Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
We should always remember Marc Birnbaum is the guy who bowed
down to the Fairfax County Police Occupation force and pressed the case against
a man who was making coffee in his home nude. The case was tossed out of court.
Crime Fighters in Suburbia
The Washington Post
June 14, 1987, Sunday, Final Edition
Crime Fighters in Suburbia
BYLINE: COURTLAND MILLOY
SECTION: METRO; PAGE B3; COURTLAND MILLOY
LENGTH: 670 words
Robert and Retha Morgan wanted their 17-year-old son Kurt
St. Clair and his friends to have a safe high school graduation party on
Thursday night, so they decided to let them celebrate at the Morgan home, on a
secluded cul-de-sac just beyond the corporate limits of Vienna in Fairfax
County.
Morgan, a public affairs director for American Telephone and
Telegraph, and his wife, a vice president for the United Way of America, did
what they thought was the right thing by posting "no alcohol" signs
and inviting 25 adults to help monitor the 150 to 200 graduates.
As a member of SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), Kurt
rounded up nonalcohol drinkers to act as chauffeurs for those who did get their
hands on beer.
If the Morgans had left the preparations at that, things
probably would have gone just fine. But as an extra precaution, they notified
the Fairfax County police and sought safe-party tips. Little did they know that
plainclothes police would be sent to infiltrate the party and notify the
Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which helped stage a raid.
Consider what one policeman did to Retha Morgan, as other
officers swarmed over the family property and still others set up a roadblock
to check all cars leaving the party.
"My mother walked up to the roadblock with my aunt to
see if any guests were having problems," Kurt St. Clair recalled. "A
cop told her, 'I'm not on your property anymore, you're on my property. Now
back off.' My aunt tapped her on the shoulder and said, 'Let's get out of
here,' but the cop said, 'She's not going anywhere.' Then he started giving her
sobriety tests, making her touch her nose, making her lean backward until she
was almost flat on her back. But she passed.
"Then he pulls out this Breathalyzer and shoves it at
her and says, 'Blow,' while he is pressing all of these buttons. Without
showing the results to anybody, he says, 'You're under arrest.' Then he
handcuffed her and took her to jail."
Police disbanded the roadblock after Morgan's arrest -- and
even left the party although other guests remained. But the nonsense continued.
"I became so frustrated dealing with the system,"
Robert Morgan said. "I was treated very shabbily by the police and the
magistrate when I tried to get my wife released."
Retha Morgan, charged with being drunk in public, remained
in jail from about 3:45 a.m. until 7:25 a.m. Friday. She was told that she
could obtain her release by paying $ 30, which her husband did. She says she
did not know that the $ 30 was a fine, and that paying it was an admission of
guilt.
She was described as "very distraught" yesterday.
"It's like a rape case," Robert Morgan said,
"with us against the police."
Police say that they went to the Morgan home in the 10000
block of Old Hunt Road after patrol officers spotted about 50 teen-agers
milling around in the neighborhood and said that some teens appeared to be
drinking and others appeared to be drunk.
However, after the raid on the Morgan house, St. Clair said,
he found a sheet of paper, apparently dropped by one of the undercover agents,
which indicated that the party -- along with four other gatherings being held
in the area that night -- had been targeted for possible infiltration even
before it began.
Fairfax police say it is a longstanding practice to send
plainclothes officers to parties where officials have reasonable cause to
believe that the law is being broken. But according to some Fairfax residents,
angered over news accounts of the Morgan arrest, these practices are arbitrary
and unclear.
Even at the Morgan home, some police officers took it on
themselves to mete out punishments, such as assigning some students to write
500-word essays, while other officers chose to make arrests.
In a blanket statement of approval, the commonwealth
attorney's office says that what happened was within the law. But as far as
many residents are concerned, it seemed like the KGB had teamed up with a hick
cop shop for a gross abuse of power.
Had enough? Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal
hearings into the police problem in America.
Demand mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a
permanent DOJ office on Police
Misconduct.