Passenger on Rapper 2Chainz' Tour Bus Waved Constitution Around During Attempted Police Search

Police got to search the bus eventually anyway

Reason

TMZ has new details from the police report filed for the police stop of rapper 2Chainz' tour bus in Oklahoma. Last week, the rapper refused to allow police in to conduct a search, and the bus was eventually towed to a police lot and searched for drugs after cops got a warrant.

From TMZ:

You'll recall, cops pulled over 2 Chainz' bus because of a busted taillight, but upon approaching the vehicle … cops say they smelled pot and attempted to search the bus.

But the driver refused to let cops on board -- and according to the police affidavit which was just released, one of the bus' passengers actually held a physical copy of the U.S. Constitution against the bus window … "as if challenging officers" with his civil rights.

All eleven passengers on the bus were arrested for "obstructing justice," but police said they also found drugs and that more charges could come later. Incidentally, when 2 Chainz was arrested for marijuana possession in Maryland earlier this year, police officers at the station got a picture with him.

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Comments

[Hyperion]

I just heard about this in PM links.

[Hugh Akston]

Bad enough that you actually hang out in that gutter, but why would you admit it publicly?

[Hyperion]

My hatred of PM links continues, unabated, just like my hatred of AM links.

The hatred shall not cease until I get LATE NITE LINKS!

[jesse.in.mb]

Links After Dark!

Come on, LNL or LAD? You have to choose something that aconymizes well.

[Hyperion]

Ok, Jesse, you have worn me down. I'm old and tired anyway. So, if you can make it happen, we'll call it what you want. Sigh...

[jesse.in.mb]

*extended hand waving*

Done.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Midnight Links
Links at Night
Witching Hour Links
Evening Links
Third Watch Links

[Generic Stranger]

Catch the midnight links going anywhere...

[Almanian!]

"Links Because Fuck You That's Why" Links

[jesse.in.mb]

Stop confusing the issue with third party options! Everyone knows there can be only two choices.

[Hyperion]

And that the responsibility to make it happen, is all on Jesse, now.

[jesse.in.mb]

I think we're going about this all wrong. Why don't we manipulate one of the writers to advocate this for us?

Maybe call them the Krayewski Links After Dark since as a reasonable compensation for him making them happen.

I'll settle for K-LAD.

[R C Dean]

Links After Dark gets my vote.

[Hyperion]

Damn you RC, don't encourage Jesse!

I had already conceded, and now...

Does Links After Dark with Lucy sound better than Late Nite links with Lucy?

Well does it!?

See, keep this up, and we ain't gonna get either, no links and no Lucy, because of you bastards!

[Atanarjuat]

LAD? Teh gaiz are taking over the joint!

NTTAWWT

[Hyperion]

I can't believe this guy actually threatened an officer with a dangerous and scary constitution and didn't get shot.

Did he also think he has a right to be in possession of dangerous herbal substances? The nerve of some people. Send this fucker to Gitmo!

[Duke]

Would it be too much to ask for the occupants in the pulled over vehicle to AT LEAST ONCE not have drugs on them? It really makes this constitution waiving business a lot less effective if you're not in compliance with the drug laws when you're pulled over for something small like a tail light.

[Hyperion]

Right on, dude! Next time these guys get caught with WMDs (weeds of mass destruction), then a RED LINE has been crossed! Fucking RED LINE! Off with their heads! For the children.

[Andrew S.]

Why? We've already figured out that the Constitution doesn't apply if the government says "national security". Is there also a "drugs" exception?

[Agammamon]

The drugs exception was the *original* exception.

Its through decades of tireless efforts by drug warriors to wear away at government recognition of civil rights that today's 'national security warriors' have the freedom to surveille you at will.

[Hyperion]

Yeah, the WOD and the foreign interventionist wars(which led to the war on terror) have been the vehicles with which to destroy the constitution and bill of rights.

The jobs pretty much complete now.

We have 2 classes of people now, the ruling class and the serfs.

[sarcasmic]

I don't know if you know this or not, but the PATRIOT Act didn't give the government any new ways to ignore the Constitution. It merely took powers that they could already use against suspected drug kingpins, and expanded them to be used against everyone.

[Cyto]

Actually, it seems the current drug exception extends from a "wartime agricultural price supports" exception. Of course they are all extensions of the FYTW exception.

[Duke]

I'm saying this from a procedural posture perspective on making constitutional challenges to unlawful searches and seizures. If the guy is pulled over, cites the constitution, is searched anyway, AND the search results in no contraband, how much more effective would his constitutional challenge be? He at least would be taken more seriously and people might become more outraged over the harassment of the "innocent."

I want all drugs legalized, but that's not the point. The point is compliance with certain aspects of the criminal law. If you can assert your civil rights in a state of your own righteousness within the criminal law, then your position will be taken more seriously by more people. Which I would think lib' tarians would want.

But if you don't agree, then you have to be willing to go to jail for smoking drugs and hope that you will make your case that way.

[Calidissident]

The Constitution applies to people who break laws. Carrying about it only when a person is (apparently) innocent defeats the whole purpose

[Duke]

*Sigh*

You missed the entire point and you don't know the law either. If the cops pull over someone for a tail light, and then they see you doing or possessing something else illegal while you're pulled over, they absolutely can search and arrest you for that too. They're not just limited to the tail light under the constitution. And that's not necessarily a bad thing either.

It only gets sticky and subject to being suppressed when they "suspect" you're doing something else wrong, or "smell" something funny and then search. Not all judges think that rises to the reasonable suspicion, probable cause, indicia of wrong doing, whatever standard it takes to initiate a search. Granted, I'm not a criminal defense atty but I did tae the classes in law school and remember some of the basics.

[Boisfeuras]

"That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed."
- Algernon Sidney

[Hyperion]

Nice.

[R C Dean]

Is there also a "drugs" exception?

Of course there is. You can't pursue victimless crimes without throwing big chunks of the Constitution out the window, starting with the whole "limited, enumerated powers" bit and right down the line through the BOR.

[R C Dean]

Duke, I'm sure it happens all the time. Naturally, "nothing else happened" doesn't makes the news.

[Duke]

That's my point -- now you have standing to sue for an illegal search (and perhaps seizure) under 1983. And maybe one day a judge will decide to agree with you since you weren't doing anything "wring." I know, it's crazy talk, but hope springs eternal.

[Duke]

"wrong" I blame the constitution for my typos.

[?J?? de ?guila]

Maybe, while the State fucks up your life for a pot stick.

[dantheserene]

Finding "contraband" has nothing to do with the legality of the search. If the search is illegal, any evidence can be found inadmissible. That's how these things usually play out.

[Duke]

See above. That's not the law. If the pull the car over for the bad tail light, and then see you with weed on the seat or in plain view, yes, the search for weed is legal.

[califernian]

It really makes this constitution waiving business a lot less effective if you're not in compliance with the drug laws when you're pulled over for something small like a tail light.

Disagree. Makes it even more compelling to me, since the laws are evil and wrong and that is the fucking point of the constitution.

[MikeP]

If they let him get away with this, the next step will be being allowed to take the Constitution in with you when you vote!

[Hyperion]

Well, this constitution is clearly a dangerous thing. It's more than 100 years old! Did you know that? It was written before the current age of the great progressive enlightenment. Those primitive barbarians who wrote it, they probably wouldn't have even believed that people should be put in prison for smoking the wrong plants! Can you believe that? Clearly, this is a dangerous document, and should be burned and banned!

[sarcasmic]

Dude, it was written before cell phones! Before computers! Before color television! Before airplanes! Before automobiles! I mean, it's fucking ancient! How the fuck could anyone design a system of government without all these modern conveniences of ours! There's no way they could have anticipated modern technology! The world is a totally different place! How the fuck can the Constitution apply to today?!?

[Hyperion]

I've been thinking that the reason it happened, is because people, after a very long age of oppression in Europe, where people just had nowhere to go or hide from their oppressors, some were able to escape to North America.

There, they got a little taste of freedom. They were actually able to put a real geographical barrier between them and their oppressors, and they had time to appreciate it and think a lot about it.

Then when the oppressors finally decided to crack down on this freedom, it was too late.

Now, once again, we have nowhere to go to get away from the statist control freaks. I mean really, where can we go?

This really worries me that freedom is dead for a long time, until some group of people are finally able to escape to somewhere remote enough, probably another planet, that the experiment can start up again.

[Episiarch]

Your worries are well founded. Until we can get into space or other planets, there is a very limited amount of "new place" to go. The Seasteading people have considered one way to do it, but obviously their method has some serious flaws.

Honestly, I think the best thing you can do is just make sure you have money, and use that money to shield you from the worst of the government. Try to live in a grey zone where you are on the least possible radars. I did this for seven years in NYC and it worked really, really well.

[Hyperion]

Try to live in a grey zone where you are on the least possible radars

Yeah, makes sense, except that now, we are all on the radar, especially those of us posting in places like this.

[sarcasmic]

When someone offers to help you make a bomb or ambush a cop or something of that nature, then you can be sure that you're on their radar. Until then I wouldn't worry about it. Libertarians with their non-aggression principle aren't perceived much of a threat.

[Episiarch]

Well, that's part of the whole strategy. Don't do shit (or don't get caught doing shit) that causes them to notice you. Don't drive drunk or (overly) cheat on your taxes or get in a fight with the zoning office over a fence and so on.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to live somewhere somewhat remote. But it's also surprisingly easy to do in a big city too, especially if you rent. Because you just blend in with the crowd.

[Hyperion]

Libertarians with their non-aggression principle aren't perceived much of a threat

I think we are perceived as the biggest threat, by both teams.

[sarcasmic]

We're simply returning to the default state of mankind: despotism.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Worse than that! One of them actually grew hemp on his farm! And he had slaves harvest it!

[Doctor Whom]

The non-privilege-checking white men who wrote it forgot to include in the enumerated powers "whatever progressives feel like doing." Then again, maybe there was no way to say that in Anglo-Saxon.

[Boisfeuras]

It was written by a bunch of slave-owning, marijuana-growing, tax-evading, gun-and-Bible-clinging, anti-government extremists.

[R C Dean]

Four out of five ain't bad.

[Wizard4169]

No, no, no, no. You can vote for one of our approved choices, or you can waste your vote on some fringe lunatic. These are your choices, citizen.

[np]

Well I wouldn't be waving the constitution around, since the built-in exceptions make you not so secure against searches and seizures after all.

Madison messed up. He had good ideas and intent clearly laid out in the Fed papers and fears rightly expressed from others in the anti-Fed papers. Tyranny of the majority. Passions of factions resulting in unjust acts. Too bad none of that made it into the constitution proper.

[Boisfeuras]

Incidentally, when 2 Chainz was arrested for marijuana possession in Maryland earlier this year, police officers at the station got a picture with him.

Don't those Maryland State Troopers have better things to do, like ignoring that stack of concealed carry permit requests?

[Res Publica Americana]

A decent cop would have known that marijuana possession being a crime sucks, and would have ignored the smell and let them on their way. Unfortunately, 2Chainz and his posse weren't stopped by decent cops.

[Slammer]

What about this one? Can we say he fucked up because he didn't let the officer smell the can?

[Cyto]

On exactly what basis are they supposed to believe this guy is a police officer or has any right to ask them to leave? Because he says "sir"? Because he eventually utters the word "police officer" after being asked several times? It didn't look like he produced a badge until long after the point where it was required. He ID's himself literally 3 seconds before making an arrest for "trespassing" in a parking lot.

I'll assume that they take the guy to the station and release him a couple of hours later. Nice example of contempt of cop.

[Dave Krueger]

Incidentally, when 2 Chainz was arrested for marijuana possession in Maryland earlier this year, police officers at the station got a picture with him.

I'm sure the cops, who consider themselves superior to everyone else, saw it as 2 Chainz wanting to get his picture taken with them.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

The best part of this is that it renders drug dogs obsolete. Why do cops need the pretense of a dog alert if they can smell the pot themselves?

[Hyperion]

Yeah, makes sense. And they could turn all of those retired police dogs over to the public. Thus, a little more insurance against them running out of dogs to shoot.

[Hyperion]

OT:

Where is Rand Paul and the other Republican Libertarians, in trying to stop Odumbos insane attempt to get us into yet another war, without any congressional approval?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I haven't heard Rand make a statement on it yet, but Justin Amash has been throwing a fit on Twitter.

[Hyperion]

It might be better if he get his arse back to DC and throw a fit there for the rest of the critters to return early and vote this non-sense down.

Then again, Obama is blowing it big time on this. He's going to be a very unpopular President the rest of his term. But since he can't be elected again, maybe he doesn't care, he's already passed the reigns to Hillary, a well known war monger.

[Cyto]

It doesn't look like his popularity numbers move much at all in relation to what he does. The economy has been the worst of any president in living memory, positives still in the 40's. Haven't passed a budget... well, at all. Still in the 40's. No movement at all on any of the leftist peace/justice agenda (to say the least). No sag in his ratings at all.

Looks like Romney was on the right track with his 47% crack. There's a solid floor of team blue support somewhere in the 40%+ area where it wouldn't matter if you put George W. Bush in blackface as long as you ran him as a Democrat. (and maybe fixed his public speaking capability)

[Paul.]

All eleven passengers on the bus were arrested for "obstructing justice," but police said they also found drugs and that more charges could come later.

Fucking duh. Demanding a warrant for a search is obstruction of justice.

[Agile Cyborg]

How much brain power does it take to just not fucking toke while on highways proven time and again to be patrolled by narrow-minded pricks who are biting at the bit to haul someone's ass to the clink? I'm cool with potheads. I just don't think they are very smart. When you are up against an entire army of armed thugs mentally-designed to hone in on the evil and godless weed I'd think you ought to take some fucking precautions and smoke trees with discretion. Not in a bus with a broken tail light. Holy fuck.

[Hyperion]

Like congress critters.