Yah, well, it's just another body, no?
Gregory C. "Bourgeois" Banks had nearly 5 grams of heroin in his car when he was arrested Nov. 23 on Milwaukee's north side, and a warrant for his arrest on an earlier Municipal Court drug offense was being processed, yet he walked out of the Milwaukee County Jail the next evening a free man.
Three weeks later, prosecutors charge, Banks, 28, abruptly killed a man who lived near the spot Banks had been arrested with the heroin after an anonymous phone tip.
Here's the fun part:
A report of the Nov. 23 arrest says that based on an anonymous call to police, officers had been dispatched "for drug dealing from a green Ford Taurus w/temp plates."
But, Chisholm said, what police found when they searched Banks and his car didn't amount to admissible evidence, even though the possession of heroin is a felony.
After reviewing the initial case file, Chisholm backed the judgment of the assistant district attorney who opted not to charge Banks, because none of the arrest reports indicated police had sufficient legal reason to pull Banks out of a legally parked car.
An anonymous phone tip alone "does you no good" as probable cause for a search or arrest, Chisholm said, citing U.S. Supreme Court case law.
The legacy of Kunstler and the ACLU: dead Milwaukee residents.
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2 comments:
The legacy is that police actually have to do their jobs. If they had observed the car that they were tipped to, and witnessed actual suspicious drugdealer-type activity, then they would have gotten a proper stop-search-arrest, and a charge that stuck. As it is, their sloppiness let their arrestee walk, and proceed to bigger evil acts.
Otherwise, any grouch with a grudge can sic the police on anyone, just for spite.
(The notorious Lawrence case started that way also --- someone with a grudge against the neighbors called in a false fight-with-gun which got the police to break in the doors, find them noodling, etc.)
Well, maybe they did, and maybe they didn't "do their jobs." This goblin has a history--and just like with EEO complaints, "pattern of practice" should be considered by the courts on arrests.
BTW, the Lawrence case was a setup by the queers for the queers. The call was made by their little happy-foot pals KNOWING that the cops would arrive during the rump-ranging.
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