Thursday, February 19, 2009

Yeah, Captain, confiscating somebody's sign "...was not

a good decision..."
The police officers who stopped Oklahoma City motorist Chip Harrison and confiscated a sign from his car told him he has a right to his beliefs, but the U.S. Secret Service "could construe this as a threat against President Obama," according to the incident report released this morning.

The sign, which read "Abort Obama Not the Unborn," was returned to Harrison later that day, the report said.

Police spokesman Steve McCool said this morning that the sign was taken in error, and Oklahoma City residents should not be worried that their First Amendment rights will be violated. He said a supervisor "intervened and quickly returned the sign" after Harrison called the police department
.

Captain, his rights WERE violated, in case that's something you've managed to overlook here. And as to the end of this report,
McCool said although the sign should not have been confiscated, the situation was made right in the end.

''We always try to do the right thing and in the end we believe we did the right thing by returning the sign," McCool said
.
the rest doesn't sit all that well with how you 'made it right':
''The Secret Service called and said they were at my house," Harrison said.

After talking to his attorney, Harrison went home where he met the Secret Service.

''When I was on my way there, the Secret Service called me and said they weren't going to ransack my house or anything ... they just wanted to (walk through the house) and make sure I wasn't a part of any hate groups."

Aside from the bullcrap of OCPD both stopping him and taking his property AND reporting this to the Secret Service, as Insty put it Since when do government officials search homes to ensure the absence of impure political thoughts?(why, in the Age of Obama, of course)

So some OCPD officers didn't like the sign and stopped him, confiscated his sign and turned him in to the Secret Service(there are times it's just so damned tempting to simply abbreviate 'SS') who wanted to search his house(and by the way, how the hell are they defining 'hate group'?)...
Not one of the better moments for OCPD.

3 comments:

Dan said...

That is absolutely outrageous. How in the HELL does some dimwit pull hate speech out of that? And then, notify the Secret Service? What, on God's green Earth, does a police department have to say about a sign regarding abortion to get the Secret Service involved? It would take a half-wit about a second to read the context of that statement, agree or disagree and then move on.

MauserMedic said...

As we will soon find out the hard way, actually publicly opposing The One will be a hate crime. Because if you do, you're a racist. And if you're a racist, you must belong to a hate group. And if you belong to a hate group, you must be a terrorist....ad nauseum

Flock of One said...

Eight years of hearing kill Bush every time I turned around, movies and books about killing Bush - and nothing happens.

This guy has a sign and makes it about ten blocks before he's stopped and violated.

Is this a great country or what?