Despite the fact that this incident happened over 2 weeks ago, few particulars have been released by police. The police and its media want to focus the public on their narrative about a toy gun and whether it was visible to cops.
However, the initial stop by the police appears to be unconstitutional - that is, if you believe in such things as the 4th Amendment’s guarantee to be free from unreasonable stops, searches and seizures by government agents.
In order for the police to stop you the Supreme Court has ruled that police must have reasonable articulable suspicion that there is criminal activity afoot and the person detained is involved in the activity. Police may not act on on the basis of an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or a hunch - there must be some specific articulable facts along with reasonable inferences from those facts to justify the intrusion. With regard to an anonymous tip, the Supremes have said that apart from the tip the officers must have a reason[s] or facts to suspect an individual of illegal conduct AND police must have predictive information that can be corroborated. [MORE] and [MORE]. The Court has specifically said that an anonymous tip about alleged gun possession by itself will not justify a stop and frisk. [MORE].
Furthermore, In order to frisk you the Supreme Court has ruled that the police must have independent reasonable articulable suspicion that the person is armed and dangerous before they may touch you or put their hands on you (a cursory patdown for weapons). Police may not act on on the basis of an unclear and unparticularized suspicion or a hunch - there must be some specific, actual & articulable facts along with reasonable inferences from those facts to justify the intrusion. In evaluating the legality of a police stop all that matters is what the cops knew and what they saw at the time of the stop; that is, the first hand knowledge the police had in the present moment of the stop. A court will only consider what an officer observed or knew at the time of the stop. What cops subsequently learned from records checks, court records or from the media is not relevant to a 4th Amendment analysis.
Here, the police ordered the 2 teenage boys to stop and then sought to touch them (pat them down). The cops acted without a warrant and the boys were not free to go. Thus, they were stopped within the meaning of the 4th Amendment. At the time of the stop the police the boys were not engaged in criminal activity. Also, when the police sought to frisk them they apparently had no specific, actual & articulable facts that led them to believe that either one was armed. Police claim they stopped them because they were reportedly looking for 2 Asian men with a bike. Such a description is endlessly vague, especially in an Asian neighborhood, because it could fit the description of countless people each and any day. That is, the police apparently were on the lookout for every and any Asian male with a bike. The police had no other details to identify the suspect such as height, weight, build, complexion, age, hair length, hair style, distinguishing characteristics (tattoos, walked with a limp etc), type of clothing (shirts, pants, color, style) etc. The only thing cops corroborated at the time of the stop was that a bike was present and they both looked Asian - innocent facts that do not support an inference of involvement in a crime to justify a a stop. Obviously, the two teenagers were not men - nor was Nyah built like a man (see photos). Only a racist could find this factually unsupportable police stop reasonable. As such, the stop by the police violated the so-called 4th Amendment rights of both teens and was unlawful.
However, in reality, the 4th Amendment is just words on paper. In real life, especially in regard to Black and Latino people, brazen cops so frequently abuse their power that no black shopper, pedestrian, motorist, juvenile, adult or black professional of any kind—could make a compelling argument that so-called constitutional rights provide them any real protection from cops or from the government in general.
Although the supreme court has never quantified probable cause to justify an arrest or search legal scholars explain that it turns on assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts and involves less than a 50% likelihood of accuracy. Perhaps “non-whiteness” is part of said factual context analysis when police use their uncontrollable discretionary power to stop, search, detain, arrest and/or kill non-whites? Or perhaps legal truths have little to do with reality. The undeceiver Jeremy Locke points out that “slavery is not a concept of totality . . . The ultimate slavery is murder . . .Slavery is found both in the partial and complete destruction of freedom.” The use of unprovoked force against another person is an attempt to dominate or control them and is a form of slavery.
Regardless of the 4th Amendment and its so-called protections from government intrusion, we are all naturally endowed with inalienable rights - rights that we possess because we are human beings (regardless of whether we have earned them or not). Said inalienable rights are necessary to human dignity and autonomy - these rights include freedom of movement, self-defense and the right to be left the fuck alone. Elite racists and totalitarian authorities generally disregard or fail to even acknowledge such rights of non-whites.
Here, for instance the official public narrative articulated by the media for Nyah Mway’s story begins with the gun - not whether cops had any right to stop him in the first place. No information from NY Times, WSJ, CNNN, MSNBC or CBS bothers to mention anything about the sufficiency of information about the stop. In an authoritarian system of racism white supremacy, elite racists act as though they merely confer rights or privileges onto non-whites (like master’s favors or spray-on “rights” that can be turned on and off like a light switch or “rights” that only elites can assert or validate). It is telling that racist suspect Mayor Michael Galime rejected any suggestions that the shooting was racist. “What I witnessed on the bodycam footage and all of the reports I read leading up to that incident, there was no reference or any indication that there was any racism,” Such an ignorant statement only makes sense if you understand racism to simply mean bad words, disrespect or hatred - as white liberal ‘belief pushers’ dogmatically and consistently preach. To Galime, it would only be racist if the cop made a racial slur when he pulled the trigger. The undeceiver Neely Fuller Jr. explained, "If you don't understand racism/white supremacy, everything else that you think you understand will only confuse you." In reality racism is domination of non-whites by whites in a white over black system. In this system of vast unequal power Government authorities can stop non-whites whenever they want to. When they do so, they act on behalf of elite whites and white residents. To racists, the means justify the result - which is the opposite of stated purpose of the so-called 4th Amendment but nevertheless satisfies their goal of dominating non-white persons.
The only thing upholding the 4th amendment is your belief in it. You only have rights if an authority says that you do. Your possession of "Rights” given to you by a magical government, which functions as your master, is cult belief. Rights are myths. Believe in them at your own risk.
