Guilty Until Proven Innocent

From Reason.com:

To hear them tell it, the officers who apprehended 39-year-old David Pyles on March 8 thwarted a mass murder. The cops “were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation,” the Medford, Oregon, police department announced in a press release. The subject had been placed on administrative leave from his job not long before, was “very disgruntled,” and had recently purchased several firearms. “Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers,” the press release said. Fortunately, Pyles “voluntarily” turned himself over to police custody, and his legally purchased firearms “were seized for safekeeping.”

This supposedly voluntary exchange involved two SWAT teams, officers from Medford and nearby Roseburg, sheriff’s deputies from Jackson and Douglas counties, and the Oregon State Police. Pyles hadn’t committed any crime; nor was he suspected of having committed one. The police never obtained a warrant for either search or arrest. They never consulted with a judge or a mental health professional before sending military-style tactical teams to take Pyles in.

“They woke me up with a phone call at about 5:50 in the morning,” Pyles says. “I looked out the window and saw the SWAT team pointing their guns at my house. The officer on the phone told me to turn myself in. I told them I would, on three conditions. I would not be handcuffed. I would not be taken off my property. And I would not be forced to get a mental health evaluation. He agreed. The second I stepped outside, they jumped me. Then they handcuffed me, took me off my property, and took me to get a mental health evaluation.”

By noon, Pyles had already been released from the Rogue Valley Medical Center with a clean bill of mental health. Four days later the Medford Police Department returned Pyles’ guns, despite telling him earlier in the week—falsely—that he would need to undergo a second background check before he could get them back. The Medford Police Department then put out a second press release, this time announcing that it had returned the “disgruntled” worker’s guns and “now considers this matter closed.”

First the Supreme Court allows the government to hold prisoners indefinitely without due process, now this. Chilling.

Thanks to Matt, who is obviously trying to kill me.