Some basic facts are true here:
a) Brad Lander had no official capacity in that situation.
b) As a random person, he had no right to demand to see any documents, whatsoever, from the people doing the arrest.
c) Even if he thought the detention was illegal, and the police were completely fake -- and let's be real, he didn't think that -- the right way to handle it would be to call the police.
You don't just get to throw yourself in the middle of a law-enforcement action without consequence because you're a politician (or upset, or "moral", or...)
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Edit: folks, read the article and watch the video [1]. A lot of you are just repeating things that plainly aren't true. Lander was in a federal courthouse. Uniformed police officers were present, and participated in his arrest. He had just attended the trial of the person being detained. There's simply no reasonable way that Lander believed that this was a "kidnapping", as many of you are saying. He knew exactly what was going on, and he knew exactly what he was doing. And the fact that cameras were there certainly wasn't a coincidence.
[1] https://www.amny.com/news/brad-lander-arrested-ice-court-hea...
There are clearly established procedures for US law enforcement (which includes ICE). If they are not following those procedures, then any citizen has the right to raise this as an issue, politician or not. They don't get to just haul people away because you have no "official capacity".
Do you have a legal right to see the documents that MUST be presented to the person they are seeking to detain? Probably not. Do you have a moral duty to insist the US law enforcement HAS that document before leaving the situation? Many people would say yes.
The 2nd amendment crowd are strong on the idea of guns as a means of resisting tyranny. Other people feel similarly about standing up to law enforcement being done illegally.
Well, you can theorize a "moral duty" to do whatever you want, but that won't stop you from getting actually arrested, under real laws. But you do you.
The thing about being a martyr for your beliefs is that it comes with a downside. This article is trying to stir up controversy that someone doing something illegal (i.e. obstruction) was arrested for a valid reason.
Yes, you do have a right to raise this as an issue... but not anywhere anyway. In all this discussion about the rule of law, we forget that the rule of the law also dictates how citizen redresses are to be handled... in a court of law, using established procedures.
> The 2nd amendment crowd are strong on the idea of guns as a means of resisting tyranny. Other people feel similarly about standing up to law enforcement being done illegally.
False equivocation... The 2nd amendment crowd has an amendment to our constitution allowing them to do what they do: own weapons. There is no amendment that lets you willy-nilly march into a court and demand papers. If you want that, I would suggest writing your legislator to propose such an amendment.
2. I did not equate the two, other than as a means of resisting tyranny. You have no legal right (other than in NH) to seek to overthrow the government, 2nd amendment or otherwise.
If law enforcement wants him to stop doing that, it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to prove that they actually have the authority to do so.
Very, very good point. Not enough people know they can call the police on police.
No-one in the banner image of this article has a uniform? Is it too much to ask to be uniformed while acting in this capacity? There doesn't seem to be a need for subterfuge, they just don't want the bad optics.
I don't think, given the facts I currently have, that claiming he didn't know they were real ICE agents is going to hold much water.
Sure you do. Call the police. Record it, capture the details for evidence.
> Just stand back and watch?
Again, you're welcome to call the police. But no, you don't just get to rush in and start interfering because your sophisticated understanding of the circumstances as a complete nobody make you feel like Captain America.
> That's the world you want to live in, one where kidnappings are normal?
It's obviously not a "kidnapping". Nobody seriously believes that -- most obviously, Brad Lander, who wouldn't be screaming for a warrant from "kidnappers".
Or are you just restricting this logic to plainclothes officers, who aren't wearing uniforms at all?
Since we're all clutching our pearls, we might as well clutch all of them.
https://polymarket.com/event/who-will-win-dem-nomination-for...
"what they were doing" is attempting to illegally abduct someone. The comptroller's "impeding" was a demand to see the one thing that would make their request a legal arrest.
Instead, they arrested the comptroller without even a pretense of the law.
In many situations, they just need a documentable/articulable (to a judge, later) reasonable belief that a crime was occurring in their presence, or in other situations that a specific crime had occurred and there was a reasonable belief that person had committed that crime.
Resisting arrest, and impeding official business of a police officer are usually arrest-able offenses almost anywhere.
Details vary by jurisdiction and crime, but ‘you need a warrant to arrest someone’ is an edge case, not the common case. In those cases, it’s also often an indictment or bench warrant.
Edit: this was the video linked https://x.com/courtneycgross/status/1935010369077915990
He was refusing to unlink his arm from the person ICE wanted to detain until ICE presented documentation establishing the legality of what they were doing. It was a perfectly reasonable request.
I'm upset because a US citizen was arrested for asking a reasonable question to some government officials before complying with the government officials.