therightfangirl | Canadian author assaulted by border patrol

Canadian author assaulted by border patrol

I am editing this to emphasize a point that apparently i was unclear about:

The Canadian author Dr. Peter Watts was arrested on charges of assaulting a federal officer after large groups of border patrol swarmed his car. refused to tell him why, refused his requests for legal council, and kicked and beat him. His story HERE, another story and means of contributing to his legal defense HERE.

Even if he did assault one of them ... what happened next is completely unreasonable.
he was refused a lawyer because it was homeland security. he was then sent out into a snowstorm in shirt sleeves, without coat, car , or possibility of a bus....

The US border patrol, apparently thinking Canadians have anti freeze in their veins, graciously allowed him to be released in Canada the next night.... minus all his belongings, his phone, his car , his computer, his notepaper.. and his coat.
in a snowstorm
after public transit shut down
and without notifying Canadian police or anyone that maybe they should pick him up to keep him from freezing to death, hmmm?

he will have to travel BACK to the united states to deal with the federal assault charges, which could lead to him being fined, jailed, and banned from the US
i am sure that right now he finds the idea of never traveling across this border again to be such a loss.

The possibility that he did or did not assault the officer is not why i am concerned enough to re post this....
The reason i am concerned is because i have seen a track record of border and TSA agency personnel refusing lawyers to people. i have NEVER before heard of an arraigned Canadian citizen being sent into a Canadian night without the Canada police or someone being called to come get him.

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Or we could wait to hear what the Border Patrol has to say about it.

i would very much like to hear what they say about it.

regardless of what details of the "did he assault anyone" argument emerge, throwing ANYONE out into a Canadian snowstorm without a car, coat, or a ride home is endangering their life

If we can assume that that was the case.

Did I miss a point where this community became the sounding board for anti-police propaganda? Did I accidently join theanarchistfangirl? Crap!

actually, i usually find that cases of police brutality are caused by the bad behavior or stupidity of the so called victim.
i also have seen a VERY bad track record with border patrol, TSA and "homeland security" being much less likely to be provoked.

and as stated...... EVEN if he did assault the officer... there is no possible reason to send someone out into a Canadian winter, much less a snowstorm, on foot.... without even a coat.

Ain't it? Especially when only one side of the story is given, and therefore you cannot make an informed decision as to what to think about the situation.

if anyone can find out anything else, i rather expected it would be on this comm.... yes?

I am not sure what you mean by this comment.

What I see is a story that only gives partial information. There has to be a reason why this man was stopped, but that is not known. There must have been some conversation between them all, but that is not known. There is a lot here that isn't known, which would therefore affect what we think of the story. There's simply not enough information given.

Yet your decision has already been made that the border patrol officers are completely in the wrong.

i know people who know him.. therefore i am not unbiased in it......
it is fandom related.. so i thought i should post it here

i have NO idea whether he did anything.. although my impression of him from my friends makes that unlikely sounding.

what i do know is that even if he assaulted the border patrol....... sending a person out into a Canadian snowstorm after the buses stop running, without so much as a coat.. is potentially lethal.
i know enough to know that the Canadian police, or any number of his fans. would have happily picked him up.

Even if the guy mouthed off stupidly, he should not have been treated like that. That's not what you expect from officials representing the United States, but from Third World tinpot dictatprship goons.

This is par for the course for TSA.

Go back to the preacher who was detained and beaten in Arizona. That case is going to trial. Unlike the Ron Paul worker who was detained and they've reached 'conclusion' by changing rules.

Here's Lew Rockwell's latest in case you missesd it:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers115.html

You didn't get the memo?

See my post below.

We do NOT want bad apples behaving like the Soviet or Iranian police. Even if the guy mouthed off, the way he was treated is outrageous. Go to [Bad username or site: ”papersky” @ livejournal.com]'s LJ for links.

What fascinating commentary I see about this. Something happens to a friend of a friend, such information as is available is provided, and the poster's comment is that, if this is true, such behavior by the Border Patrol (i.e., leaving someone stranded in a snowstorm) is unconscionable. The most reasonable reply is "assuming that is what happened", which is fair.

On the other hand, claiming that the post belongs on an anarchist forum?

I rather had the idea that being on the Right was about restraining government excesses, among which excesses is over-zealous an police authority (the sort of thing which leads to a police state). Appropriate use of appropriate means by appropriate authority is, to my mind, a Conservative view.

Assuming the account is generally accurate, under what Conservative doctrine would it be appropriate to deport someone without informing the receiving nation of the fact?

Even assuming the account is not accurate, what standard of behavior permits leaving a man in a blizzard with no means of contacting anyone (which is what the original poster is complaining about)?

If you don't think it's possible for Federal authorities to overstep the rules, then why are you posting here?

The anarchist crack was just hyperbole, due to the volume of posts lately about the big bad police officers, not intended to be serious.

Yes, of course if the allegations are true, it's inappropriate and illegal (and immoral and just plain wrong). I won't make that assumption based purely on media sources however, let alone "a friend of a friend said so."

My tongue-in-cheek attitude comes largely from the fact that I'm tired of having to come on this community and defend my fellow police officers, the overwhelming majority of whom are doing a difficult, dangerous job for not enough pay and doing it legally and well. Especially while I've put in 14-hour shifts the last two days in a row and am on day 4 of 6 work days in a row.

Can't we talk about Karl Urban's ass or something? Please? :) Because that would be so much more fun.

given the other comments, i didnt think it was hyperbole.

i am one of the people here in Philadelphia who spent HOURS making pocket Rosaries to hand to the police here, after one more cop killing.. again.. another.. Philadelphia has had one of our worst two years on record for police being shot, run over, etc.

i live in a neighborhood of drug dealers and Gd knows what else.
you couldn't PAY me enough to be a policeman.

that said?
i have also seen a lot of abuse of authority here in the city.
is a lot of it driven by fear and the "they are all out to get me" mentality? yup

in any event the border patrol is not a city police agency.

i, personally, doubt that the Dr threw a punch.
but i know that once things get heated, all sorts of things happen... including people doing VERY stupid things... like hitting a police or border guard. or even looking like they MIGHT, which given what our police face, tends to get a "pre-emptive" response.

what concerns me... is partly what he says happened at the initial incident, but even more.. what happened afterwards... and sadly given how i have been treated by *some* TSA people, and how my friends have been treated by Some border guards i believe it

i hope, seriously, that this will all turn out to be a case of hot tempers, misunderstandings, and "i thought you called???"
but i am not holding my breath

and i specifically posted it HERE because we have seen a heck of a lot of stupidity regarding Homeland Security, and it has been discussed here...
between hostile behavior at people who haven't done anything.... and ignoring red flags... i sometimes wonder who the heck is training these guys.

oh, and in case i havent said it recently?
Thank you for your service, its a dmn job and someone has to do it and i am glad it is not me

Likely my irritation showed through, simply because of some other recent posts we've had, so I apologize for that. I think that you've been more than sincere and fair, so it's definitely not you.

I police in a dangerous district. I've had to investigate the death of three of my fellow officers since 2006. It's difficult for Police Officers to maintain a balance sometimes, between the realization that any call, any traffic stop, any encounter could be life-ending and the fact that 99.9% of them are not.

I also have a very wary view of the media, because I know how often they get the details (and not just the small details, but almost the entire story) wrong on the cases that I have investigated. So my gut reaction is generally to wait and see where things shake out legally before trusting what is in print.

All that said, there's no excuse for bad behavior. The actions of the few bad police officers make it that much more difficult on the rest of them. If the actions you describe above were true and purposeful, then that's horrid and they should be fired, if not prosecuted. I think that's probably not the case (I've found, working for the government, that I generally never attribute to malice what can be explained by mind-numbing bureaucracy or just plain stupidity is generally accurate), but that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Thanks for being understanding. And thanks for the rosaries! As a Catholic Cop, I definitely think that's cool.

Edited 2009-12-12 02:54 (UTC)

i am also a bit.. touchy. its been a bad couple months for many of my friends.

i am sorry you have had to deal with so many deaths and injuries. as i said.... i couldnt do it.

and also i have computer problems, so i typed this up for my snarky journal and mostly hit cut and paste.... it probably needed more editing.

true.... i keep forgetting how MUCH can end up being due to bureaucratic idiocy. it doesnt make the victim feel much better, but it would be preferable to think that than otherwise.... i just have a bad feeling its not the case here. we shall see

as to Rosaries....i make and give away knotted cord Rosaries.
(i learned at www.rosaryarmy.com)
put Rosary in the subject line and send me an address to mail one to.. a list of colors you like (or dont) and whether you need a MRI/Metal detector safe one, or not.
(basically? a MRI safe one has a knotted cross instead of the crucifix. they dont rattle, jingle, shine, or set off metal detectors at jails.. i also make them for my friends who work in the courts)
kirsten at fabricdragon dot com
i will be working right thru Xmas (retail, ugh) so cannot likely even do anything until january...

THIS. Since when do we think the government is always right?

The government hasn't been right for a while..../sarcasim off

I really want to know more about this case, particularly after the Canadians recently booted one of our author/reporters without explaination.(her name escapes me ATM, but she's known to write from the left side of things)

I've crossed numerious times where he did and they had to flag him specifically down. Normally, one does not stop when leaving the US there. The factor of a rental car may be a part of it, but I am curious as to what may have preciptated it by either party.
As former law enforcement myself, this is one that makes my suspicions rise and I feel it deserves higher examination. I really want to know what the prosecution has to say or wheither they will move to dismiss.

Just my 0.02.
YIS,
WRI

by gods - some sense!

i have hope for this community.

Having dealt with border guards before I'm inclined to believe this.

They didn't assault me or throw me out in a storm, but they did question my then-boyfriend extensively about whether I was a mail order bride, in front of me, without allowing me to speak for myself and telling me to be quiet when I tried (as a non-American, of course, I wasn't worthy of speaking to them.)

I think standing outside in the cold all day checking cars makes them hate humanity.

i am very sorry you had to deal with that, it must have been infuriating.

and i know working retail made me hate almost everyone some days, so i expect you are right about their job not encouraging a love of humanity........

Eh. Being conservative doesn't automatically make one think the police are always the good guys. In my experience, cops come in one of two varieties- the hero and the thug. Alas, sometimes they both reside in the same individual, depending upon the situation.

No matter how badly he behaved, this doesn't look well. Not good PR, you know? They clearly didn't find him dangerous enough to keep him, so their total disregard of his safety seems the bigger issue right now.

Is this news being reported on anything more reliable than a blog that I could look at?

its still new.... as far as i know, all the sources that are reporting on it, are all quoting either the author's blog, or the guy who got him the lawyer in the usa..

so its all quotes of TWO separate blogs.... two people(Canadian and American) reporting on one thing.

sadly i cannot find ANY sources that dont pretty much quote one or both of them... YET
i have to leave town and computer access soon. so may not be able to add anything either...

That icon is much win.

Thank you. xD

I'm not a huge anime fan, but Trigun is so philosophical, atmospheric and entertaining that I cannot resist.

I saw this on

johncwright's LJ as well.

I'll withhold judgment on the case until I see all of the facts. It doesn't seem likely a science fiction writer would pick a fight with Border Patrol, but there's always two sides to a story. If it turns out this man was mistreated by a bunch of cowboys, then Border Patrol needs to do something about them and Watts ought to sue for a crapload of money.

I work with Border Patrol (by San Diego) all of the time. They're pretty good guys and they're very professional. If Watts is telling the truth, it's not representative of the BP guys I know.

i usually dont hear much about the border patrol doing anything like this.... but lately i have been hearing a LOT of complaints about the American Canadian border patrol.. and a handful about the Canadian side.

i am begining to wonder more about what is going on at that specific border crossing

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Canadian author assaulted by border patrol

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sincerely, thank you for your service.

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