TRI In The News
Rutherford Institute Urges GA to Take Action After ABC Incident
From NBC29
A Charlottesville-based civil liberties group is calling on representatives in the General Assembly to take more action following a Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control raid in April.
The case of University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, has sparked national attention. Virginia's ABC has been under fire after a group of undercover agents targeted Daly and her roommates at the Harris Teeter parking lot in the Barracks Road Shopping Center. The agents mistook a crate of sparkling water they purchased as a 12-pack of beer.
ABC announced a policy change late Friday in response to criticism following the incident, but the Rutherford Institute says it's not really a change at all.
The Rutherford Institute released an eight-page letter Monday morning addressed to members of the House Police, Militia, and Public Safety Committee.
The document outlines details of the April 11 incident where Daly was arrested and charged with three felony counts - assault and battery of two law enforcement officer and eluding police. Those charges were dropped on Thursday, June 27.
Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead claims Virginia ABC agents violated the Constitution during the incident.
"I felt I needed to send a detailed account basically of the law, especially after I saw the response by the ABC on this issue, where they use phrases like reasonable suspicion," he said.
Whitehead says the officers acted upon reasonable suspicion when they needed a probable cause.
"Probable cause means you got to have some kind of facts that somebody is doing something illegal," he said. "They were doing a two-day sting here, supposedly, arresting numerous people. So they didn't have any evidence. Obviously, if you see the Daly case, they had absolutely no evidence."
57th District Delegate David Toscano (D) said, "Once people leave the stores itself and you can't identify what they actually purchased - should you even approach them at all? You ought to have some kind of probable cause to stop somebody and detain them."
Whitehead released the letter urging the General Assembly to push for agents to be better trained on constitutional rights and to call for the launch of a formal investigation of the officers involved. Toscano is one of the document's recipients.
"I think it raises some questions about the approach the agents were taking in this incident and what approaches they need to take in the future," said Toscano.
The Rutherford Institute is now calling for officers to be retrained.
"One of the interesting things in the statement from ABC was this would not have happened if the girl complied. Well, these are girls that were frightened. A. They were unconstitutionally and aggressively approached by men in the dark. They're supposed to comply with what we could call thugs, and that's how they operated that night. So, that's why retraining and investigation is essentially needed," Whitehead said.
The Virginia Department of ABC told NBC29 the following in regards to officer training:
"Law enforcement officer certification typically consists of three components – a classroom curriculum, a comprehensive test and successful completion of a field training program. The 23- to 25-week classroom curriculum includes subjects such as search and seizure, laws of arrest, use of force, vehicle operations, criminal investigations and firearms training. ABC's field training program, the last of the three training components, consists of 12 weeks where the agent works under the supervision of a Field Training Agent (FTA)."
But both Toscano and Whitehead believe something needs to change.
Toscano said, "At the end, there will be some new protocols hopefully and new procedures put in place to protect people from unreasonable searches and seizures that might have occurred in this case."
"This whole issue needs to be reexamined," Whitehead said. "We have a General Assembly, our representatives need to take charge of this thing and correct it. It should not have gone this far."
The Rutherford Institute had released a letter last week urging local government to investigate the incident further. Charlottesville City Councilor Dave Norris announced Monday:
"Charlottesville City Council today sent a letter to Governor Robert McDonnell and the Police, Militia and Public Safety Committee of the Virginia House of Delegates, requesting an independent, public investigation of the troubling incident this April involving ABC agents at Barracks Road Shopping Center that has raised so many questions about use of force and overzealous law enforcement. The letter also asks for better cooperation in the future between the ABC and local police, given the fact that the Charlottesville Police Department was not informed that an ABC sting operation was underway in the City that night."
Organizers of a petition calling for ABC to apologize have also released statement saying the agency's policy change to have one uniformed officer during undercover operations was inadequate. They emphasize that decisive action is needed.
