Restraining order; attacking the excesses of federal cops.AS THE JANUARY TRIAL OF BRANCH Davidians opened in Texas, an extraordinary coalition of traditional civil libertarians and Second Amendment advocates called for a presidential commission to help prevent future Waco shoot-outs from occurring. At a press conference in the Washington offices of the American Civil Liberties Union American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nonpartisan organization devoted to the preservation and extension of the basic rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution. , the ACLU ACLU: see American Civil Liberties Union. joined with 10 other organizations, including the National Rifle Association National Rifle Association (NRA) Governing organization for the sport of shooting with rifles and pistols. It was founded in Britain in 1860. The U.S. organization, formed in 1871, has a membership of some four million. Both the British and the U.S. , the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is an American legal defense organization. Their stated mission is to "ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crimes or other misconduct. , the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, or CCRKBA, is a gun rights organization in the United States, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is closely affiliated with the Second Amendment Foundation. External links
Ideally, the groups would like the commission to include law-enforcement officials, legal scholars, and community activists. Their models are the Wickersham Commission, appointed by President Herbert Hoover to investigate corruption by federal law-enforcement agents in the 1920s, and the Christopher Commission, appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley after the Rodney King beating. Each of these commissions uncovered sweeping patterns of police abuses and recommended new procedures that helped restore confidence in the professionalism and effectiveness of law enforcers. Nearly 10 percent of the nation's law-enforcement officers--some 79,000 persons--work for the federal government. In a letter to the president, the groups cited seven examples--including the Branch Davidian case, the death of Malibu millionaire Donald Scott (see "Ill-Gotten Gains," August/September 1993), and the shootout Shootout Venture capital jargon. Refers to two or more venture capital firms fighting for the startup. in Idaho involving Randy Weaver's family (see "Ambush at Ruby Ridge," October 1993)--in which they say federal agents engaged in "no knock" raids without justification or improperly used deadly force, entrapment entrapment, in law, the instigation of a crime in the attempt to obtain cause for a criminal prosecution. Situations in which a government operative merely provides the occasion for the commission of a criminal act (e.g. , or asset forfeiture. ACLU project director Gene Guerrero says it's much easier to seek redress from state and local law enforcers than from the federal government. Most jurisdictions have independent oversight agencies that can impartially investigate allegations of excessive behavior. By contrast, Guerrero notes, federal law-enforcement agencies have no uniform oversight. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion