Media Watch

 In the old days, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution required police to establish "probable cause" to lawfully conduct certain searches and seizures or perform arrests. As of 1968, police may stop you even without probable cause to believe you committed a crime. In the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Terry v. Ohio, justices formulated from whole cloth the less-than-probable-cause standard they called “reasonable suspicion,” aka "RS", which was comically and pedantically defined as the totality of specific and articulable facts and circumstances, taken together, that leads an officer to reasonably suspect a person may be engaged in criminal activity. Cops never even need to name a specific law they think has been broken, nor do they even have to tell the “subject” the basis for the stop, unless he’s arrested or cited. The court pretended to establish some boundaries by requiring that an officer’s suspicion must be “particularized” and not generalized,

We as Americans tend to turn the other cheek on undocumented migrants because they contribute significantly to our local economies by depressing labor costs, but the migrants are often mistreated. Back in May, an 18-year-old Guatemalan migrant, gainfully employed by St. Augustine, Florida area agricultural producers, was being detained by a St. Johns County Sheriff's deputy for unknown reasons. Sgt. Michael Kunovich rolled up on Vergilio Aguilar-Mendez, who doesn't speak English, in front of Super 8 Motel, and began questioning him. Kunovich quickly escalated the encounter and began applying physical force against Aguilar-Mendez. During a struggle, Kunovich, a 25-year veteran of SJSO, tased Aguilar-Mendez 4 times. After backup officers arrived and while Aguilar-Mendez was being handcuffed, Kunovich suffered a medical event and was pronounced dead a short time later. Aguilar-Mendez is being charged for his death and has been locked up ever since, even though he had not committed

  This morning I received an email from Google advising me that I had been welcomed into the Bard research project, so I started asking questions. Here's one question I asked, followed by Bard's response. Question: "In the Iowa Supreme Court case STATE V. SMITHSON, the court ruled that Iowa Code 719.1 interference with official acts only applies in the case of active interference, and not for merely refusing to cooperate. Based on that ruling, would refusing to identify to a police officer be considered active interference?" Answer: "No, refusing to identify to a police officer would not be considered active interference under the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling in State v. Smithson. In that case, the court ruled that Iowa Code 719.1 interference with official acts only applies in the case of active interference, and not for merely refusing to cooperate. The court defined active interference as "an act that obstructs or impedes the officer's ability to c