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Baptist Minister Says He Was Beaten at Internal Border Check
Friday, April 17th, 2009All I know is what’s in the video.
69 Responses to “Baptist Minister Says He Was Beaten at Internal Border Check”
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I cant help but think that even if this is a fake story I still can find it highly probable to have happened. I am curious as to what his actual charges are.
I wish I didn’t believe it.
Wasn’t expecting this at all, but the YouTube comments, at first glance at least, appear to be extremely unsympathetic.
Guess this guy is supposed to be arraigned today. Wonder if he will report back.
Hm, just one of a million similar stories. It’s funny, practically everyone I’ve ever discussed this subject with, regardless of political orientation, has a personal story (usually more than one) about police behaving badly. Yet when election time comes, often the politician who defends the police most vigorously wins. I just don’t get it.
That said, once I saw the hammer come out, I’d have complied, and then called my lawyer for a civil suit. I mean, more power to him for standing up for our rights, but I guess he thought they were bluffing? If you read this site you know calling a cops bluff is a gamble at best.
If you check his other videos on YouTube you’ll find a link to his church. All of his other videos have to do with his ministry. Not that religion makes one honest, but making a story up like this would discredit his “testimony,” as the Baptist say. I doubt he’d put his career or church in jeopardy by posting something so outrageous if it wasn’t true. From his anger at the end of the video, he seems very credible.
I think he might have been trying to get clarification if they were ordering him to do something or simply asking him to do it.
I’ve noticed police officers like to blur the line between the two (I think it’s mostly unintentional and an attempt at some politeness) and make it impossible to tell which requests you must comply with and which are simply, requests. “Do you mind stepping out of the vehicle?” is a perfect example. With the right tone of voice, you may even believe that it’s an order, but in court he can say that he simply asked you step out of the vehicle and you did it of your own free will. Or maybe he really does mean it as an order and will be upset if you don’t immediately comply.
There’s no way to tell, and officers often get upset when you ask them to clarify their intent.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever” George Orwell, 1984
We need tall trees and short ropes.
He should have had a video camera or some other type of recording device. It’s way too easy for the police or border patrol agents to make up a story otherwise. This is way the right to record police encounters is so crucial.
I like dogs, but I’ve never understood the use of dog sniffs to establish probable cause. If you believe the pastor, the dog here was just a pretext for a warrantless, suspicionless search, but the reason they will probably get away with it is the courts’ endorsement of dog sniffs, despite a lot of evidence that dog alerts are frequently false positives.
At the very least, in a system that took the Fourth Amendment seriously, the dog and/or its handler would need to be taken out of service, retrained and retested every time there was a false positive. If you made the police go through that a few times, you’d get a lot fewer pretextual dog sniffs.
I would really support a mandatory minimum of 10years in federal prison for any officer of the law convicted of misconduct, and 20 for any higher-ups that attempt to cover for them.
Story rings true to me. Unfortunately.
I looked and found a news article on it, at az family. found tons of comments about how stupid he is for demanding his rights, and how the “boarder” patrol is protecting our lives and our “boarders” by doing this.
you can see how fucked we are then.
I hope this minister has already retained an attorney who’s filed a motion for preservation of the video from the surveillance cameras. If he hasn’t done so already, I’m sure it’s too late.
Well , let’s follow this story. A Competent attorney should be
able to help this guy.
I notice, it’s usually a male by himself that gets this type of treatment,
specifically, getting the snot beat out of him by gov’t goons
upset about protestations over Civil Right s violations.
Like if you’re a single guy, who knows his rights, you get beaten.
What’s up with that?
I’ve got a new respect for Baptist ministers.
#17 pam, Let’s not jump to any conclusions. I recognized this guy immediately, and he’s a fruitcake. I don’t doubt that the cops overreacted, but I’m sure there’s more to the story.
Mr. Anderson is a fundamentalist evangelical “preacher” (no degree) that recently started his own independent Baptist church. When I first visited his web site, I thought it was a parody site. When I finally concluded it was for real, I rolled over laughing, and used one of his essays for an article at TheSpoof.com
Without changing a word!
Just saw an interview on channel 3 news here in Phoenix.
Nicole #3: Wasn’t expecting this at all, but the YouTube comments, at first glance at least, appear to be extremely unsympathetic.
I sampled some of the comments an hour or so ago — they’re really pouring in! — and I was actually surprised by the predominance of very sympathetic comments. I was also surprised — pleasantly — by the amount of outrage and indignation being expressed at both the patrolmen and the unsympathetic commenters. Those suggesting he should have just done as told are being shouted down in fairly short order.
I don’t know why exactly, but this particular incident — out of so, so many — really seems to be hitting a lot of people where they live somehow. Maybe this is going to be one of those straws that does a little more damage to the camel’s back than was bargained for.
I notice, it’s usually a male by himself that gets this type of treatment
Yeah Barry Cooper (former Texas cop, “Never Get Busted” guy) said that the presence of a female drastically reduces the chances of being harassed, or even stopped in the first place.
A guy and a girl driving is a family trip. A single guy or a pair of guys driving is a drug run.
I guess the question is, why are Customs and Boarder Patrol agents working on a US Highway and not on a border between the US and Mexico/Canada? I mean, aren’t they supposed to guard the BOARDERS?
Seems to me that it should be local law enforcement, if anyone, doing these check points (not that the check points should be there anyway).
I have to agree with #11 Ben (the other one) on the dogs. There is a real problem if a dog can signal that something is present, but it not be present after the search. I would hope that the lawyers look into that aspect of it. How can the dog alert if nothing is present??
My smell is nothing like a dogs, but if I walk into my house and the wife did not make an apple pie, I do NOT smell the not made apple pie.
I would also look into this “the dog has been trained to smell if a human is in the car” BS.
If they do train dogs to smell for humans in vehicles then stop using them, and start searching every car, because except for the rare trained monkey humans will always be in the cars coming through a checkpoint.
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions. I recognized this guy immediately, and he’s a fruitcake. I don’t doubt that the cops overreacted, but I’m sure there’s more to the story.”
He may be a fruit cake, he may even be lying, but even if that is the case it’s pretty telling that few if any of us find his story implausible. Even on youtube his critics are trying to justify the alleged police behavior, and not doubting it happened.
I notice, it’s usually a male by himself that gets this type of treatment.
Whenever I drove alone north on I-95, the moment I crossed into NJ I got pulled over and my car was searched for drugs. They used to do it to nearly every car with a single male in it. Don’t know whether they still do it; I now go up I-81 and turn onto I-78 to get to NJ; never had problems there.
This story is a great example of how not only is ignorance not bliss, but it can be quite painful. Clearly the minister was ignorant of the fact that he doesn’t have any rights, and should have meekly and immediately submitted to the authority of any agents of the State without question, so that they can better protect the Collective (All Hail the Collective!), which they represent. The agents had to acquaint him with this bit of knowledge, and chose to charge him for the lesson. For all those who still haven’t comprehended the very simple principle used when State agents deal with lesser beings, allow me to paraphrase an old saying, “Yours is not to wonder why, yours is but to obey or die.”
The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of internal suspicionless immigration checkpoints within 100 miles of an international border. Some other experiences with this system are on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/CheckpointUSA.
According to this Arizona channel report they talked to a border patrol spokesman and he confirmed the incident.
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/centralsouthernarizona/tucson/story/Tempe-pastor-Border-Patrol-beat-him-at-checkpoint/FYxzzCRcnUehq5uY8nZXHQ.cspx?rss=704
The more I read the comments the sorrier I feel for some of these people. They feel so long as the clown suited thugs want something then it is our duty to oblige them at every turn.
The single statement that gets me the most is “If you have nothing to hide, then why not let them search?”.
I DO NOT smoke anything tobacco/weed. I DO NOT take drugs except what the doc gives me (do antibiotics get you high?), and that includes aspirin. I DO NOT have any illegal weapons in my car, or home. I DO NOT smuggle persons legal or not.
I do have things to hide though. I have personal matters that are part of my, and my families living space. This includes my home and any vehicles that we own. I would not allow my neighbor to come rummage through my home, or car even though I do know my neighbor somewhat, but a thug in a clown suit is a complete stranger, so why would I want him seeing into my personal spaces?
What he describes is not unconstitutional, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. e.g., he has no 4th amendment rights at the border, 4th amendment rights are less for cars etc than houses. This guy is pretty much out of luck, in a world where the police SWAT raid a house on faulty warrants (a much clearer 4th amendment violation), and Justice Scalia says its OK because of the “new professionalism.” The problem is a Constitutional interpretation that would horrify Jefferson.
Bob @18, I don’t know if he’s a fruitcake or not but it sounds like your engaging in a little ad hominem. You can attack the man, but it doesn’t make what he’s saying irrelevent unless you can prove it didn’t happen
Respecting the concerns about the accuracy of the dog sniff detecting drugs and/or humans in the trunk, it’s worth noting that around 6:10 in the video, Mr. Anderson reveals that, post-beatdown, Officer “C. Diaz” tells him “If you would have just answered the question we would have let you go.” Anderson then reminds him about the dog sniffing, saying “Wait a minute, I thought it was because the dog detected drugs or a human being in my car.”
My take is that the dog never signalled the presence of anything suspicious, the officers never believed the dog had signalled any thing suspicious and that, as “C. Diaz” pretty well acknowledged, the whole bloody face-grinding mess was about teaching Mr. Anderson and everybody else in this once great land to answer whatever question they ask and do whatever they tell him him to do, no questions asked and none of this nonsense about amendments and rights.
@SJE: Just for the sake of clarification, he was not actually at the border. Apparently a random, causeless checkpoint within the US is somehow the province of…wait for it…Border Patrol.
You’re right though, court precedent has virtually rendered the 4th amendment (as well as a couple others) meaningless.
bob42:
So by your standards it’s okay to not just tase and beat him, but probably to shoot him too.
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/centralsouthernarizona/tucson/story/Tempe-pastor-Border-Patrol-beat-him-at-checkpoint/FYxzzCRcnUehq5uY8nZXHQ.cspx
http://stevenandersonfamily.blogspot.com/2009/04/update-on-border-patrol-beating.html
#32 Rhayader,
Imagine that, the Supreme Court of the US, a GOVERNMENT ENTITY consistently rules in favor of the Government? Say it ain’t so!
I’m very ashamed that my favorite NASCAR driver’s primary sponsor is the Border Patrol. I didn’t lik ethe sponsorship when they first came on board, but now I’m just disgusted.
#32 Rhayader: “the border” is defined by US Supreme Court to constitute a variety of border situations: e.g. a ship at dock, an airport is the border. On land, “the border” extends 100 miles, in recognition that someone could cross the border without going through a checkpoint that is literally on the border. I actually agree that is reasonable. Lots of other things, not so much.
e.g. the “reasonable suspicion” standard has no meaning, given that supposed drug sniffing dogs have a huge false positive rate.
Of course, beating someone because he refuses to answer questions completely wrong. Its the sort of thing the CIA does :)
Yeah fair enough. I assume that this checkpoint was within 100 miles of the border? Anybody have any way of confirming?
Oh and regarding the dog thing. Another thing I heard Barry Cooper say — boy I keep bringing his name up — was that the police were actively (though not officially) taught how to elicit a response from K-9’s, therefore establishing “probable cause” (the reason for the quotes should be obvious).
Does anybody know of any scientific or other academic studies on the legitimacy of the ubiquitous “drug dog”?
Rhayader: there is the problem, the police depts aren’t interested in scientific studies. While it makes intuitive sense that a drug dog would detect drugs, Radley has reported on cases where they miss drugs or, most often, detect things that arent there. If the police have a low threshold for probable cause, there is no incentive to ensure that the drug dog is actually trained, is any good, or that the K9 officer is similarly trained to distinguish between fido getting excited over drugs vs bacon. The only way for this to get fixed is to throw out probable cause unless there is evidence that the dogs actually do what they are supposed to do. Of course, this would probably require documenting the false positive rate, which never seems to get done.
PS: dogs have been shown to be good for sniffing bombs, mines etc. Rats are even better in some situations. Of course, when you are mine hunting and you screw up, you get blown up. So, its in your very clear interest to get a good dog/rat and be well trained yourself. With drugs, you can screw up all the time and all you get is more convictions, because the rights of the people do not count.
there is the problem, the police depts aren’t interested in scientific studies.
Hah yeah, that might be the understatement of the century.
Politicians and lobbyists are even less interested in actual, real knowledge. Still though, sometimes it’s nice to have a scientific study or two to link to when I am arguing with imbeciles.
This guy needs to have his head examined.
“I recognized this guy immediately, and he’s a fruitcake.”
So what if he is? The fourth amendment doesn’t apply to people who are nutty?
#17 (pam): I have been occasionally listening to the sermons on the church’s website (www.faithfulwordbaptist.org) and watching their YouTube videos for about a year. Anderson on a couple of occasions has talked about how evangelicals are wrong as far as the Bible goes and whatnot. So I don’t think he would identify himself as evangelical, and I think it’s wrong of you to make claims about things you don’t understand. I will however, defend your right to make those misinformed claims. I hope you’ll defend my right to say you are ignorant.
There’s probably nothing that sets a cop off quicker than the word amendment.
As much as I detest the excessive use of force, a citizen isn’t the judge of probable cause. Get out of the car, and let them search it. Then, if you can afford it, get the dash cam video and file a section 1983 against them. You don’t get to defend your rights in the field, you do it in the courtroom.
SJE (#29): I’m no expert on the constitutionality of fixed checkpoints, but I believe that there’s a substantial distinction between the Court’s fourth amendment analysis at actual points of entry (including international airports that may be well within the country), and fixed checkpoints that are relatively near to the border, but not themselves a point of entry.
As I understand it, although US v. Martinez-Fuerte approved the existence of fixed checkpoints, and the seizure inherent in stopping motorists on the grounds that a stop, a few questions, and a visual examination of what is visible to someone outside a car or truck is a very limited intrusion into Fourth Amendment rights. The Court did not say that one has no Fourth Amendment rights at an interior checkpoint, and required that a more intrusive search or seizure be based on either consent or probable cause.
In this case, if the pastor is telling the truth, the agents were essentially fabricating the existence of probable cause. The fact that the agents felt it necessary to do so would demonstrate that they realize that the Fourth Amendment is supposed to govern their conduct.
I don’t necessarily agree with either Martinez-Fuerte, or its sobriety checkpoint analogue, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, but I don’t think the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates as wide as you suggest.
U.S. v Martinez-Fuerte was actually the last in a series of four cases from the 1970’s regarding Border Patrol authority away from the border. Prior to these cases, the Border Patrol routinely used roving patrols and checkpoints (temporary and permanent ) to stop, detain, interrogate and search vehicles and occupants absent probable cause or even reasonable suspicion.
In the first three cases, (Brignoni-Ponce, Ortiz and Almeida-Sanchez) the court struck down as unconstitutional the longstanding practice of using roving patrols to stop and search absent probable cause or to stop and interrogate absent reasonable suspicion. Similarly, the court struck down the practice of using checkpoints to search absent probable cause.
In Martinez-Fuerte, the court threw the Border Patrol a bone however by allowing brief stops at permanent checkpoint installations within 100 air miles of the border and along nexus points for border traffic for the SOLE purpose of making brief immigration queries. This incident did not take place at a permanent checkpoint but rather a temporary one.
The following quote(s) from the case lay out the court’s intent:
“Our prior cases have limited significantly the reach of this congressional authorization, requiring probable cause for any vehicle search in the interior and reasonable suspicion for inquiry stops by roving patrols. Our holding today, approving routine stops for brief questioning is confined to permanent checkpoints. We understand, of course, that neither longstanding congressional authorization nor widely prevailing practice justifies a constitutional violation”
and
“…We have held that checkpoint searches are constitutional only if justified by consent or probable cause to search….And our holding today is limited to the type of stops described in this opinion. -’[A]ny further detention. . . must be based on consent or probable cause.’ (U.S. vs. Brignoni-Ponce)”
Over the years, the Border Patrol has all but ignored limitations the court placed on checkpoint stops in Martinez-Fuerte and use it as an excuse to look for drugs, weapons, felons, terrorists and aliens absent suspicion. They also claim they have the power to indefinitely detain someone until that individual proves their citizenship to their satisfaction and routinely use drug dogs to sniff vehicles for drugs even though drug checkpoints were ruled unconstitutional in City of Indianapolis v Edmond.
Instead, the Border Patrol rely upon an unrelated SCOTUS case where the court found it to not be a violation of the 4th amendment to use a drug dog during a traffic stop where officers had probable cause of a traffic violation to initiate a stop as long as the use of the dog doesn’t prolong the traffic stop outside the bounds of the original purpose of the stop.
You’ll note that the federal agents in this story were not the one’s who actually busted out the guys windows, tazered him and dragged him out. Rather, the Border Patrol agents got the AZ Highway Patrol to do their dirty work for them. This of course is strong evidence that the Border Patrol did not in fact have probable cause because if they did, they wouldn’t have needed to rely upon state cops to remove him from his vehicle and arrest him. They would have been empowered to do it themselves. Additionally, this guy has only been charged with violations of Arizona state law, another clear indicator that something is amiss since the checkpoint is a federal operation.
In other words, the state cops walked right into a jurisdictional nightmare on this one and did so without any probable cause on their part. They didn’t witness the dog alerting and the Border Patrol refused to recreate the conditions in which they alleged the dog did alert.
Last time I checked, state cops don’t work for the Border Patrol and had no business involving themselves in the encounter. In so doing, they have created a real liability for themselves, their agency and the State of Arizona by allowing themselves to be used in this fashion.
It’s also my understanding that the individual has procured the assistance of a very good criminal defense attorney.
This will be a very interesting case as it develops….
#10 Tom,
I have seen videos he has previously made of his encounters with these temporary checkpoints. The encounters, he has been involved in, seem a bit intrusive to me ( and he, a bit abrasive). He is not likely faking this report. I think that there would be a very interesting case here. I guess they caught him without his video on the 15th! He was traveling home from work in his own country and he was nowhere near the border. I happen to think this 100 mile rule is nothing but crap!
(I have subscribed to this guys you tube site. I do not agree with all of what he espouses.)
They found no drugs (guy is Baptist preacher) or illegal aliens. The dog either did not “hit”, at all, or the dog (or cop) was wrong. My guess is the former! They lied to do what they did to this guy. It seems like Gestapo tactics to me! I hope they pay!
I have read that the supreme court decisions quoted do not apply in this case, since it was not a permanent border crossing. (not my opinion)
They should be required to record the accuracy of those dogs. I bet the false positive rate would be so high that it would no longer constitute probable cause.
But, of course, they would probably just fake the results and cook the records.
Bit of update in the second part of this article.
In case that link doesn’t work:
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=95300
He just learned the difference between refusing to give consent and refusing to comply with a search. IF we take his word for the incident then it seems the officers were stretching the basis for probable cause, which I don’t think would surprise anybody here, and that’s something they shouldn’t get away with.
On the other hand, they had obviously told this guy to get out of his car, even called in a state trooper to tell the guy to get out of his car, and he continued to refuse. Toss in that apparently this isn’t the first episode between him and border patrol and he appears to be a bit of a dick, are we really surprised they took the opportunity to rough him up a bit?
He got an earlier encounter on film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFS7oZtE8Ks&feature=related
I’m too stupid to see the wording in the 4th Amendment that says it doesn’t apply with 100 miles of a border. I guess that’s why I’m not a Supreme Court justice. Just too fucking stupid.
If I were to slip through the screening process that eliminates us stupid people and actually managed to get on The Court, I would probably be of the opinion that you need probable cause to pull the car over to begin with because, in reality, that’s when the search begins. When they bring out the dog, they are already searching no less than if they were viewing your house with an infrared camera hoping to find evidence of grow lights (which I believe is not legal without probable cause).
Law enforcement is no longer about investigation. It’s about random checkpoints, drug tests, and a whole arsenal of interrogation, entrapment, and prosecution methods all cleared by the smart guys on Supreme Court as being exempt from 4th and 5th Amendment prohibitions.
And, his being a dick is completely immaterial.
I don’t know much about this guy, but in this clip he’s a hero as far as I’m concerned. It takes a set of balls to stand up to the harassment of a bunch of macho guys with guns. They immediately lost sight of their official mission the moment he refused to cave into their unConstitutional demands. From that point on their egos were calling the shots.
If there had been no cameras, you can bet things would have turned out a lot different. As we all know, cops (of all kinds) are limited only by what they think they can get away with.
The dogs by design issue “false positives”. I work under the assumption that every dog handler has trained his dog with an “alert” command. If the cops want to look in your car, all they have to do is call out the dog and they’re going to get probable cause every time because the handler is going to make sure they do. The cops and feds know that the drug war is their weapon against the 4th amendment and use it at every opportunity.
what surprises me is they didn’t plant drugs. How dumb are these thugs? The minister got lucky, or was he “blessed”?
Pam #55, I was thinking the same thing. It’s clear that no American is safe in any encounter with police unless they know they’re being filmed.
Ok, I’ve been running my mouth over on youtube (at the ink given in #51) basically making assumptions about what powers border guards have at these checkpoints within 100 miles of the border. I’m assuming that this 100 mile rule gives border guards the power to stop you without cause, but they do not have the power to search your car without probable cause (or your permission, nor do you have to show them your ID or answer their questions. Are those valid assumptions?
I am not trying to be racist here, but who among us would want to fly from an airport where most of the TSA agents were Arab? Do think that if most TSA agents were Arab that maybe if would be a bit more dangerous? Do to the possibility that Abdul may give some leeway to 4 or 5 of his cousins?
Why at, or near the border to Mexico are most of the agents of Hispanic ancestry? Don’t you think it is more likely they have a cousin in Mexico then a black guy from Ohio, a white from Maine?
I mean myself I may not help white man over a brown man, but my brother or cousin that is completely different.
MacK, you’re not being racist. The reason that most of the agents are hispanic is because they recruit from the local population and most people living on the US side of the border are hispanic.
Well, in the end it’s not a matter of he-said-she-said.
Anderson said that there were cameras all over the checkpoint, which should have gotten everything on film.
So sooner or later we will know whether the dog actually “alerted,” and whether Anderson did anything that could have been perceived as an offensive action leading to the beatdown.
Anderson also had a video camera in the car, which was seized at the time of his arrest and has not yet been returned. I haven’t been able to find any information on whether he recorded all or part of the encounter, as he had with previous ones.
So, the truth will come out, unless the videos conveniently get “lost” or “destroyed,” or their release is prevented on “homeland security” grounds.
The DPS patrol car was also equipped with at least one security camera… so this would have to be “lost” as well.
Yup. After a bit more digging, I think you’re right. The dogs serve no other purpose than to justify a search where no search is justified. The behavior of the dog and the interpretation of that behavior has little to do with any evidence of a crime.
Daniel @44-Huh?
I just think about how easy it would have been for these people to destroy this man’s life. How easy it would have been for them to plant drugs in the vehicle after he was gone. He’d be on his way to Parchman basically. His word against the cops. A no win.
A PCR attorney I know is has been helping a guy doing 60 years in Unit 32- Parchman whose life was totally destroyed by a pound of planted weed. He was a family man with children and a seafood delivery business. The CI the cops used has oddly had two girlfriends on seperate occasions come up dead. He’s been in and out of prison for years.
The dude in Parchman went from running a busines and supporting a family to living like an animal in solitary confinement whose wife and kids have basically given up and don’t even visit any more.
I wonder if this minister had any real clue what could have happened to him. He should consider himself lucky under the circumstances. The guy in Parchman would have rather been beaten to a bloody pulp any day over 60 years in Parchman.
the expected utility of what this minister did probably wasn’t worth the risk, but you have to give him credit for going out on a limb.
A legal defense (and hopefully offense) fund has been setup for the individual brutalized by the Border Patrol and Arizona Department of Homeland Security. A link is available here:
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?Info=0054501
He’s been charged with two criminal misdemeanors under Arizona law. While I don’t know the exact cites, they include disobeying a lawful order from a peace officer and blocking traffic.
You’ll note the lack of any federal charges….
Looking at the link posted n #51, there’s a stunning lack of sympathy in the comments from those who think the government is your friend. In fact, simply the number of those who think the government is your friend is stunning. No wonder history keeps repeating itself.