PA Bill Number: SB99
Title: In county boards of elections, further providing for expenses of county boards and of primaries and elections to be paid by county, expenses of ...
Description: In county boards of elections, further providing for expenses of county boards and of primaries and elections to be paid by county, expenses of ... ...
Last Action: Re-referred to APPROPRIATIONS
Last Action Date: May 8, 2024
State Police Say "Gotta Cover Our Ass" Make Up Charges For Illegally Detained Man :: 04/16/2016
New Britian, Connecticut: Michael Picard, 27, of East Hartford, was charged with creating a public disturbance and reckless use of the highway for letting motorists know of an illegal search and possible seizure that was up ahead.
Picard said he was just standing on a public sidewalk before the 4th Amendment violating DWI checkpoint, close to the on-ramp of I-84 on Park Road. He was just waving a sign that read “Cops ahead. Keep calm and remain silent.” While he was out there, he was legally carrying his self defense tool, Connecticut is an open-carry state and he has a valid permission slip to exercise that right without being arrested or detained. He uploaded several videos to his YouTube page that show multiple state troopers pondering the legality of Picard’s address of grievances.
The video starts off with a trooper telling Picard that recording them is illegal, Picard responds by telling the trooper that he is standing on public property and the hot-headed trooper says that he is on “state property.”
Picard has warned the public about DWI checkpoints before, because he strongly disagrees with their credibility, and says that they are an unnecessary cost to taxpayers. Picard describes himself as someone who “advocates for freedom whenever and wherever.”
One of the troopers was heard saying “Want me to punch a number on this? We gotta cover our asses. Let’s give him something,”
Picard he was out there for near an hour with a partner, when a police cruiser pulled up right towards him and immediately seized his camera and gun.
A trooper is heard saying, “Somebody just said that one of you guys had a gun on him.” Picard was not breaking any laws by simply standing near the checkpoint with his sign. He is legally permitted to have his gun visible on his waist. “They searched us and I asked, ‘What reasonable suspicion do you have? They said you have a gun. And I said, ‘that’s not illegal.’ They said it’s unconcealed. I said, ‘that’s not illegal either.”
Picard was detained for about 40 minutes as they researched to see if his gun permit was still good. A trooper is heard saying it is totally legal to do what Mr. Picard was doing. An additional audible voice states “I think we do simple trespass, we do reckless use of the highway and creating a public disturbance. And then we claim, um, in backup we had multiple people, um, they didn’t want to stay and give us a statement, so we took our course of action.”
The Internal affairs division has been reviewing this debacle.
Trooper Kelly Grant said in an email Thursday.
“We hold our Troopers to the highest standard, and now that this video has come to our attention we will forward it to Professional Standards (IA) for review,”
Andrew Matthews, president of the Connecticut State Police Union, responded as well by saying that he viewed the shorter, edited version of Mr. Picard’s video and said that he could not further discuss any of the specifics regarding it because of the internal investigation, but the union was supporting the troopers involved.
Matthews said. “We support what our troopers did, we respect and understand that people have the right to be in a public place and take photographs or video tape our troopers.”
Matthews continued by spitting out the same regurgitated rhetoric, “always room for education and improvement. What makes our job more difficult is when people try and provoke law enforcement into doing something that isn’t necessary.” This an admission that these men and women who sign on to do this job can’t handle it. Protesting people’s rights being violated “isn’t necessary”? Accountability and documentation of their wrongdoings is growing by leaps and bounds because of years and years of their constant lying.
Mr. Picard was given a $178 extortion notification, and when he went up to court, a prosecutor offered to nullify the charges if he would just give-up $25 of his income instead. Which he refused, and warned them that if the charges weren’t dropped all together, that he will try the case in court.
Picard concluded, “It’s not really a hobby, it is just something that I do feel passionately about because I advocate for freedom. Stopping everyone based on no reasonable suspicions on the off-chance that you might find one or two drunk drivers isn’t freedom.” Lying and slapping the innocent with extortion notes that if are not paid will be dealt with by initiating violence. The Cops that preach to “serve and protect” are in actuality issuing state sponsored terror, if we choose not to pay their mafia shake down fee, they will then send armed men and women to our homes to either round us up or murder us, all in the name of generating revenue.
