how CNN described some of the abuse that these children were subjected to....
Authorities said the Kluths are accused of burning the children with hot spoons, choking them and locking them "in the storm shelter behind the residence for long periods of time with only chairs to sit in and plastic buckets for bathroom use. It was also alleged that the Kluths deprived the children of meals for punishment and fed them cat food and dog food," according to a statement from authorities.
Can you imagine?
As Americans, we like to think of ourselves as "good people", but is that really true?
In the United States today, the percentage of the population that is in prison is more than ten times higher than it is in Japan.
Part of that is because the U.S. is rapidly becoming a "Big Brother" police state, but we also have to admit that the American people don't seem to be made of the same "stuff" that they used to.
Something has gone dramatically wrong.
We have lost our way.
Is this country going to be able to handle another Great Depression?
Right now more than 43 million Americans are on food stamps. This is helping keep the population under control. But what is going to happen when the price of food goes up 50 percent and all of these millions of people can't even feed themselves anymore?
That is a frightening thing to think about.
Most Americans have never known hard times. Most Americans cannot even imagine what deep economic suffering is like.
When the U.S. economy does completely unravel, it is going to blindside most of the population. Many Americans will go completely crazy when they finally realize that the "good times" are gone and are never coming back.
What we are seeing in Wisconsin right now is only a very small foretaste of the kinds of economic protests that we will see in the future. There are tens of millions of Americans that are just not going to quietly accept that their affluence is gone permanently.
Unfortunately, the time to start saying something was years ago. Our economy is being gutted right in front of our eyes and yet most Americans just keep on voting for the globalist politicians that continue to ship our factories, our jobs and our prosperity overseas.
Believe it or not, cities like Detroit, Michigan were once the envy of the world.
In 2011, the rest of the world laughs at Detroit. It has become a global joke.
And you know what?
Hundreds of other communities across the United States are being slowly but surely transformed into new Detroits.
Today, there are many towns across the United States where you can almost reach out and feel the despair. It is almost as if someone has sucked all of the hope right out of the atmosphere.
People are getting desperate. As the economy crumbles crime is only going to increase. In fact, many of our biggest cities have large areas where residents simply do not ever want to venture outside after the sun goes down. Life is getting crazier in America with each passing year.
The America that so many of us so fondly remember is being rapidly destroyed.
So what do you all think? Are mob robbers and rampant looting the future of America? Are people going to go crazy when the economy collapses or are Americans going to be able to handle it fairly well? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....
View Article With Links HERE
Have you ever heard of mob robberies? What happens is that dozens of young people storm a store at the same time, take whatever they want, and then storm out as powerless store clerks watch helplessly. Most of the time these "mob robbers" end up getting caught, but unfortunately "group crime" is a trend that is rising. Is it a sign of the times that large groups of people are starting to recklessly invade retail establishments? Is this the future of America? As I have written about so frequently, the U.S. middle class is being destroyed by this economy and large numbers of our young people are losing hope. Frustration and anger are rising from coast to coast and millions of Americans are losing faith in the system. The thin veneer of civilization which we all take for granted is already starting to disappear. So what is going to happen when the economy collapses? As our economic system fails, mob robberies and rampant looting are only going to become more common. Let us hope that the economy can hold together for at least a couple more years, because once society falls apart things are going to get really, really ugly in our major cities.
Are you prepared for what America is going to look like during the next Great Depression? It isn't going to be pretty. Over the past couple of decades we have gotten hints of what America is going to look like when society breaks down, and those hints have been very frightening.
This first video is a news report about the mob robberies that have taken place in Minnesota recently. What would you do if you were a store clerk in this situation....
Unfortunately, these mob robberies are not just an anomaly. The American people really do seem to be losing it. Over the past couple of years, some almost unbelievable brawls have been breaking out in restaurants and in retail establishments all over the nation.
In addition, who could forget the wild mob scenes that erupted at stores all over America during the most recent Black Friday holiday sales?
Of course we all remember what happened during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. All along the Gulf Coast looting was rampant. Sadly, people were even openly looting stores in front of television news cameras....
This third video contains a compilation of footage from all over the United States over the past few decades. Is this what America is going to look like when the economy breaks down and people are going wild in the streets?....
But don't think that Americans only act this way in the big cities. The truth is that human decency is breaking down everywhere. This was perfectly illustrated by a recently reported case of horrific child abuse in Oklahoma.
According to CNN, a 9-year-old girl, an 11-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy were actually forced to eat pet food and had suffered burns all over their bodies due to the nightmarish abuse that they had received from the couple that adopted them.
The 15-year-old boy in this case told authorities that at one point he was forced to live in a plastic dog carrier for two months and that all three of the children have had their tongues burned with a hot spoon by their "parents".
The following is how CNN described some of the abuse that these children were subjected to....
Authorities said the Kluths are accused of burning the children with hot spoons, choking them and locking them "in the storm shelter behind the residence for long periods of time with only chairs to sit in and plastic buckets for bathroom use. It was also alleged that the Kluths deprived the children of meals for punishment and fed them cat food and dog food," according to a statement from authorities.
Can you imagine?
As Americans, we like to think of ourselves as "good people", but is that really true?
In the United States today, the percentage of the population that is in prison is more than ten times higher than it is in Japan.
Part of that is because the U.S. is rapidly becoming a "Big Brother" police state, but we also have to admit that the American people don't seem to be made of the same "stuff" that they used to.
Something has gone dramatically wrong.
We have lost our way.
Is this country going to be able to handle another Great Depression?
Right now more than 43 million Americans are on food stamps. This is helping keep the population under control. But what is going to happen when the price of food goes up 50 percent and all of these millions of people can't even feed themselves anymore?
That is a frightening thing to think about.
Most Americans have never known hard times. Most Americans cannot even imagine what deep economic suffering is like.
When the U.S. economy does completely unravel, it is going to blindside most of the population. Many Americans will go completely crazy when they finally realize that the "good times" are gone and are never coming back.
What we are seeing in Wisconsin right now is only a very small foretaste of the kinds of economic protests that we will see in the future. There are tens of millions of Americans that are just not going to quietly accept that their affluence is gone permanently.
Unfortunately, the time to start saying something was years ago. Our economy is being gutted right in front of our eyes and yet most Americans just keep on voting for the globalist politicians that continue to ship our factories, our jobs and our prosperity overseas.
Believe it or not, cities like Detroit, Michigan were once the envy of the world.
In 2011, the rest of the world laughs at Detroit. It has become a global joke.
And you know what?
Hundreds of other communities across the United States are being slowly but surely transformed into new Detroits.
Today, there are many towns across the United States where you can almost reach out and feel the despair. It is almost as if someone has sucked all of the hope right out of the atmosphere.
People are getting desperate. As the economy crumbles crime is only going to increase. In fact, many of our biggest cities have large areas where residents simply do not ever want to venture outside after the sun goes down. Life is getting crazier in America with each passing year.
The America that so many of us so fondly remember is being rapidly destroyed.
So what do you all think? Are mob robbers and rampant looting the future of America? Are people going to go crazy when the economy collapses or are Americans going to be able to handle it fairly well? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....
View Article With Links HERE
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