Bad at their jobs
Jessica Cooke, a recently graduated 21-year-old from Ogdensburg, New York, was driving from Norfolk to Ogdensburg to see her boyfriend when she was pulled over by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent. This could have been exciting for Ms. Cooke since she had recently applied for a job with the CBP (her degree is in Law Enforcement Leadership). Ms. Cooke understood that she was within 100 miles of the Canadian border and therefore subject to an
internal immigration checkpoint. However, after she had presented her driver's license, she was asked to go into a
secondary inspection area. At this time she decided to ask why she was being detained, since without "reasonable suspicion" law enforcement cannot detain you—
even if you're a meth addict being all twitchy. Things began to unravel from there and Ms. Cooke decided to
record from that point on:
A male agent who identifies himself as a supervisor has no explanation for the detention, but he says Cooke will have to wait for a drug-sniffing dog to inspect her car. "Well, they'd better be here soon, because if not, I'm calling 911, and this can all be figured out," Cooke says. "You guys are holding me here against my will." Eventually the female agent who first interacted with Cooke says she seemed nervous—an all-purpose excuse for detaining someone, since people tend to be nervous when confronted by armed government officials.
[...]
"If they're not here within 20 minutes, I'm gone," Cooke says. "You can leave," the male agent says. "You can walk down the road right now....Your car's not going anywhere....I'll spike the tires." After Cooke refuses to comply with his order to "stand over there" instead of "here," they have this exchange:
CBP agent: I'm going to tell you one more time, and then I'm going to move you.
Cooke: If you touch me, I will sue your ass. Do you understand me?
CBP agent: Go for it.
Cooke: Touch me then.
CBP agent: Move over there.
Cooke: Go ahead. Touch me.
CBP agent: I'm telling you to move over there.
At this point the "supervisor" grabs Cooke and then you can hear Cooke screaming and lots of cursing and a repeated asking of Cooke to the CBP agents to "get it out of my back."
Here's the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's complete statement via NPR affiliate in Canton:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection continues to investigate a report from the U.S. Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector about an altercation between an individual and two Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint Thursday. The altercation followed a brief verbal exchange between the individual and the two agents regarding their intent to inspect the vehicle. CBP investigators have analyzed the scene of the incident, are taking statements and have reached out to the individuals involved. Based on preliminary information from the investigation, one of the two agents deployed an electronic control device during the altercation. As standard procedure, Swanton Sector notified the DHS Office of Inspector General after the incident.
There are numerous issues here. Here are some things for discussion:
While it has been brought to my attention that Ms. Cooke seems a bit abrasive, especially for someone who allegedly wanted to get a job with this organization, I personally don't find her that abrasive. I also believe that the video begins at a point in this interaction where Cooke being frustrated that her rights are being violated is legitimate grounds for anger and not being on one's "best behavior." That being said, even if you feel that Ms. Cooke is a raging a-hole, the fact remains that the agents' choice to escalate the situation is wrong and not how I want law enforcement to act in my country.
Technically, a border patrol agent is supposed to deal with immigration issues. Legal and illegal movements over our country's borders. Drugs is another department.
This is what Justice Ginsburg wrote, for the majority decision, about six weeks ago on this very issue:
The Government argues that an officer may “incremental[ly]” prolong a stop to conduct a dog sniff so long as the officer is reasonably diligent in pursuing the traffic-related purpose of the stop, and the overall duration of the stop remains reasonable in relation to the duration of other traffic stops involving similar circumstances. Brief for Traffic stops are “especially fraught with danger to police officers,” so an officer may need to take certain negligibly burdensome precautions in order to complete his mission safely. On-scene investigation into other crimes, however, detours from that mission. So too do safety precautions taken in order to facilitate such detours. Thus, even assuming that the imposition here was no more intrusive than the exit order in Mimms, the dog sniff could not be justified on the same basis. Highway and officer safety are interests different in kind from the Government’s endeavor to detect crime in general or drug trafficking in particular.
[...]
As we said in Caballes and reiterate today, a traffic stop “prolonged beyond” that point is “unlawful.” The critical question, then, is not whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket, as Justice Alito supposes, but whether conducting the sniff “prolongs”—i.e., adds time to—“the stop.”
There seems to have only been one person who knows the law amongst the three people involved here—and she doesn't have the law job.
Video is below the fold. Warning: It gets loud and disturbing.