I have a little different take on this SR Story.
“The recipients have six months to respond before the lawsuit moves forward in federal court. Bill Kingsford, a spokesman for the Spokane sector, declined a request for comment on behalf of the agency, saying, “We don’t comment on current litigation.”
It is too bad other Media didn’t contact Bill Kingsford and ask the right questions prior to the inevitable ACLU claim against CBP. I and CBP were expecting this and certainly Mohanad Elshieky, Mohanned El-Shieky, Muhanad Saleh, whatever his name is MAY BE a good pick by the ACLU for an individual with “standing” to purse a claim against the US Government or he may NOT BE depending upon the extent DOJ looks into the issue to defend the claim. Elshieky’s social media account of the incident, whether true or not, received national attention and even an apology from current City of Spokane Council President and candidate for Mayor of the City of Spokane Ben Stuckart. It would appear that Mr. Stuckart and others actually just jumped to conclusions without much in the way of checking the facts.
When this whole issue was brought to the forefront by the comedian, it immediately struck me as odd so prior to contacting Agent Kingsford, like any Investigative Reporter would, I did a little background on the comedian and took note of the fact that he has used a number of different names while he has been here in the US.
I also wanted to determine whether CBP’s preliminary and cursory inquiry into the allegation had come up with anything which may have been a violation of CBP policy a policy which was established to conform with Almeida-Sanchez v. United States the SCOTUS a Carroll Doctrine case and the case that Breean Beggs and the ACLU are hanging their hat on when it comes to bus searches by CBP.
During my interview with Agent Kingsford, he was very open and told me that they had no evidence at that point that CBP policy and procedure had been violated, whether or not anything else has come up since that interview I don’t know and of course it would be inappropriate for Kingsford to comment now because of the ongoing possibility of litigation, however if there was a policy violation I’m sure the ACLU will bring it forward if this thing gets to Court.
Having done my share of “Terry Stops”, and actually teaching the reasonable suspicion aspect to Rookie Cops, I of course asked Agent Kingsford whether or not the fact that the name on the comedian’s bus ticket being completely different from other documents he provided to the CBP agents would have been an additional reasonable suspicion element to detain and check further. Kingsford obviously and rightfully answered in the affirmative.
It looks like CBP is going to get beat up by most of the local and national media folks, so I thought I would just throw in a little different perspective.
I honestly wish our local elected officials would spend as much time worrying about the possibility that our own SPD is violating Civil Rights rather than worrying about what the Feds are doing!
https://examplepro.me/2019/04/24/hiding-the-problems-with-spd/
https://examplepro.me/2019/04/16/are-you-on/
I REPORT YOU DECIDE!!!
Buffalo Brian Breen 