Are DEA agents allowed to do this?

[begin_within]

Yesterday my Mom and I ate lunch in one of our favorite local Mom 'n Pop cafes. My Mom is 87 and can walk, but is so slow that I use a wheelchair when I take her out. As we left the cafe to go back to the car, we were surprised to find 6 or 7 large trucks parked right in the street. Nobody was in them, they were just sitting there. They were not marked, and they were trucks like Ford F150s and whatever the Toyota equivalent of that is. All brand-new looking but none marked with any identifying markings. All of them parked haphazardly right in the street, not on the sides of the street. One was blocking our car from getting out of its parking space. There was nobody around, except that at a small business two doors down from the cafe, there was a middle-aged blond woman wearing a black vest that said DEA on it. She was talking into a walkie-talkie and didn't seem to notice us. I put my Mom in the car, and I was doing this, a man came by and offered to help. He was also wearing a black vest. I said I didn't need help getting her in the car, but that we were blocked in by one of the trucks. He said, "We'll move it in just about 2 minutes." About one minute came by and a different guy came out, much younger, he must have been only about 18. He got into the truck that was blocking our car, then got out and started to walk back into the building, but I called to him and said, "Could you take this spot if we leave? We're blocked in." He said, "Where were you just now?" and I said, "We just ate lunch at that cafe." He just said, "OK" and got back in the truck and moved it so we could get out, then pulled into that parking space. I guess he thought we might have been inside the business that was being raided. I felt like we were lucky that they were out there so I could ask them to move it. I kept thinking, what if my Mom had a medical emergency at that time, and I had to get her to a hospital? How can they legally block cars that are parked in marked public parking spaces on a public street? And if they can, how long are they allowed to block cars? Later on, on the evening news, we saw that there were raids on about 10 locations in San Diego which were selling marijuana as "medical marijuana" and that happened to be one of the locations. We just got unlucky that we were parked there. Are DEA agents legally allowed to park on a public street, blocking any traffic from moving in either direction on that street, and blocking parked cars?

[havocmom]

1. Can they?

Yep. It's how they keep suspects from fleeing.

[RagingInMiami]

2. You're not going to find any local cop to ticket them

So I guess they are allowed.

[MercutioATC]

3. Yes.

And the fact that they promptly moved their vehicles tells me that this isn't a real issue.


Yes, law enforcement is allowed to park illegally when responding to a crime scene. Considering that they're also allowed to shoot people when responding to a crime scene, the parking thing doesn't seem like such a big deal.

[salvorhardin]

4. If they're conducting business

Yes. It's likely they were preventing traffic flowing on purpose so no suspects would flee. As for raiding a medical marijuana provider, I strongly disagree with it (I favor legalization of most drugs), but unfortunately they were just executing the law.

[7P Dude]

5. Yes.

There are all sorts of jurisdictional reasons they are able to do that.

[benburch]

6. Sounds to me like they were doing it right.

You were delayed a couple minutes at most. And if your Mom were in cardiac arrest, each one of them was actually better trained than you are to deal with it.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Yep. Pissing our tax dollars away like total professionals.

But, on the upside, San Diego may have been saved from some dangerous, deadly medical marijuana! Hooray!

[benburch]

13. Well, that I disagree with, you know.

But they were not exceeding their office.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. No. It sounds like they behaved professionally & courteously.

'course, I remember one story from a couple years ago about the family (also in San Diego, actually, I think) with little kids that had their house raided because their PG&E bill was higher than "normal". Cops came, screaming, kicked in doors, pointed guns at the kids, etc etc.

Turns out they did a lot of laundry and had a couple computers running all the time- quick! Bust 'em!

The $40 Billion a year we spend on the damn "drug war" is exceeded in sheer idiocy and wastefulness only by this Iraq clusterfuck.. but not by much.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. Of course, and it sounds like they were

more than polite to you.

Why would you ask such a thing?

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Maybe he hates freedom. Particularly the exquisite sort of freedom

that $40 billion dollars a year for a drug war to go after pot smokin' cancer grannies can buy.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

17. Dude, I hate the drug war as much as anyone

who spent 20 years fighting it can, still fucken cops are cops.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. Yeah, hey, at least they moved the truck.

Coulda been worse.

No wonder the drug war is so expensive. Imagine how much it costs to fill those things up with gas (speaking of highly addictive drugs) for these high profile busts!

[treestar]

8. By "technicality" (i.e., the law) they are not "allowed" to block any

passage in a public place, this is still a free country. Actually they use blocking in to put people in the situation where they are not free to go. IOW, they would have needed a warrant to arrest or search here.

But their arrogance knows no bounds, and they do not respect that this is a free country, mainly because judges have been allowed to make the courts so complicated and expensive that it isn't worth your time to try to do something about this.

But you were "not free to go" or "in custody" without cause for that time period.

[Dunedain]

9. Does your arm hurt?

From reaching that far?

[Swamp Rat]

10. The marijuana busts were totally immoral, but it sounde like they were

rather polite to you.

[Mythsaje]

11. To simplify this to its base...

They're pretty much allowed to do whatever the fuck they want to do. Who's to stop them, after all? The courts? :rofl:

Not after they've been given a pass on using their own people to create artificial "conspiracies" to transport drugs, and confiscated personal property based on nothing more than accusation.

It DOES, however, sound like they were at least civil to you. You should consider yourself fortunate.

[Rosemary2205]

16. It's the government.

If they can invade a sovereign nation over a lie they can block you in as long as they damn well please.

Sad but true.

[Skidmore]

18. In *'s America, law enforcement is allowed to do whatever it wants

and if you disagree, label you a terrorist suspect later.