[url]http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/1552982[/url]

"Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford told City Council on Wednesday that he was embarrassed by the mass arrests of 273 people on trespassing charges earlier this month, and he implied that officers should have disobeyed orders to arrest them."

yup.



""Officers are taught beginning in the academy that they are not to follow an unlawful order," Bradford said."

yup.

i wonder what happened to those officers between their academy days and the night of the arrests.

You might say that the officers were just following orders; that even the supervisors had to obey a captain.

But the original story reported that people were arrested while eating at a drive-in and after leaving a store with their purchases. I don't see how a trained police officer with any sense of right and wrong could take part in that kind of illegal operation. The captain should get jail time; the rest should probably find another line of work.

Notice this statement:



This guy still believes it would be OK to punish people for doing nothing wrong. He is no different than the 78 JBT involved in the incident. It happened under his watch and should be held accountable. Conspiracy charges applies to him.

All of the officers involved should be immediately fired and brought up on civil rights violation charges. If the DA did not drop ALL of the cases of those arrested, he should be fired, disbarred and brought up on charges also. The same should apply to ANY of the DA office staff and conspiracy charges filed on them.

Any judge who did not immediately throw out ALL of the cases that reached his bench should be disbarred and brought up on civil rights violations and conspiracy charges.

There's not a thing you can do to any of them.  They've ALL got IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION.  It was all in the line of duty.  Unless, and it's a BIG UNLESS considering the number and rank of those present, you can prove "official oppression" there's no recourse for the victimw except getting charges dropped.  And that's not going to remove the arrest history.  Don't know HOW you would go about that.

I positively HATE the idea of governmental immunity from prosecution.

Arock

Federal Civil Rights Violations!

Jail Time!

I don't think they have any immunity from hungry hogs.

OK but knowing a crowd of that many people in that part of Houston probebly had representatives of every possible population segment, how are you going to prove any particular group got discriminated against?  Or maybe is deprivation of freedom considered a civil rights violation if it's done under the color of authority?  Federal prosecution may be possible but the sheer size and scope of the operation and the large number of victims would appear to make a federal case harder to get into court much less win.