Protecting Your Constitutional & Civil Rights in a Time While They are Under Assault: Driving While Black in Cleveland, Ohio, Pre-Textual Traffic Stops, Whren v U.S. & Defending Yourself When Cops Become Robbers.

Welcome to this brand-new episode of Light ‘Em Up!

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On this investigative, educational and impactful edition of Light ‘Em Up — we expose and tell the truth in a world filled with confusion and misinformation.

We delve into the facts not the fiction about: Protecting your Constitutional & Civil Rights and educating you on topics that we’re betting you rarely hear or know much about but should know everything about.

We drill deep on:

—      Pretextual traffic stops (something we’ve given great attention to here on Light ‘Em Up)

—      Section 1983 lawsuits

—      and as a case study we examine Whren v U.S. (517 US 806 (1996), a landmark Supreme Court decision that relates directly to how law enforcement interacts with the public today.

With a fine-tooth comb, we examine the details as to what exactly is going on in Cleveland, Ohio as the Division of Police, which is currently under DOJ (consent decree) oversight, continues to allegedly cheat, stretch, break and violate the law by intentionally stopping and searching black drivers at much higher rates than white Clevelanders.

We explore “When cops become robbers”:  When law enforcement officers use their badge and authority to “game” the citizenry as they violate the spirit and letter of the law.

We tell the story of the Tenaha, TX Police Department, whose officers were (allegedly) intentionally using their authority to “shake-down” the good people passing through their city limits.  The lead officer directly involved literally expressed the intention of using “the money that they get from thugs “from a newly created drug interdiction program to pay the town’s bills. 

A class action lawsuit asserted that their pretextual traffic enforcement scheme was bogus and was designed solely to enhance the city financially and the defendants personally.

Especially for you, we have exclusive audio of the Rehnquist High Court as the attorney on behalf of the petitioner (Whren), Lisa Burget Wright, argues their position before the high court on April 17th, 1996.

Whren vs U.S. says that “a stop or search that is objectively reasonable is not diminished by the fact that the officer’s real reason for making the stop or search has nothing to do with the validating reason”.  (Meaning that it is acceptable for an officer to make up a reason to stop you.)

We explore and define a §1983 lawsuit, which provides an individual the right to sue state government employees and others acting under the color of state law for civil rights violations.

For your education and empowerment, we explore §242 of Title 18, which makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the U.S., and we provide crucial insights as to what your rights are when you are stopped by law enforcement.  And we delve into pretextual traffic stops: What are they, and how they are used against you.

We also offer a “Know Before You Go” pre-travel safety check-list that will help limit your potential exposure and hopefully reduce the likelihood of being pulled over for any legitimate or pretextual moving traffic violations.

Finally, we review an in-depth analysis of what more than 17,000 traffic stops in the City of Cleveland has exposed in and among the CDP (Cleveland Division of Police) as it initially appears that they disproportionately pull over Black drivers with much more frequency than white motorists.

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