South Carolina Police Chief Threatens To Target Anyone Who Advocates Legalizing Marijuana

[trumad]

Shortly after the Columbia, South Carolina Police Department posted on its Facebook page that it arrested a man and seized approximately forty thousand dollars worth of marijuana from his home, several individuals wrote critical comments of this arrest and of marijuana prohibition in general. “How many unsolved murders and rapes do you have in your jurisdiction? Maybe you should focus your attention on those instead?” wrote one commentator. Another simply wrote that “Pot should be legal.”

Ruben Santiago, the Interim Police Chief in Columbia, South Carolina, did not take kindly to these comments. Yet, rather than simply defend his department’s actions or offer counterarguments expressing why he believed that this marijuana arrest was a good use of police resources, he decided instead to threaten one of the commenters. In a comment that was first reported by the libertarian-leaning blog Popehat, Chief Santiago logged into his department’s Facebook account and told an apparent advocate of marijuana legalization that the man’s political views provided “reasonable suspicion to believe” that he may be a criminal, and that police “will work on finding” him.



This comment was deleted shortly after it appeared, but Santiago soon followed up with a longer comment comparing advocates for marijuana legalization to people with gang tattoos.



http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/11/02/2880221/south-carolina-police-chief-threatens-action-advocates-legalizing-marijuana/#comment_link

[Cirque du So-What]

1. I hope someone has forwarded this to Columbia's elected officials

If any one of them possesses a few functioning brain cells, it should be apparent that this interim PD chief is spoiling for a rash of expensive civil suits against the city. Constituents don't appreciate having to pay out huge settlements instead of taking care of any number of worthwhile services and projects, yunno.

[Scuba]

2. So free speech is a crime in South Carolina.

[marmar]

3. And this is the acting CHIEF of police......

...... Teh stupid is astounding. Be afraid, be very afraid.

[Trillo]

5. No, not "stupid".

It teaches the residents of that jurisdiction to not express themselves if they hold any anti-establishment viewpoints. Think of it as "training".

[Trillo]

4. So much for the first amendment.

Express yourself and watch the Eye of Sauron stare at you all the time?

[seveneyes]

6. That is an impeachable offense

It would be a strong message to remove this fool from his position. Here's to hoping the voters pursue that route.

[Hugabear]

7. Sounds like this police chief is also a racist asshole

Nice dogwhistle statements there, about "gang tattoos". "Makes me suspicious of them...can't do anything until they commit a crime". Sounds like he'd just go around shaking down minorities all day long if he could.

[DefenseLawyer]

9. Newsflash: He can

and he does.

[DefenseLawyer]

8. Sooner or later we've got to recognize that we have a dysfunctional police culture

in this country. These aren't isolated "rogue" cops.

[TransitJohn]

10. +1

I get so tired of the cop apologetics.

[Jasana]

11. When a police officer threatens to "find you"

because of a political belief, you know there's a big problem in that department. Of course I wouldn't recommend commenting on their facebook page either.

When it comes to cops... avoid, avoid, avoid. That's become my new mantra since I've become physically disabled.