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Boston, MA - Police to search for guns in homes

MetalChris

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Police to search for guns in homes
Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms.

The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households.

In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager's parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.

If officers find a gun, police said, they will not charge the teenager with unlawful gun possession, unless the firearm is linked to a shooting or homicide.

The program was unveiled yesterday by Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis in a meeting with several community leaders.

"I just have a queasy feeling anytime the police try to do an end run around the Constitution," said Thomas Nolan, a former Boston police lieutenant who now teaches criminology at Boston University. "The police have restrictions on their authority and ability to conduct searches. The Constitution was written with a very specific intent, and that was to keep the law out of private homes unless there is a written document signed by a judge and based on probable cause. Here, you don't have that."

Critics said they worry that some residents will be too intimidated by a police presence on their doorstep to say no to a search.

"Our biggest concern is the notion of informed consent," said Amy Reichbach, a racial justice advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union. "People might not understand the implications of weapons being tested or any contraband being found."

But Davis said the point of the program, dubbed Safe Homes, is to make streets safer, not to incarcerate people.

"This isn't evidence that we're going to present in a criminal case," said Davis, who met with community leaders yesterday to get feedback on the program. "This is a seizing of a very dangerous object. . . .

"I understand people's concerns about this, but the mothers of the young men who have been arrested with firearms that I've talked to are in a quandary," he said. "They don't know what to do when faced with the problem of dealing with a teenage boy in possession of a firearm. We're giving them an option in that case."

But some activists questioned whether the program would reduce the number of weapons on the street.

more stories like thisA criminal whose gun is seized can quickly obtain another, said Jorge Martinez, executive director of Project Right, who Davis briefed on the program earlier this week.

"There is still an individual who is an impact player who is not going to change because you've taken the gun from the household," he said.

The program will focus on juveniles 17 and younger and is modeled on an effort started in 1994 by the St. Louis Police Department, which stopped the program in 1999 partly because funding ran out.

Police said they will not search the homes of teenagers they suspect have been involved in shootings or homicides and who investigators are trying to prosecute.

"In a case where we have investigative leads or there is an impact player that we know has been involved in serious criminal activity, we will pursue investigative leads against them and attempt to get into that house with a search warrant, so we can hold them accountable," Davis said.

Police will rely primarily on tips from neighbors. They will also follow tips from the department's anonymous hot line and investigators' own intelligence to decide what doors to knock on. A team of about 12 officers will visit homes in four Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods: Grove Hall, Bowdoin Street and Geneva Avenue, Franklin Hill and Franklin Field, and Egleston Square.

If drugs are found, it will be up to the officers' discretion whether to make an arrest, but police said modest amounts of drugs like marijuana will simply be confiscated and will not lead to charges.

"A kilo of cocaine would not be considered modest," said Elaine Driscoll, Davis's spokeswoman. "The officers that have been trained have been taught discretion."

The program will target young people whose parents are either afraid to confront them or unaware that they might be stashing weapons, said Davis, who has been trying to gain support from community leaders for the past several weeks.

One of the first to back him was the Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown, cofounder of the Boston TenPoint Coalition, who attended yesterday's meeting.

"What I like about this program is it really is a tool to empower the parent," he said. "It's a way in which they can get a hold of the household and say, 'I don't want that in my house.' "

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, whose support was crucial for police to guarantee there would be no prosecution, also agreed to back the initiative. "To me it's a preventive tool," he said.

Boston police officials touted the success of the St. Louis program's first year, when 98 percent of people approached gave consent and St. Louis police seized guns from about half of the homes they searched.

St. Louis police reassured skeptics by letting them observe searches, said Robert Heimberger, a retired St. Louis police sergeant who was part of the program.

"We had parents that invited us back, and a couple of them nearly insisted that we take keys to their house and come back anytime we wanted," he said.

But the number of people who gave consent plunged in the next four years, as the police chief who spearheaded the effort left and department support fell, according to a report published by the National Institute of Justice.

Support might also have flagged because over time police began to rely more on their own intelligence than on neighborhood tips, the report said.

Heimberger said the program also suffered after clergy leaders who were supposed to offer help to parents never appeared.

"I became frustrated when I'd get the second, or third, or fourth phone call from someone who said, 'No one has come to talk to me,' " he said. Residents "lost faith in the program and that hurt us."

Boston police plan to hold neighborhood meetings to inform the public about the program. Police are also promising follow-up visits from clergy or social workers, and they plan to allow the same scrutiny that St. Louis did.

"We want the community to know what we're doing," Driscoll said.

Ronald Odom - whose son, Steven, 13, was fatally shot last month as he walked home from basketball practice - was at yesterday's meeting and said the program is a step in the right direction. "Everyone talks about curbing violence," he said, following the meeting. ". . . This is definitely a head start."
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
 
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"I just have a queasy feeling," laments Thomas Nolan. And he damned well should, along with anyone else who even remotely has a clue as to what is happening in this once-great Republic today. That "queasy feeling" is knowing the only way to stop this trend is not going to be a pleasant row to hoe. Pack a lunch, boys, it's gonna be a long day.
 

Doug Huffman

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Thanks for posting this Chris. I so wanted to post it but shortly after I found it my @*&$%& ISP's DNS went to heck and wouldn't connect me to a bunch of URLs including OCDO.

I wrote elsewhere; "As Boston goes, so go the Blue states. Beware."

Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns and the truth. LAB/NRA/GOP KMA$$
 

Thundar

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mark edward marchiafava wrote:
"I just have a queasy feeling," laments Thomas Nolan. And he damned well should, along with anyone else who even remotely has a clue as to what is happening in this once-great Republic today. That "queasy feeling" is knowing the only way to stop this trend is not going to be a pleasant row to hoe. Pack a lunch, boys, it's gonna be a long day.

Damn this is really bad. This is incremental gun confiscation. When do they start opening up the reeducation camps?

If parents are really concerned they can search the room when the teenager is not there.

What special capability to find a firearm does a police officer have?

The function of police is to gather evidence, butthey won't use the evidencethey gather against you unlessthey deem it to be really serious, so will you give up your 4A constitutional rights?
 
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"When do they start opening up the reeducation camps?" Let me answer that question for you. The reeducation camps have been open for decades. They are merely called by another, less sinister title: public schools.

Parenting is NOT a constitutional function of government nor is it a substitute.

Police are human and, as such, possess no inherent nor trained skills to locate guns in your own home.

Most Amerikans WILL voluntarily, willingly, submissively, do ANYthing the government asks, as long as it's for "the safety of the public."
 

Heartless_Conservative

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Anyone want to start taking bets on how long it will be before not allowing an officer to search your houseis considered probable cause for an officer to search your house?
 

Legba

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Already there - I denied permission for a search of my car, which aroused the suspicion of the police, who then searched my car (the de facto"bad neighborhood" exception to the 4th amendment). The judge is NOT going to grant a suppression motion either, so don't look to the courts for help.

-ljp
 

imperialism2024

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Not to mention in all of this that a teenager could legitimately have and carry a gun for self-defense. I was fortunate enough to live outside of the city and only went to school in the city, and the large knife that I carried with me through high school provided me enough piece of mind without breaking anything but school rules. If it were in a worse part of the city, or if I lived in the city, there's a good chance that I probably would have "illegally" carried a handgun.
 

Citizen

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Heartless_Conservative wrote:
Anyone want to start taking bets on how long it will be before not allowing an officer to search your houseis considered probable cause for an officer to search your house?

And, how long before police start using lines like,

"Mrs. Jones, your son is mixed up in something at school involving guns. If you'll just let us search his room, any illegalguns we findwon't be prosecuted. We'll just quietly take itaway. We're just here to help." Or, "We can get a warrant, which would make it official. You don't want it to go that far, do you?" Of course, they'll conveniently forget to mention that anything else they find will be admissable.

We need a [4].1 Amendment that says something to the effect that the gov't can't try to weasel its way around the 4.0 version byasking permission.

Of course, apro-Bill of Rightsgroup could just go door-to-door handing out flyers and undermine the whole thing. Discovering your rights, and having a high degree of certainty in them, tends to be uplifting to one's morale I think. I can see a few of these police teams being greeted with, "Yeah, come on punk cop. You want me to waive my rights? Go ahead and try it.My lawyer is on his way." Bet that diminishespolice enthusiasm for this programpretty quick. Who knows maybe a few parents will feel a little bolder and handle their kids, too.
 

Mike

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It would be interesting if a oarent authorized a search and the police took a teenager's lawfully possessed long gun against the teenager's wishes - sounds like theft to me!
 

Citizen

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Mike wrote:
It would be interesting if a oarent authorized a search and the police took a teenager's lawfully possessed long gun against the teenager's wishes - sounds like theft to me!
You'd think somebody in Boston would have thought of this sticky problem; but I guess not.
 

soloban

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Mayor Menino and his cronies are a bunch of idiots....this is one of the many reasons I don't live in MA anymore. The only people who have guns in Boston are the cops and the criminals. Here's an idea, instead of going door to door looking for guns, HOW ABOUT PATROLLING THE DAMN STREETS!.

To be perfectly honest, MA isn't that bad as long as you are outside the I-95 loop. Things get much better once you get outside the I-495 loop.

<rant>
Here's an idea parents....how about searching your kids room yourself!! Its YOUR HOME, there's no such thing as unlawful search and seizure when it comes to YOU SEARCHING YOUR OWN HOME! :banghead:

If and when I have kids and I remotely suspect they are up to anything we're turning that room upside down.

I'm 26 and I'll be the first to admit that my generations parents (for the most part) are a bunch of pansy-@$$ politically correct softies.
</rant>
 

MetalChris

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soloban wrote:
<rant>
Here's an idea parents....how about searching your kids room yourself!! Its YOUR HOME, there's no such thing as unlawful search and seizure when it comes to YOU SEARCHING YOUR OWN HOME! :banghead:

If and when I have kids and I remotely suspect they are up to anything we're turning that room upside down.

I'm 26 and I'll be the first to admit that my generations parents (for the most part) are a bunch of pansy-@$$ politically correct softies.
</rant>
We have hammer to nail contact here...the root of the vast majority of the problems our society is facing today are due to people not taking their responsibilities seriously. In this case it's the worthless parents of today that don't give two sh!ts about what their kids are doing...
 

VAopencarry

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I'm 26 and I'll be the first to admit that my generations parents (for the most part) are a bunch of pansy-@$$ politically correct softies.

Ding, Ding, Ding.......We have a winner, give that man a prize.
 
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