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Former President Donald Trumps lawyer said Tuesday that the 45th president will attempt to challenge the legality of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago based on his Fourth Amendment rights.

In terms of what we do in the future, you know, theres this Fourth Amendment like you brought up, theres a fourth amendment issue here; the warrant was way too broad, Trump attorney Alina Habba told Fox News on Tuesday night.

Habba then pointed to the judge in the case,U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020. Cannon is not the same judgeU.S. magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhartwho signed off on the FBI warrant.

Last week, Cannon signaled in a court filing that she will likely sign off on appointing a special master to review documents that were taken from Mar-a-Lago. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers said this week that a filter team has already looked into the documents and added that what appears to be attorney-client privileged information was taken.

We do have judge Cannon, whos the federal judge thats taken up this case, Habba said. Theres a hearing on Thursday. I think that that will be giving us some judicial oversight that is much needed at this point.

So at this point, I think the best thing weve done is weve gotten a judge in place who does look like theyre going to be active, Habba said, adding that soon, we do need to move forward with filing to invalidate the warrants due to Fourth Amendment issues.

The Fourth Amendment guarantees a right to privacy and protectsindividuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

But we dont have all the information yet. We still dont even have a completely unredacted affidavit. They wont share it with the legal team, let alone the public seems to know more than we do, Habba added. So its a problem. And I think that the FBI is going to have major problems.

The affidavit, which DOJ officials sought to block from being released, was ordered unsealed by Reinhart last week, although it was significantly redacted. Few new details were provided, although it stated the DOJ has probable cause to believe that allegedly classified documents and materials were being kept at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump, meanwhile, has said he declassified the materials at Mar-a-Lago, pointing to an executive order and statements he made in late 2020 and early 2021 when he was still in office. A day before departing the White House, Trump signed an order to declassify some FBI Crossfire Hurricane materials.

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Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter at The Epoch Times based in New York.

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Trump Lawyer Reveals What Argument Former President Will Make in Court - The Epoch Times

This is my second venture this year into review of law reviews. For the first on another of my favorite subjects, artificial intelligence, see the May 2022 blogs, Robophobia: Great New Law Review Article Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 and Professor Woods article, Robophobia. Woods, Andrew K., Robophobia, 93 U. Colo. L. Rev. 51 (Winter, 2022). These highly intelligent, engaging law professor attorneys, Woods and Stuart, give me renewed hope for the profession in general and, especially, for the key areas of technology law.

About Professor Allyson Hynes Stuart

Professor Stuart has written many other articles of interest to readers, including:

Allyson Stuart has also served as Of Counsel for the Crystal law firm, since 2015. The firm has an intriguing slogan: Lawyers for Lawyers and International Matters. The firm says that it is primarily a transactional law firm that offers some litigation services.

To conclude the personal introduction, Allyson, like me, has her own YouTube Channel, focusing on legal instruction. Professor Stuarts videos, made in 2013, are on what she calls flipping the classroom. They address most first semester Contracts issues as well as some difficult aspects of Evidence.

Introduction to Professor Stuarts Article

Privacy in discovery has been largely ignored in rules of civil procedure and left to the courts and lawyers to come up with their own solutions. The result is a hodge-podge of case law and local rules. This area of the law is, as Professor Stuart aptly describes, buried in surprising obscurity. Her article is a much needed unearthing and organization of the law. As Professor Stuart explains in her introduction after discussion of federal civil procedure rule changes:

Amid all these changes, little attention has been paid to privacy as opposed to time and expense.10 The Rules do not provide for explicit protection against discovery based on privacy,11 with the exception of redaction of personal information under Rule 5.2.12 There has long been the idea that privacy protection exists against government searches and seizures, but that there is no such concept in civil discovery.13 However, close analysis of cases reaching back to the adoption of the Rules shows that federal courts have in fact used privacy rationales to protect against discovery in many areas. District courts in particular have developed an interpretation of the Rules that protects litigants and non-litigants from discovery; courts have developed certain categories of protected information based on a balancing of the right to privacy against the need for the information in the context of the litigation.14 This law derives from Supreme Court precedent, from public policy represented in federal and state statutes, and from discretionary judicial application of the Rules. This Article unearths this body of law from its surprising obscurity. With a firm grounding in the foundations and justifications for federal protection of privacy in discovery, and in light of recent Supreme Court doctrine, the Article describes how privacy arguments can address increasingly intrusive discovery demands.

Overview of Professor Stuarts article, A Right to Privacy for Modern Discovery

After an Introduction, A Right to Privacy for Modern Discovery begins with a historical overview of privacy in civil discovery, including the landmark case of Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947). Professor Stuart observes that discovery protections can be divided into two broad categories. One is protection for information or communications deemed confidential, including attorney-client, trade-secret, business records, tax returns. The other is protection for personal privacy reasons, which professor Stuart explains:

is based on Supreme Court interpretation of the constitutional right to privacy in intimate or otherwise highly personal matters, including marriage, contraception, sexual activity, medical information, family relations, and other personal information. In addition, the Constitution protects against compelled disclosure of information that would violate a persons First Amendment rights, such as freedom of association.

As to the Constitution based privacy protection provided to discovery in civil proceedings (criminal proceedings are not discussed directly in this article), Professor Stuart notes three broad areas:

Next the article considers the public policy of privacy in discovery and identifies three basic grounds:

As to the balancing used to provide privacy to litigants, four factors are considered:

The next section is Privacy in Modern Discovery, discussed in detail below, followed by the Conclusion. The Privacy in Modern Discovery section, which is the real meat of the article, is divided into three main parts:

Discovery Today

Professor Stuarts Privacy in Modern Discovery section begins, as noted, with the Discovery Today overview (II.A.). Most readers here will already be familiar with these topics and discussion, so I will not go into them in depth. One important insight she provides pertains to the omission of privacy as an express factor for proportionality consideration under the Rule 26(b), FRCP.

While the Rules revisions generally addressed the tremendous rise in ESI volume and costs with emphasis on judicial intervention, cooperation, and reduction in scope, they did not give specific attention to issues of privacy.219 However, as discoverys intrusiveness has pervaded not just vast storage databases and email but chronicles of individuals personal lives, privacy has received more attention. Commentators have advocated for privacy to be a factor in the proportionality equation,220 and courts have followed suit.221 Privacy has also featured prominently in recent Fourth Amendment case law, which has in turn influenced discovery decisions.

In a recent email exchange with Allyson Stuart on the interesting point of Rule 26(B), I pressed her on whether she thinks the Rule should be changed again. Here is her response, which, I should add, she gave me permission to include in this blog post:

I have mixed feelings about yet another revision to the Frankenstein that is Rule 26. As it is, many practitioners fail to pay attention to the revisions, treating the scope as still including anything that would lead to the discovery of relevant evidence and failing to recognize that proportionality is nothing new. I think instead the culture needs to be curbed, and attorneys should not try to obtain a vast amount of e-discovery simply because it is accessible. The casual nature of email, text and some social media content make them catnip for attorneys, but I really believe there is a chilling effect on litigation because of it. In particular, if the only relevance for certain discovery is impeachment value, it should be weighed less strongly against competing privacy interests. All that said, I would love it if the word privacy were included in the proportionality factors.

Authors Correspondence 8//9/22 with Professor Stuart

I love how she describes Rule 26 as a Frankenstein. The question remains should privacy be added as another body part to the proportionality considerations. In a video conference with Professor Stuart on August 23, 2022, she expanded on this point. Here is the relevant excerpt, which, I should again add, Allyson Stuart gave me permission to record and publish.

See video here.

Video Credit: Ralph Losey

Aside from Rule 26(b) and including privacy factors as part of a proportionality analysis, another hot issue today practitioners is cell-phone discovery. It is found at II.A.2.a. Professor Stuarts article and case citations and discussion on this point are a helpful starting point for your research. Be sure to look at the article itself for the all-important footnotes.

As the Supreme Court has recognized, cell phones are ubiquitous.222 Courts find a strong privacy interest in the content of those devices, particular when a party seeks a forensic examination of the phone.223 Like inspection of litigants hard drives and other computer systems,224 inspection of cell phones implicates privacy rights, privileged communications, and non-relevant information.225 Courts are therefore reluctant to order litigants to submit their cell phones to their opponent for purposes of forensic examination absent necessity for purposes of finding highly relevant evidence, or proof of spoliation.226 Courts also find a strong privacy interest in cell phone records.227 Courts have been strongly persuaded by recent Supreme Court Fourth Amendment doctrine in finding privacy rights in this data.228

Professor Stuarts discussion of case law is also very interesting in the Fitbit and Internet of Things sub-sections of Discovery Today (II.A.2.c.&d.). She points out that:

All of these subjects of modern discovery push the boundaries of privacy. Technology enables the gathering and storage of vast amounts of information that create digital chronicles of individuals personal lives. This phenomenon has been the focus of recent Supreme Court decisions in the Fourth Amendment context.

The next section of the article, II.B., is entitled Supreme Court Case Law on Privacy and Technology. This is very interesting, especially considering the Supreme Court bombshell case on abortion that came down after her article. Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, 597 U.S. _ (2022). I will go into all of this, along with criminal law considerations, and another video interview, in Part Two of this blog. Professor Stuart has some very insightful analysis of the Dobbs opinion and privacy, so stay tuned.

See the article here:
The Right to Privacy in Modern Discovery: a review of another great law review article Part 1 - JD Supra

A civil lawsuit against a school resource officer who threw a 13-year-old student to the floor after a minor disciplinary incident has been revived by a federal appeals courta rare denial of qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that often shields police from being sued over accusations of misconduct.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, voted 2-1 to revive a civil claim for excessive force on behalf of the 7th grader at a Kissimmee, Fla., middle school. The SRO at Kissimmee Middle School in the Osceola County school district, was Mario J. Badia, who pleaded guilty to a charge of battery after the incident.

The 11th Circuits Aug. 22 decision in Richmond v. Badia was a relatively rare denial of qualified immunity to a school resource officer. Courts grant qualified immunity to certain government officials, including police officers, school resource officers, and educators, as long as their challenged conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. As Education Week has reported, the issue has gained attention in recent years amid high-profile cases of police use of force and because of critiques from U.S. Supreme Court justices and scholars.

The 2015 Florida incident involves a student who had arrived at school late one morning with his mother, and they went to the school office to check in, court papers say. The student was wearing a hoodie to conceal a haircut he didnt like, and his mother told him to remove it because hoodies violated the school dress code. The student appeared to push his mother in response, and a front-desk assistant radioed for the resource officer.

Badia confronted the student, cursing at him and pointing his finger, court papers say. When the student would not look Badia in the eye, the SRO grabbed the student by the face. The student reacted by trying to block Badias arm and stepping back, and the SRO then shoved the student in the chest and used an armbar technique to lift him off the ground, twist him around, and slam him to the ground.

Badia released the student after about three minutes. The officer was fired and he pleaded guilty to a charge of battery. He reportedly was sentenced to probation.

The student sued Badia on claims of false arrest and excessive force. A federal district court held that Badia was entitled to qualified immunity.

In the new decision, the 11th Circuit court panel reversed the district court on the excessive-force claim, though not on the false arrest claim.

We conclude that Badia used excessive force under the Fourth Amendment for three reasons, Judge Andrew L. Brasher wrote for the majority.

First, the officer had no law-enforcement justification for grabbing the students face and slamming him to the ground, the court said, adding that a video of the incident undermined the officers claim that the student had been explosive and aggressive. Second, the students potential crime of battery on his mother was at most a misdemeanor, and the student did not pose a threat or attempt to flee the officer, the majority said, and third, the student did not disobey any lawful commands from the officer.

The student remained passive throughout the entire encounter, never attempted to flee, never refused any lawful commands, and did not pose a threat to Badia or others, the court said.

Brasher said it was well-established that an officer violates the Fourth Amendment if he or she uses gratuitous or excessive force on a suspect who is under control, is not resisting, and is obeying commands. Thus, Badia did not merit qualified immunity, the court said.

Writing in dissent, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch said Badias grabbing of the students face was unnecessary and even degrading, but it was a de minimis use of force that did not violate the Constitution.

She characterized the student as having slapped away the officers arm. The students resistance allowed Badia to escalate his use of force against him, Branch said.

The force used against [the student] during the execution of a lawful investigation into a potential crime both before and after he hit Officer Badias hand away was minor, not egregious, the dissenting judge said.

Read more here:
New Court Ruling Allows Former School Resource Officer to Be Sued for Excessive Force - Education Week

ITHACA, N.Y.A federal lawsuit naming four Ithaca Police Department officers as defendants has been filed, alleging that their arrests of two people during an infamous incident in April 2019 constituted a use of excessive force.

IPD officers Benjamin Buck, Zachary Dorn and Gregory Herz are all named in the suit, which was filed in July in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, as having used excessive force. Officer George DuPay is also named as a defendant, with the suit alleging he engaged in use of excessive force and failure to intervene. The suits were originally filed in July 2022.

In total, two lawsuits were filed, one each on behalf of Rose DeGroat and Cadji Ferguson, both concerning the pairs arrest on April 6, 2019, after an altercation on the Ithaca Commons. DeGroat was charged with two counts of second-degree attempted assault, an E-level felony, and a misdemeanor of resisting arrest initially; those charges were then lowered to misdemeanors, re-upped to felonies after being put before a grand jury, then eventually dismissed. Ferguson was acquitted on charges of disorderly conduct. The situation and its fallout prompted a press conference with Tompkins County District Attorney Matt Van Houten and then-Ithaca Police Department Chief Dennis Nayor.

The full depot of videos that were released by the City of Ithaca in the weeks after the incident can be viewed here.

The suits call both arrests unlawful and claims that both Fergusons and DeGroats treatment during the arrest was a Constitutional violation. It asks for at least $500K in damages for pain and suffering, punitive damages against each officer, an injunction against the officers from engaging use of excessive force and failure to intervene, attorneys fees and any other reward the judge decides.

Both Ferguson and DeGroat were taken to the ground by Ithaca police as they responded to a fight involving Ferguson and a third party on the Commons. Ferguson was tased, while DeGroat was taken down and then tased and pinned down, in part by her head, by three officers after she tried to intervene on Fergusons behalf (more details of the incident below).

When dismissing DeGroats charges in October 2019, Judge John Rowley stated this about the IPD officers involved in the arrest: Ithaca Police officers overreacted to the initial situation [] The police made no effort to defuse the situation or to simply separate the men while the conflict was sorted out. Rowley also called the snap decision to tase Ferguson inexplicable and the officers actions regrettable.

The police department conducted an internal review at the time, eventually determining that the police did not violate any procedures and would not be punished.

Contacted through their attorney, Ed Kopko, DeGroat and Ferguson did not respond to a request for comment. IPD Deputy Chief Vincent Monticello and Ithaca City Attorney Ari Lavine also did not respond to requests for comment. This story will be updated if any of them do respond after publication.

Ithaca Police Benevolent Association President Thomas Condzella offered a statement in reaction to questions about the suit. He said that the union stands behind each of the officers involved, saying they were all acting in good faith and trying to bring order to a rapidly evolving, chaotic and dynamic situation using only limited information available to them at the time. They are being represented by the City of Ithaca, with additional legal support from the PBA if necessary.

Condzella confirmed that the officers will remain on active duty, at least for now, while the lawsuit plays out. He blamed divisiveness and former Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick for the tension surrounding the incident and for fomenting an anti-police agenda locally.

Had [the officers] simply done nothing, or taken more time to gather additional information before intervening in the out of control drunken brawl, they would have then been criticized for not acting fast enough, Condzella said. As Ithaca Police Officers continue to move forward in partnership and collaboration with our community towards meaningful police reforms, we all alsocontinue to try andrecover from the divisivenessof the past, this case is another unfortunate example of that.

The winding saga played out for much of the summer and early fall of 2019. After videos of the arrests began circulating on social media and in news reports, most notably in the Cornell Daily Sun, the City of Ithaca released body camera footage from the responding officers as well as surveillance footage from Commons cameras.

The body camera footage (all videos are available at the aforementioned city video depot) shows a chaotic scene as the bars let out on the Commons around 1 a.m. on April 6, 2019. It displays that there was clearly an altercation between Ferguson and another man, identified as Joseph Ming, that transpired after Ferguson felt Ming was acting suspicious toward Ferguson and his group of friends, which included DeGroat, according to the suit. One aspect that became crucial in the later criminal trials was that Ferguson initially claimed Ming had touched one person from the group sexually and nonconsensually; Ferguson later acknowledged he wasnt actually sure if there had been any contact between Ming and the unidentified person.

Regardless, Ferguson and Ming proceeded to fight in the middle of the Commons, with police stationed at the west end of the Commons running to interrupt the situation taking place about 100 feet away. They did so by running at the pair, with Herz grabbing his taser and pointing it at Ferguson while yelling for him to get on the ground. Herz trips, then after returning to his feet fires the taser into Fergusons back and Ferguson is brought to the ground by another officer, identified as DuPay.

Thats when a clearly panicked DeGroat tries to intervene on behalf of Ferguson, striking one of the police officers at least once before she herself is quickly taken to the ground. The most jarring portion of the video is when an officer uses his knee for an extended period of time to pin down DeGroat by her head while she is being handcuffed.

In trying to build the case that DeGroats and Fergusons Fourth Amendment rights were violated, the suit alleges that each named officer when seizing, arresting, and acting with force against [DeGroat and Ferguson], acted under color of law by using the authority vested in him by virtue of his employment with the Ithaca Police Department and that not only were the arrests illegal, but the manner by which Ferguson and DeGroat were arrested was excessive and unnecessary.

View post:
Lawsuits filed against four IPD officers for excessive force during 2019 Commons arrests - The Ithaca Voice

As a crime reporter in San Francisco, I should have known better than to park my car under an overpass near the Hall of Justice, a nice stroller visible in the back seat.

And it couldnt have hurt to check that I didnt drop my keys onto the ground next to the vehicle as I scrambled to pay the meter and run to a court hearing.

Alas, the predictable outcome: As I sat in court taking notes, my phone vibrated with a text from my partner, Miguel, from our Oakland home. His phone was in communication with our Subaru Outback, which was moving.

The alarm of the car went off was it you???

I tried to respond but had no cell service in the granite-clad building. By the time I walked out of the courtroom a few minutes later, Miguel was frantic. The texts came tumbling out.

Please tell me you are in the car cause if not our car got stolen. What is going on??? So the front door is ajar now? I just hope you are ok.

My first text back to Miguel was a profanity.

That afternoon, I joined a growing category of San Francisco crime victims: Those who report a theft while simultaneously tracking what was stolen through location-based technologies such as Bluetooth and GPS.

The Subarus alarm had apparently sounded because the thief used the key rather than the key fob to unlock the door. Now, Miguel could see the location of the car through the MySubaru app.

Simultaneously, he could view the location of our car seat, which wed outfitted with an Apple AirTag in case of our childs abduction, and the location of the car keys, which also had an AirTag to prevent me from constantly misplacing them.

Standing in my now-vacant parking spot, I called 911. I told the police dispatcher that Miguel was tracking everything from Oakland.

Can someone please help me?

Megan Cassidys vehicle was stolen and then damaged.

That afternoon, May 19, was chaotic and humiliating, but it also presented a unique opportunity. For the first time in my career, I would be able to view my beat from the inside out.

In recent months, Ive spoken to many theft victims who were able to pinpoint the location of their luggage, bicycles and other stolen goods.

While this technology has been around for years, police say its spread particularly Apples introduction of the AirTag last year to compete with products like the Tile tracker and the Galaxy SmartTag has prompted a boom in calls for help like mine.

As the Washington Posts Heather Kelly wrote in an article in October, after tracking down her stolen Honda Civic in San Francisco, Apples marketing for the AirTag focuses on misplaced items and makes no mention of crime, theft or stealing in any of the ads, webpages or support documents. But in reality, the company has built a network that is ideal for that exact use case.

Tony Maozholds a gps tracker by his truck in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. Maozs truck has been stolen multiple times.

Kenny Franks holds a gps tracker next to his luggage which was stolen and later recovered in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022.

Left: Rony Maoz holds holds a GPS tracker by his truck, which has been stolen multiple times. Right: Kenny Franks holds a GPS tracker next to his luggage which was stolen and later recovered. Top: Rony Maoz holds a GPS tracker by his truck, which has been stolen multiple times. Above: Kenny Franks holds a GPS tracker next to his luggage, which was stolen and later recovered.

Recent stories have documented similar recoveries in Memphis, Atlanta and Seaford Rise, a suburb of Adelaide in Australia.

In San Francisco, a city rife with gadget-lovers and plagued by high property crime, the technology would seem to be a game changer. But in reality, situations like my stolen Subaru can often be mired in unforeseen complications.

The response by police has at times been thwarted by legal constraints for example, an officer generally cant enter a home just because the Find My iPhone app says your cell is inside and at other times by what victims say feels like apathy.

Police officials say the reality is that a stolen phone, bike or even car is not as high a priority as a violent crime, so cops dont always have time to get involved and stay involved.

The result can be maddening for victims armed with case-cracking evidence. And while police say they always advise these victims against following their valuables into potentially dangerous situations, many people told me they felt they had no choice but to go cowboy.

Looking back at Miguels texts from May 19, its easy to see how the specter of danger immediately enters the equation.

Be careful!!!!! It says the car is on! There could be someone in the car. MEGAN DO NOT CONFRONT ANYONE.

Ill admit, the possibility of vigilantism had crossed my mind. But the SFPD jumped on our case, even though it had no idea I was a member of the media.

After I reported the Outback stolen from the street outside the Hall of Justice, I connected the dispatcher to Miguel, who relayed the cars path, turn by turn, in real time.

At about 4 p.m., seven blocks from where I stood, the car stopped.

Kenny Franks with his luggage that was stolen and later recovered in San Francisco.

A little more than two weeks earlier, on May 3, Kenny Franks didnt spot his suitcase at baggage claim at San Francisco International Airport. He figured it must have been misplaced by the airline, because an AirTag he had placed inside the luggage showed it was still tracking from SFO.

Franks filed a report with Alaska Airlines and left the airport about 7 p.m.

So when Franks saw the bag travel across town about 15 minutes later, he was disappointed to learn that an airline employee wasnt delivering it to him. Rather, a thief was on the move.

Franks called police, and in multiple calls, he said, dispatchers instructed him to fill out a police report rather than try to retrieve the bag on his own.

Franks submitted a report at San Franciscos Northern Station on Fillmore Street, but despite officials insistence, told police he would seek to retrieve the luggage with or without them. A dispatcher, he said, eventually agreed to send officers to a Super 8 motel on Lombard Street where the luggage seemed to have landed, and advised Franks to wait and not confront anyone.

When the officers showed up, Franks pointed them to the room from which his suitcase was locating. The cops knocked on the door. A man who answered the door demanded a search warrant, and the officers left, explaining to Franks that they couldnt enter without one.

Franks who eventually got the bag back after it was emptied and discarded said he understood and that he empathized with the fact that they have violent crimes going on that they also need to respond to.

If one of them had gotten hurt because of my silly luggage, I would have felt bad about it, he said. But it was very, very frustrating. I feel like there could have been more done.

I also spoke to Kate Stoia, a Noe Valley resident and candidate for District Eight Supervisor, and her husband, Rony Maoz, who resorted to following his stolen truck around for hours last September.

Because it had been stolen twice before, Maoz had by then equipped it with a tracking device made by a friends startup. Driving another car, Maoz followed the signal and found the truck in the India Basin neighborhood. He called 911 and told a dispatcher he had eyes on the vehicle.

But when officers arrived and tried to pull over the suspect with lights and sirens, he sped off, police told Maoz.

Because of the inherent risks of high-speed chases, city policy doesnt allow them in many circumstances. And Maoz said he was told by officers that they didnt have time to keep following the suspects digital trail as he drove around the city. But if the man got out of the car, they told him, please call again. Help would be on the way.

So Maoz spent the day in a cat-and-mouse game. Every time the suspect parked, he said, he would call the police, who would say officers were responding and then the man would take off again.

Ultimately, the thief abandoned the truck and Maoz got it back.

Rony Maozs truck has been stolen multiple times.

Most of the people I interviewed for this story stressed that the cops they dealt with were polite and professional.

But Stoia and other victims also described what they characterized as a defeatist culture in the ranks, with officers blaming prosecutors, policy, state laws or time constraints for not performing what seemed to be standard police work.

Though most of the victims ultimately got their property back, they often did so by putting themselves at risk. Almost everyone I interviewed said its only a matter of time before a property-crime victim goes rogue and meets a tragic fate.

The thing that is problematic is ... this cannot lead to vigilantism, right? But eventually it will, Stoia said. One entity needs to have a monopoly on the use of force. And if they dont use it responsibly, people are going to take action.

According to one person, this is already happening.

The man, who spoke on condition that I not identify him, said he traced his stolen bike to tents under a freeway on Division Street, but was told by police that they couldnt respond until the next day. So he committed a crime of his own.

The thing that is problematic is ... this cannot lead to vigilantism, right? But eventually it will.

I went out with a baseball bat, he said. Found it and trashed the guys tent.

Officer Kathryn Winters, a San Francisco police spokesperson, said police strongly discourage anyone from confronting a suspect over stolen property.

The best thing they can do is stop and meet with us, Winters said. If their items are tracking, then we can take over the investigation.

However, Winters said, unless the victim reports a serious crime like an accompanying robbery or assault, rather than a relatively low-level theft, police dont always have the resources to dig in.

And if the item tracks from inside a residence or hotel room as in Kenny Franks case Winters said Fourth Amendment protections require police to get a warrant.

Theres a very high probable-cause standard that we have to meet to be able to get a judge to sign off on it, Winters said. And if we simply just say its tracking to this location, unfortunately a lot of times thats just not good enough for a judge.

Car theft victim Tyler Smith experienced still further limitations. When his Chevy Spark was stolen from the Mission District on April 8, he reported to police that he was tracking it via the cars OnStar system. He said police instructed him to go to the location and call them back when he spotted the vehicle.

The tracking app led Smith to a homeless encampment under a South of Market freeway overpass.

It was a tiny one-way road, Smith said. I was pretty sketched out.

Smith said he shuffled by his car quickly, trying to peer inside.

But then (police) kept asking me questions like, Can you see whos in it? What do they look like? Can you confirm the plate? Smith said. I was like, No! I walked by, I saw it was there, and I cant believe I had to do that.

As Smith waited anxiously around the corner, he said, police arrived within about 20 minutes.

The officers and Smith approached the car again. They opened the door to find people living inside. The officers politely asked the occupants to leave, Smith said, and didnt attempt to question them.

They said they werent sure who stole the car just because those people were in it doesnt mean that they stole it, Smith said. So they couldnt do anything.

Anas Gragueb also became her own sleuth after her electric bike was swiped from her apartment buildings garage last year, and she tracked it to an encampment near City Hall.

She said she begged a dispatcher to send help, but was told there was no guarantee.

I felt like, if thats not a moment in my life where Im justified in calling the police the moment where I know Im going to be faced with somebody whos committed a crime, when are the police going to be useful?

So Gragueb borrowed her wifes bike and rode alone to the address, where she came upon a man doing drugs on the pavement next to a row of slick new bikes. Gragueb had promised her wife she wouldnt approach anyone, so she rode a little farther along, until she saw a group of construction workers.

Im so sorry, she said she told them. But theres my bike. Its right there. Im scared to go. I dont see it, but I know its there. Would you mind just being next to me while I ask questions and ask for my bike back?

Gragueb had an image of the suspected burglar on her phone, taken from her garages security camera footage. The construction workers, she said, recognized the man as someone who had vandalized their site, and one offered to escort Gragueb back to the scene.

After a brief confrontation with the suspect, Gragueb said, she spotted the tip of her bike wheel peeking out from under a tarp. With the construction workers assistance, she carried it back to the construction site and called police, who ultimately arrested the suspect.

I felt like, if thats not a moment in my life where Im justified in calling the police the moment where I know Im going to be faced with somebody whos committed a crime, Gragueb said, when are the police going to be useful?

Winters said she wasnt able to track down information on these specific incidents, but said, anecdotally, that they appeared to illustrate some of the complexities of such investigations.

Within 10 minutes of putting Miguel in touch with police, allowing him to relay information about our stolen Subaru, I received a call back from a dispatcher. Police officers had found my car, unoccupied, about four blocks away from where I had left it.

An officer waited at the location for me to arrive, and stood by as I surveyed the damage. Some of the contents of my car littered the street, including my infants tiny floral sneakers.

The stroller was gone, but the car seat which is admittedly tricky to remove was spared. Nothing else of value was there in the first place, but that didnt stop the thief from making off with a car charger and some pennies he cut out of a soda can that we shake to stop our dog from barking.

And in the few blocks of his joyride, the thief also managed to sideswipe something sturdy enough to dislodge my bumper. Im still working that out with insurance.

I got the car towed, because the officer couldnt wait for my partner to arrive with the spare keys. He also didnt want to leave me there alone, in case the thief came back. I understood.

Before we parted ways, the officer did a quick search for my keys, which were tracking from the same block. He poked his head into a tent and talked to a few apparent witnesses, but said the keys might have been inside a nearby building and, if so, he couldnt go in.

I felt relieved and thankful for the officers swift response.

The next day, Miguel and I returned to the scene. The keys, or at least the AirTag affixed to them, seemingly hadnt moved since the day before. We debated asking police to escort us, but figured they probably had better things to do.

A group of people was smoking on the curb. We feared what might happen if we sent a signal to the tracker and it beeped from inside someones pocket. We tried anyway and played dumb, saying wed dropped or keys in the area. Had anyone seen them?

Fortunately, the alert instead led us to a tree. There were the keys, hanging from a branch.

Originally posted here:
SF police and car thefts: What they can and can't do to help you - San Francisco Chronicle