From the Manassas News and Messenger:
Published: August 14, 2009
The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday filed a motion to dismiss charges against four Hispanic men arrested for loitering near the Coverstone apartment complex in Manassas earlier this year.
In the papers, filed in Prince William General District Court, the ACLU challenges Prince William County’s loitering ordinance, saying the law is “unconstitutionally vague,” and allows police to target “disfavored groups.”
According to the court documents filed by the ACLU, Alberto Miguel Arias, 35, Juan Canseco-Rodriguez, 51, Jesus Velasquez Lopez, 43, and Isreal Lopez Amador, 36, were arrested for loitering on May 5.
According to the ACLU, the men were part of a larger group of men standing on the sidewalk near a bus stop outside Coverstone Apartments, where they lived, when police officers approached them on May 5.
The police officers asked each of the men for identification. The men who were unable to prove they lived in the apartment complex were charged with trespassing and the men who could prove they were apartment complex residents were charged with loitering, according to the ACLU.
Prince William County police late Friday said they had no information available about the case.
According to online court documents, Arias, Canseco-Rodriguez, Lopez, and Amador were all charged with loitering.
According to the Prince William County code, loitering is a Class1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 12 months in jail and/or a fine of up to $2,500.
Nancy Lyall of Mexicans Without Borders said the four men charged with loitering contacted the group shortly after their arrests.
Nancy Lyall of Mexicans Without Borders said the four men charged with loitering contacted the group shortly after their arrests.
“We don’t understand the reason for the arrests,” she said. “They were standing in a public area.”
Lyall said the group received several complaints of police arresting day laborers in the Coverstone area this spring, but hadn’t heard of any recent arrests under the county’s loitering ordinance.
“We believe these individuals were targeted because of their ethnicity,” stated ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca Glenberg in a statement.
The four men are due in Prince William General District Court on Sept. 1 for a hearing on the loitering charges.
I decided this one couldn’t be summarized. Was this predictable or what?
Does anyone else wonder who else was involved in this case? I drive in that area frequently. I always see Hispanic men. I never see cops or people being arrested.
Stay tuned. This case should bring out the hounds of Hell and some lively red circles beating the war drums.
Meanwhile, who pays for this? Just askin’. I know who I would like to send the bill to.
Where did that happen, Lucky Duck? I don’t recall hearing about that.
There should be no sacred cows. I often blame stores when people are just hanging out. To me, it is up to the store employees to have vagrants removed. I don’t go in places if I see kids or groups of men hanging out idly.
I do think it is important that we wait for facts. We have only heard the ACLU side of things.
I can’t imagine them not knowing that they were being told to move on. That request is unversal in any language. I would also imagine that the county sent a bi-lingual officer. However, that is speculation.
@Moon-howler
I heard there was no interpreter present.
“I also wonder if there was a “no loitering” sign present.”
The 7-11 posted a no loitering sign, and eventually the laborers moved to the vacant lot next to it.
Then the owners of that lot posted a sign and even hired a security guard to try to get those guys off their property. So they started hanging out across the street in an apartment complex’s common area.
Apparently the complex complained and posted signs; otherwise no arrests would be possible.
These guys now hang out mostly in a narrow strip between Racetrack gas and the aforementioned open area. They sometimes hang out at the peiphery of the Pizza Hut parking lot, but not so much these days. They also hang out on the median strip of the road, and hang out a block away near the Chuck E Cheese and entraceway to Wal-Mart and Home Depot.
I see about 10 of them early in the morning. At the height of this a couple of years ago it was closer to 50-100. Maybe the ACLU can restore us to those glory days.
They know absolutely well that their being there is against the law and that police will drive them off. They play cat-and-mouse all day. If a police car goes by they poise to run away, until they see it’s not stopping for them. This has been going on for years. They are operating in full view against the law of the land, making a joke out of it.
They are analogous to roaches. You can’t get rid of them. They don’t respect the law and think it’s a joke – as our society has trained them to do.
@Rick Bentley
Rick, please don’t go down “roach road.” However, I completely understand the frustration. If they were asked to move and didn’t and have been asked repeatedly not to loiter and they know what that means, then fine. Arrest them. But then it has to be done across the board and consistently. Otherwise, there will be accusations of racial profiling.
Here’s another thing I want to know: how many people in this county have been arrested for loitering and how many of them were not Hispanic? You can’t tell me only Hispanic people loiter. I know for a fact that’s not true because I’ve seen it happen with other groups.
Pinko, what possible motive would the police have to just remove Hispanics?
Also, if there was no translator, how about pointing and saying go or leave? That is pretty basic English. Surely someone in a group of at least 8 people knows enough English to understand the word GO or LEAVE. If they don’t, shame on them.
I stand my original statement regarding PW police.
It’s only Hispanic people who loiter day after day, 8-10 hours at a time, on Coverstone Road. Yes it is. So you should expect only Hispanic men arrested for this offense over there.
if you like, I’ll take you a picture tonight or tomorrow morning. You can judge for yourself. I do see a caucasian over there with them once in a while but he is too well-dressed for day labor; he’s probably some type of advocate and/or a church representative trying to sell Jesus. Maybe he’ll eventually get arrested too. that’d be fine with me.
@Moon-howler
“what possible motive would the police have to just remove Hispanics?” I don’t think they do have one, but they could have tremendous pressure on them to deal with day laborers which might lead to some less-than preferred actions. If the numbers show that Hispanics have been arrested and others haven’t, it’s not going to bode well.
I also agree that people generally know when they are being told to leave. It doesn’t make sense if they were told to leave and they didn’t. And how do you prove whether or not they were told to leave? This is why it’s such a mess.
Here’s what I fear (and I hope I have no grounds for these fears):
–that anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant groups are using the police department as a means to their ends.
–that the cops for whatever reasons didn’t follow protocol or that there isn’t any proof they followed protocol.
–that the county is going to be dragged through the mud for all of this and once again, we’ll end up with a bad reputation.
–that an already simmering racial situation will boil over.
@Rick Bentley
Rick, I go by there all the time because I LIVE at that Wal-Mart. I’ve seen the groups over there. They aren’t doing anything. In fact, half the time, they aren’t even talking to each other. They are just drinking coffee. I’m not saying it’s a good thing to be doing, but I don’t think it’s a crime, either.
Here’s a pic from early 2008 – http://www.bvbl.net/index.php/2008/01/07/lets-check-out-the-day-laborers . At this point they’d mostly decided to stay away from the 7-11, due to what must have been repeated complaints from the store, and are on the property next door. As I mentioned, they were subsequently chased away from this as well, and for some time are mostly on the other side of the street now, and clearly being chased from one place to another. I used to see 3-4 times as many people as in this picture on a busy day, especially on weekends.
The bus stop mention by ACLU is bogus. There’s a bus stop on that street somewhere but these guys aren’t there to use the bus.
It should be mentioned too that these guys liked to wander through those trees between the 7-11 and the lot they are standing on, and run down that alley when police came. They would go to the old Alt-Med building, now adorned with a “Villachez and Associates” sign. And it got plastered with graffiti and trash – you can see a couple of pictures at http://www.helpsavemanassas.org/index.php/community-action
“I’ve seen the groups over there. They aren’t doing anything. In fact, half the time, they aren’t even talking to each other. They are just drinking coffee.”
They’re waiting for work. They’re living in America in squalid conditions, waiting for work or for some ACLU representative to tell them a fairy tale about how one President or another is going to make them citizens.
Since this is a known place where Hispanics gather, I find it somewhat hard to believe the police didn’t send a police officer who speaks Spanish. It just isn’t logical that the police would speak English only and then arrest them because they did not comply with the police order to leave.
Maybe he can provide translation services in the event the police come and don’t speak any Spanish!
Anyone else feeling the urge to go loiter on property owned by some ACLU members or officers?
Ah, wait, it’s not safe unless we’re Hispanic.
@Rick Bentley
If we get arrested maybe the ACLU will provide us free legal representation!
Only if we can learn a little Spanish and get fake IDs with new names on it. Just call me “Juan Lopez Garcia Rodriguez-Miguel”.
Rick, too much of a mouthful. That is getting as bad as one of your other alter-egos. 😉
I don’t have a problem with the PD running off anyone on someone else’s property as long as the running off is done equally. (The skateboarders have to go but the roller bladers can stay.)
I have a problem with private citizens feeling they have the right to go interfer. It is a police/owner matter, not a cult matter. If the 7-11 owners don’t have the nads to call the police, then they deserve to lose business.
Hey, lets arrest a couple old white ladies standing on a corner to show the law is applied equally. That idea is just as ridiculous as saying the men were arrested only because they were Hispanic!
I am sure that Lucky Duck is right that people of many races have been told to “move along” by PWC police over the years without incident. What was different this time? Why the arrests? I think this is what ACLU would like to know.
These men disobeyed the “move along” order. Is that why? Or were they asked for I.D.’s and then arrested if they did not live in the apartment complex? Or were they arrested even if they did live in PWC? Or were they arrested because they were rude like Professor Gates? There has to be a reason why, besides not having I.D.’s on them and being Latino.
In any case, there is a monetary price for a political strategy that encourages racial prejudice from vigilante groups or vigilante citizens who have no ability to know the difference between a person who is “illegal” and the “I see brown people” syndrome.
We the taxpayers cannot afford to keep paying for Corey Stewart’s failed run for Congress and/or Lt. Gov. We are paying that cost every year for five years to the tune of $14,000,000. We are paying that cost in terms of the worst housing market and the fastest rising property taxes in the region. We are paying that cost in underfunded police and fire departments and underfunded schools.
I hope we are able to get out of this law suit. We can’t afford to keep paying for Corey Stewart’s failed political strategy.
Congratulations, Rick Bentley, on providing the comic relief in one of the most entertaining anti-BVBL threads I have ever read. It is hilarious watching you escalate the discussion and push all the right buttons. No one here seems to mind being called “idiot,” “abject wimp,” or “asinine,” and then you deliver what I would have thought would have been treated as the mother of all racial slurs here–comparing the Hispanic loiterers to “roaches.”
How far will he go before someone actually gets the usual dander up? I’m staying tuned….not much to watch on TV these days.
Does anyone here truly believe that the ACLU would be involved to this extent if the group had been a bunch of 30 year old white males? I can’t imagine a peep. Most would have assumed they must have been doing something wrong, and that would have been the end of it. If the county got sued every time someone got arrested, then it would no longer be economically feasible to establish law enforcement. Lets hope that never come to be, but given enough money and lawyers and it could happen. The ACLU apparently has both!
Emma, unlike the dark screen, Rick doesn’t get us all hysterical. We know he jerks chains. I usually mention it once a week.
Why react? He is Rick. I didn’t get all whoooped out over ‘idiot, abject wimp or asinine’ because I simply assumed he was not talking to me. {evil grin}
SA, maybe if they were gay?
PWC had a bull’s eye painted on it. The Resolution got national attention thanks to …well..we know who. There has been much prancing and dancing around the day labor 7-11’s. The Interim Report is out. That ACLU case has been waiting for everything to fall into place, don’t you think?
Opportunity knocked and someone answered the door.
Two people in particular here riled me up. By making the usual assertions and assumptions.
Comic relief and the occasional original thought, that’s me.
There are two bus stops on Coberstone but both way way down the street from where these guys used to hang – the length of a city block away. I guess they started hanging out down there at some point, and had to eb chased away from there as well.
There are “Private Property” signs displayed very prominently at all the lots these guys hang on.
And technically I didn’t call the laborers roaches. But they are BEHAVING like roaches.
MH,
You made my point. Average white Joes aren’t going to get any support from anyone, period, yet we are constantly bombarded and must pay strict attention to everyone else’s problems. You loiter, you don’t leave, you get arrested, end of story. Next!
@Second-Alamo
Alamo, after all the time you’ve spent reading this blog, you are finally beginning to understand.
“Does anyone here truly believe that the ACLU would be involved to this extent if the group had been a bunch of 30 year old white males?”
Exactly. Would this have happened if it they had been white? Equal protection under the law is an American ideal. A lot more so than “When I go to a public park I don’t like to see too many minorities.” You’ve come a long way.
SA, I think many white males feel as you do. I don’t think you are unique by a long shot. I expect Mr. Howler pretty much would agree with you on much of this. (except his @ss didn’t end up overseas)
You are aware though that for years and years white men owned the power. Are there white men’s organizations? That was a serious question. You and I have seen a great deal of social change in our life time. I was in a job where I dealt with change every second. Mr,. Howler was not. I might not like all of it but I think I know how to exist with it better than he does. Some of the change I do like…especially the part where I am more empowered than I was as a younger woman and girl. That is simply human nature.
Shellyb, I expect, from various things he has said in the past year and a half, that SA is not your generation. You have to be mindful that those of us from other generations might not see things exactly as you do. I think SA said that he went to a park and he felt like he was the only person there who was not a minority. I like that SA speaks his mind. Would you rather him lie and beat around the bush? How are these things ever come to terms with if we don’t talk about them?
Both SA and Slowpoke have been with this blog since the early days. They have their own opinions. However, I have rarely known either of them to be impolite. Do we really want to be preaching to the choir? I welcome their remarks.
Hey Shelly, you just can’t let the park thing go can you. Look, when you live in a supposedly predominantly white county, and you go to a large park and 95% of the people there are Latino it definitely gets your attention. Totally unrepresentative of what you would expect to find based on simple statistics. I would expect to find a mix of people of various ethnic backgrounds, but almost all from south of the border? Come on, even your race blind eyes would snap wide open!
Yes, ShellyB, read my post at 16:09, it DID happen to both Black and White males who hung around at a variety of locations.
The fact that the day laborers are Hispanic is very much a powder keg for the County. If they were Black or White males, the problem would be solved. They’d be moved on without the ACLU.
SA, I think last year PWC became a minority/majority county. I might be wrong, but I believe the scales have tipped.
MH,
That goes for the entire country I would think. Watching the Woodstock video brought back fond memories of when interpreters were people who only worked at the UN.
Hahaha Do you have the video? I watched something on the history channel tonight about Woodstock. I didn’t walk away with warm fuzzy feelings during some of it.
Hey MH, does that mean we’ll become a ‘protected group’? Wow, I can’t wait to donate some much needed money to the White College Fund, or intently watch the programs during White History month. Maybe thing won’t be so bad after all!
MH,
I remember seeing the movie with my former high school buddies back in ’69’. I purchased the video from iTunes, and the restoration is great! It looks better than it did back then.
Here’s another ACLU winner! This in a country with In God We Trust on every coin. They prosecute for a prayer, and yet defend someone playing gangsta rap in public, and you wonder why I dislike the ACLU!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/17/Florida.school.prayer/index.html
“Attorneys defending Lay and Freeman call it outrageous that the two are being prosecuted for “a simple prayer.” But the American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawsuit led to the consent decree, maintains that students have a right to be free from administrators foisting their religious beliefs on them.”
The ACLU has gotten involved in rights cases involving groups of white men and individual white men throughout its history. The issue is the Constitution, not the color of the client.
I don’t really know what to make of SA’s remark about 1969 (Woodstock) being a time when interpreters were people who only worked at the UN. Was that here in Virginia? In your county? Where? The impulse is to get smaller and smaller since the claim is so patently false. You mention you were sent overseas, but were you ever sent to New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, or countless other cities where your notion of a past of an all-English-speaking America of the 1960s or earlier would have been, well, complicated a bit? I understand you are nostalgic, but what’s funny is being nostalgic for something that never existed *in the way you describe.* It must be difficult to be so invested in that. Those of us with direct ties to the Ellis Island generation know that was never true. We also know that those perfectly legal immigrants of that era were disparaged in the same way that illegal immigrants are today. Legality didn’t matter. Difference did.
I’m puzzled why PAP keeps asking how the police are going to PROVE that they told the “loiterers” to move along.
She’s asked this quite a few times in this thread.
They’d *prove* it by their word and reputation and their sworn duty. Is there some other way that you think they should PROVE they told these men to move along?
If a police officer pulls me over for an unsafe lane change, how does he PROVE it? Well, unless he has a dash-mounted video camera in his car (which we don’t have in PWC), then he can’t PROVE it. His proof is his word. And if I think he’s wrong or a liar, I go to court on the ticket and challenge him.
I really am puzzled as to why you keep asking how the police will PROVE what they did. You say you are generally supportive of the police, but it seems like in every instance in what we “know” of this kerfuffle, you’ve doubted the police and believed every word of your friends and “sources.”
Generally speaking, the ACLU doesn’t look at any thing but consitutionality. I think you are supposed to hate it. It doesn’t defend community standards or right and wrong as we know it. It challenges laws and actions that it feels are violations of the constitution.
I don’t LIKE the ACLU either, I am might glad it is there though in the event my @ass gets in a sling.
anon reader, welcome back. Perhaps Pinko is rubbing it in because Chief Deane asked for dashboard cameras and other equipment to avoid this kind of charge when the immigration resolution went into effect. It was too expensive in the eyes of the Chairman of the BOCS and he encouraged the others to vote nay on the cameras.
My feeling is that our county police should be taken at their word but that isn’t how things work, I am sorry to say.
Leila,
Watch the Woodstock movie and you will see that with 400,000 people present 99.9% of those were white Anglos. If that isn’t evidence enough of the makeup of the country only 40 years ago, then perhaps a 1969 census would be more to your liking. I can certainly tell you it was no problem ordering a burger at any drive through, and the number of interpreters in courts and hospitals was probably 1/20th of today. As much as you say I can’t accept the browning of America, you can’t accept the fact that the original color 40 years ago was white!
Geesh, I make a comment about the ACLU’s actions involving prayer versus rap music, and all I get back is some nonsense about demographics. Anyone care to comment on how the interpretation of the Constitution has been bastardized over the years to fit the modern demographic mold? Even though Obama states we aren’t a Christian nation, why the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ on every coin then? No one complained about prayer back then as it was the accepted practice, and no one pulled out the Constitution as evidence to the contrary. Now suddenly the Constitution prevents it. Just like Leila, today no one remembers how it was unless you were alive back then. Soon they will be rewriting the history books to conform to the present interpretation of the Constitution.
SA, are you seriously saying that because the Woodstock crowd was “99.9%” white, that that was the actual demographic in the US 40 years ago??! I’d like to see the census figures to back that up! The reason everything appears so different to you now is the fact that those of us who aren’t white males have been afforded more opportunities. We aren’t in the shadows any longer.
You’re probably in the same generation that I am. My husband is a Vietnam vet. For those of us who grew up in the South, music may have been the closest we came to any cultural exchange. Soul, R&B, rock crossed most cultural divides – even if merely at the record shop. (Haha -remember those?) Generally whites could move about more freely and had more disposable income. Maybe that’s why rock concerts were more overwhelmingly white.
“God” is not specific to Christianity.
We had the worst housing market because we had the largest proportion of affordable housing and those were in the economic group most likely to be foreclosed due to bad loan practices. It had nothing to do with the resolution.
Property taxes actually went down. Property tax RATES rose, but I’m not sure they rose as much as other jurisdictions. Loudoun County’s tax RATE is $1.245 per hundred, which is quite high – more than PWC’s, and they had no resolution. City of Manassas property tax RATE rose to $1.49, and it has no resolution. Although like PWC, property TAXES went down for most people, by a sizeable amount.
On the flip side we’re probably in the fastest recovering housing market in the region.
By the way, I’m not saying its a good thing that property taxes went down for most people because of falling assessments, but I’m just trying to get some facts in here.
@anon reader
1. It’s the cops’ word versus the arrested person’s word. Why should we believe one over the other? Are we guilty until proven innocent? I’m not doubting our cops’ integrity. I AM doubting the system and the way the law can be construed for whatever reason.
2. As MH points out, cops in PWC don’t have cameras. So, where is the proof? What is there to protect cops or those arrested?
Incidentally, I’m no ACLU fan either because I feel the cases they take on are rather of questionable use–and I am particularly upset they protect the KKK no matter how much of a right the KKK has to exist. ACLU is officially off my Christmas list (and yes, I said Christmas).
However, I think the ACLU a point that the loitering law can cause certain ethnic groups to be targeted, but more to the point is the Constitutional validity of the law no matter who is arrested for loitering.
Actually, I’m puzzled over this whole “take the police at their word” thing. For example, the police are taken at their word all the time when they read someone their Miranda rights. They don’t need to prove that in court. It goes back to the police being professionals. I’m sure if they testify in court that they told them to move along, then they did. It would seem to be the first thing they’d do anyway. It is not logical that they’d walk up to people and just start arresting without telling them to first disperse or move along, in this case. Now, if there was a riot or something going on – that would be entirely different – I’d expect them to arrest first and ask questions later.
Thanks Gainesville. You said that better than I said it.
SA, I disagree that the religion being shoved down everyone’s throat was ok. When I was growing up people were allowed to intimidate others with their religion. They had access to schools and those who didn’t practice faith as the town old guard saw fit could be ridiculed, kept from jobs, etc.
To me, religion is a personal matter and should not be in the public sector. I don’t care if someone says Merry Christmas and long as they don’t mind me lusting for the Holly King. The Madalyn Murray O’Hair case was probably long overdue. It really did stop a lot of religious abuse.
There is a case right now that I am looking at as a thread.