Man Illegally Arrested for Refusing Bag Search
Today was an eventful day. I drove to Cleveland, reunited with my father’s side of the family and got arrested. More on that arrested part to come.
For the labor day weekend my father decided to host a small family reunion. My sister flew in from California and I drove in from Pittsburgh to visit my father, his wife and my little brother and sister. Shortly after arriving we packed the whole family into my father’s Buick and headed off to the grocery store to buy some ingredients to make monkeybread. (It’s my little sister’s birthday today and that was her cute/bizare birthday request.)
Next to the grocery store was a Circuit City. (The Brooklyn, Ohio Circuit City to be exact.) Having forgotten that it was my sister’s birthday I decided to run in and buy her a last minute gift. I settled on Disney’s “Cars” game for the Nintendo Wii. I also needed to purchase a Power Squid surge protector which I paid for separately with my business credit card. As I headed towards the exit doors I passed a gentleman whose name I would later learn is Santura. As I began to walk towards the doors Santura said, “Sir, I need to examine your receipt.” I responded by continuing to walk past him while saying, “No thank you.” …
Please see the rest of the story on Michael Righi’s blog: Papers Please: Arrested At Circuit City
This is just the beginning of the story which escalates to him being illegally detained by the store manager and then illegally arrested by a police officer for refusing to show a driver’s license even though he was not driving a car.
I most likely would have donated to his cause had he not involved the ACLU and promised to give them any remainder. I’ll not be party to their Fabianistic tactics and stand against their communist background.
I can’t blame Michael Righi for getting involved with the ACLU though, he is, after all, from Pittsburgh. 
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On 29Sep07 at 1815 David said:
While I agree that each of the incidents (the attempted search and the detention, and the demand for drivers license as ID) were objectionable, the guy probably ought to have chosen one or the other as his battle du jour. Having requested the presence of the police, he would have done well not to tick them off, regardless of the fact that they made a stupid “request” of him. (I would rather not have had the police involved at all, knowing how the class seems to self-select for jackasses, thugs and bullies… A lawyer, perhaps, primed for bear–and a huge lawsuit against some deep pockets, yeh, now that’d be the ticket.
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