From: Llywelyn <samman@CS.YALE.EDU>
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 14:06:58 PDT
To: GERSTEIN@SCSUD.CTSTATEU.EDU
Subject: Warrentlesss SEarches
In-Reply-To: <940424150140.20229e27@SCSUD.CTSTATEU.EDU>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.07.9404241618.E23743-d100000@jaguar.zoo.cs.yale.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> 	Think about it. The cops are out-gunned and out-manned. What would you 
> do? And don't tell me that you would just go in there. I consider myself pretty 
> brave, but I don't think even for a second that I would be able to even 
> consider going in there, not without a nice, warm, cozy M1 Abrams Tank 
> surrounding me. And even then I wouldn't be truly safe.
> 	These cops are doing the best that they can, and everyone in the U.S. 
> are worrying more about the "rights" of these gang-bangers and drug-dealers 
> than they are about the rights of the innocent people that are trapped in these 
> buildings.
> 	And don't even start to tell me that the "innocents" can just leave, 
> cos these CHA buildings are the only place they can afford to live.
> 	You folks are to busy yelling about the illegal searches to even think 
> of coming up with an alternative.
> 	
> 	Maybe if you spent a little time thinking about what it's like to live 
> in a place like this, you might shut up about the cops not doing their jobs.

Ok, Let me respond

1)I live in this kind of neighborhood at home when I'm not at school.  That's
right, I live in West Oakland, California.  I was born and raised in the inner
city.  Don't tell me how these places are, don't tell me how they're run, don't
tell me how dangerous they are.  I've lived it.  Have you?  All you know is what
you see on the news, on the television shows, and what is portrayed in mass media.

2)I know the value of a gun in this environment.  I know how many times our home
has been kept safe because my father has been willing to wield a gun against
either intruders or against 'undersireable' characters coming around(read drug
dealers, crack heads, you name it).  Our part of the block has a reputation for
not being somewhere for these pepole to hang out because my father and our
neighbors have taken a stand against such scum.

3)Not everyone who lives in these neighborhoods is bad simply as a result of
their economic conditions.  We don't want these people around any more than you
people do in your neighborhoods.  It just happens, and I know this for a fact,
that it takes Oakland Police(OPD) a lot longer to respond when we call them,
than when people in Skyline(a rich white neighborhood) call them.  

4)My family has not broken any law simply by trying to protect ourselves.  There
is no way in hell that the police can be everywhere at once, even if they are as
efficient as you in the 'burbs seem to think they are, keeping out and harassing
all the minorties that come your way.  Until they get there, the only way we can
protect ourselves is with our guns.  We havne't broken any laws, we're not the
ones who have severed our contract with society by choosing to live outside of
it, its not us, its the people who prey upon us in our homes and in our schools,
and it is not us who should lose our rights, but them.  By simply lumping us in
with them by sheer virtue of where we live and how much we earn is not only
sheer folly but is also classist.

5)Yes we worry about the rights of the accused.  I do.  I've been arrested and
harassed when the only crime that I committed was being in the wrong place at
the wrong time, and not having the right skin color.  Yes, I worry about those
rights, because for me, it might be that one day, that it is I who is on trial,
it is I whose rights are being questioned, and it is I who wants my day in
court, and unless we protect the rights of the accused, even if they don't look
like us, it reaps a beneficial result to society as a whole.  Thomas More in the
movie _Man for All Seasons_ makes an excellent point when he asks young Will, if
he would cut down all the laws in England to catch the devil.  When Will
responds in the affirmative, More asks him, "And what would you do when the
winds rage about you?"

You see, if you don't protect the rights of the accused today, there might come
a day when you're in their shoes and you'll wish that you still had those
rights--remember the 5th amendment?  The 4th's prohibitions against unreasonable
seach and siezures?  What about the 14th's due process clause?  It is the rule
of law, not of decree that makes this nation great, and there's no way in hell,
I'm going to sit idly by and watch this nation become an autocracy simply
because some people in suburbia decided that it would be easier to do away with
the rights of the accused in their racist, xenophobic fears. 

Any comments?
Ben.