Stephen Rosenfeld — Federal Appeals Court Ridicules Florida Cops For Using SWAT Team To Check On Barbershop Licenses

“It was a scene right out of a Hollywood movie,” the Court’s ruling began. “Teams from the OCSO [Orange County Sheriff’s Office] descended... with some team members dressed in ballistic vests and masks, and with guns drawn, the deputies rushed into their target destinations, handcuffed the stunned occupants—and demanded to see their barbers’ licenses. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office was providing muscle for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s [DBPR] administrative inspection of barbershops to discover licensing violations.” 

The Cout’s 44-page ruling, which will allow four barbers to proceed with a lawsuit that the cops violated their Fourth Amendment protection from unconstitutional searches, vividly describes how a team of local and state police ran amok—and then claimed immunity from prosecution, which the Court rejected, when the raid’s victims sued. 

Notably, the ruling didn’t even talk about the blatant constitutional violations first, but instead snidely asked if the cops involved were complete idiots who thought they were so far above the law that they could ignore previous multiple rulings from the very same Court ordering cops not to conduct militarized SWAT raids as a routine tactic….

AlterNet
Federal Appeals Court Ridicules Florida Cops For Using SWAT Team To Check On Barbershop Licenses

Stephen Rosenfeld