God’s people at Greater Friendship Primitive Baptist Church in Glenwood and others in Chattanooga have an interest to work toward ending a police oppression upon the people through the state’s commercial transportation statute. (Photo Google)
The following is a thank you letter to a Christian minister who has just given me an hour to discuss the possibility of a police reform that will benefit African-Americans and other people in the Chattanooga area and beyond.
My text summarizes some of the claims state law and court cases make against current practice of the Hamilton County sheriff’s department and the Chattanooga police department, both of which typify law enforcement agencies across Tennessee.
By David Tulis / 92.7 NoogaRadio
Thank you for having met with me to discuss the plight of your people and mine under the abusive and overly expansive enforcement of Title 55 and 65, the Tennessee transportation law.
I believe this machinery is the most oppressive and the most egregious in keeping the back seats of cop cruisers warm, the jails full and the dockets long.
I propose that the first order of business is to understand the nature of probable cause, and what people in their cars need to say to establish their rights. The transportation law lowers the threshhold for probable cause to technical details of cars and car usage, not actual crimes. People who stand their ground on probable cause (who Mirandize themselves, effectively) will avoid being trapped by their revoked, suspended, expired or none status in the area of transportation or travel.
Cops NEVER obtain evidence that one’s status is in transportation, and I suggest all traffic citations and arrests in traffic are bogus legally and based on rebuttable presumption.
Journalist gives city administrative notice on limits to police power
Please give me 19-page review in administrative notice your attention. I will be giving administrative notice today to Sheriff Jim Hammond in a 30-minute meeting scheduled this morning. I will probable ask a few questions before giving him an oral executive summary of the law, the same one I gave you.
I will insist on the addition of a question into the arrest protocol streetside when his officers flash their blues upon a passing car or truck user.
This matter of admin notice changes the legal background of traffic stops, first in the city, and then in the county. The notice will deprive officers and the corporations they serve of their normal “good faith” defense. I enclosed some clips of my work on how admin notice works to make each officer personally liable for abusive and extra-statutory enforcement of “law” against innocent people.
See this post for long-term potential political implications if our Democrat mayor takes advantage of my work.
Mr. Berke will readily listen to you whereas he won’t readily listen to me as to the possibilities of making Chattanooga a “sanctuary city” from its enforcement of these laws.
Enforcement in short is overbroad, outside the scope of authority of the statute, and is against private people who are not in fact in transportation.
But because so many private people have DLs, they are presumptively in transportation. People at traffic stops need to know how to REBUT this presumption. And they do that by insisting on their rights. They make no statement. They ask the right questions (“Am I free to leave, officer?”). They compel the officer to produce a warrant or attest that he has seen them commit an actual crime (assault, say). Outside of Title 55, one is not guilty of any crime if one’s breaklight is out. Within Title 55, bad breaklight = probable cause.
Your people are mostly outside Title 55 when they travel the roadways of the city and county. Help me to help them understand their status, and how to use knowledge, grace and courage to assert their legal rights.
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