[b]Retired Baltimore City Police officer[/b]
Baltimore city resident
Baltimore, MD

June 13, 2000

On May 20th 2000, Police Officers, of the Baltimore City Police Department, unlawfully and illegally took my property, two handguns, from my home in Baltimore City in the State of Maryland, with contempt and in direct violation of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 9th amendments of the Constitution of the United States of America.

The police, having been called for a trespass violation, did not perform their duties in accordance to the oath of their office in response to my complaint. The police prevented me from moving freely about my home and to
talk with my wife, and then did seize, unlawfully and illegally against the guaranteed protections of the U.S. Constitution, personal property, two handguns, that were not a threat to anyone, were not used criminally against
anyone, and that are lawfully owned by me.

The police were not asked to stay by my wife or me, however the police then did impose themselves and prevent normal conversation between my wife and me, did coerce, intimidate, threaten and by means of duress did compel my
wife to nod her head to their demands to search without a warrant our home and then illegally seize my property. The police had no business acting as a barrier against and preventing normal conversation between husband and wife.
The police were not called for any other reason then for a trespass violation involving a third party (male relative of wife).

The police then, supposedly acting in the interest of my wife, used fear, threats intimidation, coercion and duress against my wife, the person they will claim they were protecting, to compel her to give a nod of agreement to an unlawful and illegal search and seizure of my property in which the police seized two handguns allegedly for safe keeping when there was clearly no unlawful threat made by anyone to anyone regarding this property, this was clearly just an exercise of dominance and an abuse of power by the police with contempt for and in direct violation of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 9th amendments of the U.S. Constitution, any so called law repugnant to the
U.S. Constitution is no law at all, you would think that the police would be familiar with this.

The police filed a report under CC# XX xxxxx, I have not yet obtained a copy of this report, but given the conduct of the police I can only believe the report to be misleading and not at all accurately representative of what
actually happened nor was I or my wife asked to verify the accuracy of the report before it became an official record.

Now I am instructed, by the police to furnish a notarized explanation of how my property left my possession, if I want the property returned to me, how ridiculous this is.

-cont-

[i]I, name with held, am the legal owner of the property seized and I demand it be returned, my property should not have been taken in the first place, no violation of law had been committed that could have been lawfully
used/relied upon to take my property![/i]

name with held name with held


________________ __________ _______________ __________


The above notarized explanation was required of me in order to get the Baltimore City police department to return my property, two handguns.

My wife had decided to leave me.  She had not discussed this with me, and I was completely unaware of her intentions to leave.

Early on a Saturday morning, the 20 th of May 2000, believe it or not, the anniversary of our first meeting 8 years before, my wife returned home from what was suppose to be a meeting with her brother to help him take care of some personal business (relating to his marital problems).  She returned and announced that she was leaving me.

Naturally, I was surprised by this  announcement.  I wanted to understand why
she had made this decision without ever talking to me about it.  So I was asking her questions.  We were not arguing and our voices were not loud. Her brother began yelling upstairs that "sometimes things happen for the
best".  He continued to interrupt my conversation with my wife.  I asked him
to stop.  He continued.  I told him to stop.  He continued.  I told him that if he could not resist interrupting my conversation with my wife that he should wait outside.  He refused and continued to interrupt.  I told him to
leave, to go out on the front porch.  He refused.  Did I mention that her brother was at that time separated from his wife, and charged criminally with assaulting his wife.  I pointed out to him that he hardly was in a position to give me advise.

He was standing about a foot in front of me at this point shouting in my face.  Spittle from his shouting at me was landing on my face, and he drew his hand back (clenched in a fist) in a threaten manner.  I took a defense stance, knocked him off balance and to the floor, he offered no further hostilities.  The police were called and I demanded that her brother be
removed from my home for trespassing.

When the police learned that my wife was leaving they decided to treat the matter as a domestic disturbance.

I had not prevented my wife from leaving.  I had not threatened to harm her in any way.  I was merely asking her questions about her decision to leave.

The police were now preventing me from talking to my wife.  The police restricted my movements to the living room only.

My wife was upstairs gathering personal items.  She opened the top drawer of her bedside night stand.  Located inside was my Beretta Cougar 8000 9 mm handgun placed there with her knowledge for her self defense use.  A female
police officer in the bedroom with her saw the handgun and took it.

From downstairs in the living room I could her the action of the handgun being manipulated and knew that it must be my Beretta.

The police using intimidation, coercion, threats and duress did compel my wife to nod her head to their demands to search without a warrant.  They found and took my Ruger .357 Magnum Speed Six Stainless Steel revolver in my
bed side night stand.

The police, approx. 8 of them now, surrounded me in my living room demanding to know the where-a- bouts of the rest of my fire arms, stating that if I did not tell them they would get a warrant and tear the house apart in their
search for them.

Naturally, I refused, and told them "f*ck you get a warrant".  Did I mention that I am a retired police officer with the very same police department that was now in my living room utilizing these Gestapo, Nazi-like tactics on me?

I would not advise the same course of action to others.  The only thing that saved me from a worse fate was that these brown-shirt, Nazi, Gestapo, bastards were apparently sufficiently afraid enough that they might be over
stepping their authority (most police are not as knowledgeable as you might think) that I was not pounded to a pulp, arrested and charged with whatever they could think up.

For brevities sake I have not included all the exchanges that took place between me and the police, suffice it to say... they continued to threaten me for approx. 20 more minutes and I continued to tell them to go f*ck their
selves and get the f*cking warrant if they knew how to write one that a judge would sign.

I demanded a supervisor to lodge a supervisors complaint (discourtesy, conduct unbecoming, etc.) against the police involved.

The whole time this exchange was taking place in my living room there was in plain site, in my umbrella stand, my Mossberg Maverick, pistol grip, 12 ga shotgun.  Before the jack-booted-thug-goons got in my face I casually opened
the front door to the point that it concealed the umbrella stand with my 12 ga.

I also have, strategically placed through out my house, several handguns, all easily accessible, provided you know where they are, all loaded, and ready to rock & roll.

Finally my wife was ready to leave, and so therefore the thugs in blue too. I haven't even mentioned the exchanges that took place regarding the legalities of the police permitting my wife to remove property that I might have disputed her taking.  I was ordered to "shut the f*ck up or I'll lock your ass up".  Police do not have the authority to allow a person to remove property, they do not, can not, determine ownership etc.

.

I know what some of you might be thinking... serves him right, now he knows how "we" feel/are treated by some police.  All well and good, but I was not that kind of police officer, so the fact that I got the jack-booted-thug routine demonstrated on me served no purpose, nothing will improve by me having been the target of this abuse of power by idiots following orders, the so called domestic violence laws.

To those of you who say get a lawyer, well I am still an active member of the FOP, I still pay my dues to retain the benefits, which, one is legal representation.  the response I got from the FOP lawyers at the law firm that represents the lodge I belong to is... "I'm not going to sue the people that have been paying me for the past 30 years".  I said I am one of those
people, my dues pay you.  There was no response for a minute or two, and then he said "what do you want me to do?"  I replied "sue them for me" he said "I can't do that".

I took my story to about a dozen other  lawyers/law firms.  The ones that were willing to sue on my behalf wanted an initial retainer of $20,000.00 to take the case.  I was warned that that was just an initial retainer, the
case would likely go much higher, and there were no guarantees that I would win.

I did get my handguns back from the efforts of the FOP lawyers.  I had to submit the above "notarized explanation of how my property left my possession" in order to get them back.  One of the hand guns, the Ruger, I have owned for so long that at the time I purchased it (from another cops father, who was also a cop) it was not a requirement to fill out paper work
on private sales so the Ruger was unregistered, ever, no record of any owner ever being registered to the handgun.  Before I could get it back I had to register it.

Get a lawyer, sure, if you can afford one.  I couldn't.

Retired, and disgusted.

p.s. My wife and I are still together, she came back about 5 months after leaving.  One of the main reasons she left... she didn't like the amount of money I was spending on firearms and related equipment

Quoted:
It was a domestic incident,

A criminal trespass, in this  jurisdiction, has occurred when someone remains
on the premise (your property) after you have informed (warned) them to leave.  A prima facie case of criminal trespass exists when the property is posted conspicuously, no need for a verbal warning as the sign, naturally, does this in your stead.  It is a misdemeanor in this jurisdiction, meaning it is not necessarily an arrest-able offense, unless you are told to leave by a police officer and refuse, you would then be arrested, otherwise all others would be instructed to seek a criminal charging document from a court commissioner... after a police report relating the facts is submitted by the investigating officer.

My brother-in-law was required to wait out side, but no trespass report was filed, no instructions given.

I was not under arrest and no allegation of any criminal behavior was even suggested by anyone involved.

The brother was in violation of criminal trespass, there was no "domestic disturbance" in the legal definition.  In fact my wife told the police to leave, the police would not.  The firearms in my home at the ready are also know to my wife, for her use.  They are there due to my experience as a police officer investigating "home invasions".  In the jurisdiction where I worked this was a typical offense, so naturally I am prepared to defend against it.  Except for the twelve ga, and even that is hard to detect as it is nestled among several umbrellas, none of the firearms are readily discovered by anyone without knowledge of there where-abouts.  The 9 mm was in a draw and only seen once the draw was opened.

In the years when I was an active police officer I routinely went into peoples homes and saw firearms laying in plain view on tables and TVs, etc. Not once would I have ever been justified in seizing someone's property from them in those circumstances.  No violation of law had occurred upon which any justification of seizure could have been based, period.

Your view of the incident I related is sadly the kind of thinking that has given rise to these Nazi tactics.

In the jurisdiction that I worked it was a typical call to respond to bars where patrons had been behaving as bad as my brother-in-law, and bouncers throw them out physically onto the side walk, no criminal charges against the bouncers.

You seem to suggest that, I, in my own home do not have the absolute right to demand that someone behaving badly should get out.  My wife had also asked her brother to wait on the porch, but because I wasn't writing a novel I left out all the minutia.

Personally, if you favor that kind of treatment at the hands of the police that's your business, but it's not lawful, not under the U.S. Constitution, even if the police do it over and over again and get away with it.

Quoted:
I repeat: It was  a domestic incident.

[b]To tcsd1236,[/b]

Apparently you can not conceive of a category to place this matter in other than the narrowly defined one that has been imbedded in you by your instructors.  So you revert to your Pavlovian training whereby you are admonished to conform to what you are taught, disregarding the constitution in the process.  And you drone "I repeat: It was a domestic incident".

Saying it enough makes it so, but only to you and the likes of you.

What better motivation, than to have placed in jeopardy your livelihood, how will you pay the mortgage, the car payment, and all the other bills if you don't fall in to the goose-stepping tactics of the modern day Nazis.

You are a sad, but shining example of the "I was just following orders" defense.

[b]To FreeFireZone,[/b]

Well said, thank you.

Quoted:


As I've already stated, we have here a dispute between a husband and a wife about her leaving.

Quoted:



Please do tell us what the "dispute" was. I heard no dispute from the party in question. A question, yes. A dispute, definately no. According to the article above, the police were even called for said trespassing violation. A dispute would consist of some type of disagreement. A dispute would be she said "I'm leaving" and he said "no you are not". I heard nothing about any such exchange and based on the information you have available neither did you. So please tell us what the dispute was. Or better yet, I'll tell you since you are either daft or unwilling to acknowledge any wrong doings by fellow L.E.O.s. The only dispute was between a trespasser and a legally recognized property owner. It sounds to me as though someone guilty of criminal action was set free upon society to make further use of his intimidation tactics and an innocent(read guilty of no crime) citizen had his property illegaly confiscated.  

So I'll even help you a bit. Here from the Merriam Webster dictionary is the definition of dispute.

dis*pute [2] (noun)

First appeared 1608

1 a : verbal controversy : DEBATE

  b : QUARREL

2 obsolete : physical combat

The authour indicates no verbal controversy over her leaving, no debate as to IF she is leaving, definately no QUARREL over her leaving and without a doubt no physical combat over her leaving. Would you like to refine your stance on rather or not there was a dispute?

Quoted:




Quoted:

"Rew:
If we're called to your house on a complaint, we're not leaving until the situations resolved.No warrant needed."

you are an embarrassment to good police

Quoted:

You also have to understand that once we are called somewhere and find there is a problem, we simply cannot leave. If we were to leave and take NO action, we would be liable

.."I've taken weapons from homes in domestics, and will do so again"..

...I intend to go home at the end of my shift every night and ensure that I follow agency policy to the letter...

As I said, I don't see any guy who just found out his wife is leaving "just asking questions".

Quoted:

Try2TakeIt,
With you being a retired LEO I'm sure that know your brother in law had a legal right to be on your property. Your wife can give that permission. She has as much right to give permission as you do.

Quoted:
I am more disturbed by you, being an ex-officer, or so you claim. Your posts haven't demonstrated  any proof of actually being in LE, and your willingness to throw around statements about JBT's and Nazi's makes me believe that if you WERE one, you were a loose cannon or a do-nothing....just the kind of officer I love to see retire so they sit behind their keyboard bitching about the current generation of officers.
Have a nice day.

Quoted:

I am more disturbed by you, being an ex-officer, or so you claim. Have a nice day.

Quoted:
TCSD, were you referring to ROD cops, retired on duty? He does seem to have a different perspective on the situation. Of course he was there, that could change your outlook. I've been monitoring this thread for 2 days and it seems to be turning into a name calling contest.

Quoted:

I'm ...being castigated as everything from a Nazi to a drone...

I've said my piece, and people can either accept it or not.