Sunrise Officers under investigation for Possible Abuse of Authority

I'm not surprised that these officers are being investigated ever since I blogged about this a few days ago. There is even a video about it on WSVN-TV news discussing the possible abuse of authority by Sunrise police officers who were mocking people who were signing petitions at a local Promise Keepers conference and threatened them with arrest if the petitioning didn't stop. The picture says it all. We'll see what the investigation says.

UPDATE: Sunrise, a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale (Broward County), has a history of corruption in both their city council and former police department according to one reader who sent me this.

The Miami Herald has more and what's more the ACLU explained their position:

Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said he hadn't heard from both sides, but he believes the incident merits a police investigation.

'If the police officer feels so strongly, then I think they need to take off their uniform, leave and join a peaceful, counterdemonstration,'' Simon said.

Simon added, ``But when they are in uniform, they have an obligation to protect everybody's constitutional rights, including the rights of a group that is trying to amend the constitution to discriminate against a class of Florida citizens.''

Of course, the ACLU couldn't help but add "discriminate against a class of Florida citizens." Good thing there were photos available of those officers committing unlawful acts else the ACLU may have sung a different response.

And then we have more from the Sun-Sentinel:

"I felt like I was talking to a guy on the street who was just a hothead and disagreed with what we were doing," Stemberger said by phone Thursday. "He wanted to talk about theology ... I kept pressing him on our legal authority" to be there.

How ironic. Police officers doing their own Bible thumping while on duty.

UPDATE II: More info from Citizen Link.

Attorney Rick Nelson, president of the American Legal Institute, said workers for the Florida4Marriage campaign were attending a Promise Keepers event at the Bank Atlantic Center, in Sunrise, Fla., near Ft. Lauderdale.

"On Saturday, June 3rd, as they were distributing petitions related to this marriage amendment, City of Sunrise police officers approached the volunteers and demanded that they remove the petitions from public view," Nelson said, "meaning that they did not want to allow these volunteers to continue giving the public information about the Florida Marriage Amendment."

The volunteers complied at first, according to John Stemberger, president and general counsel of the Florida Family Policy Council.

Stemberger, state chairman of the Florida4Marriage campaign, said his group paid $800 to have a booth at the civic center with the understanding that they would circulate petitions and distribute literature.

"I couldn't believe it," he told CitizenLink. "I was stunned that police would do this." Stemberger said the officer in charge identified himself as Sunrise Police Sgt. Stephen Allen.

"I confronted the officer and asked if he had ordered the volunteers to put the petitions away, and he said he had," Stemberger said. "I then proceeded to ask him the legal authority for that. And that's when the amazing thing started."

The officer, he said, started haranguing him, not about any law or ordinance, but about theology and his personal views on gay marriage.

"He said that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality in the New Testament -- which is not exactly accurate," Stemberger said. "He went on and on talking about theology."

Sgt. Allen pretends to kiss another officer. Stemberger alleges the officer also made abusive and intimidating comments -- and even taunted volunteers by mock kissing another officer.

What he did not do, according to the Florida activist, was give any legal reason for why the group could not distribute petitions.

"He would not give me the basis for his authority," Stemberger said, "for telling me why we could not distribute petitions at this event that we paid to be there for."

An attorney, Stemberger said he tried several times to reason with the officer.

"After I pressed him, he said, 'Look, I'm the governing authority, and the Bible says you're to obey the governing authorities.' And I said, 'Sir, we're all under authority, and you're under the authority of the United States Constitution, which you are now violating.'

Ooh. One, two punch. Yes, the United States Constitution. Sgt. Allen violated the petitioners right to peacefully assemble.

Will the officers be fired? Placed on administrative leave? Fined? So far, the police department is still "investigating" the incident and none of the officers are on administrative leave.