[edub]

I can't load the article, so this is likely off topic, but the memory came rushing back when I read this headline.

I attended a wedding that got hit by a major flash flood that required a rescue operation by boat and helicopter. Thankfully no one was seriously injured. A half dozen people were swept away and rescued from trees. The rest of us got to higher floors of the building and they were concerned about us waiting out the flood because cars from the parking lot floated and rammed the first floor of the building. It was featured on an episode of I Do, Redo.

They brought in busses to transport the 61 people rescued to the local high school where they had activated the Red Cross and provided us dry cloths and food. I can't say enough nice things about the Red Cross volunteers and the staff at the high school, and same with the fire department and EMS.

However, when we were loaded into the busses, the police held the busses until they had a drug dog come into the busses to walk up and down the aisles, and only after that let the busses take us to the high school. While no one was seriously injured physically, people were traumatized from the flooding event and many attendees suffered from PTSD for years.

It was so cruel for the police department to do what they did with everyone in the mental state that we were in.

For reasons I do not understand, we were not free to leave the high school, and even the people that did not lose their cars to the flood were required to go to the high school on the busses. I can't recall how long they detained us at the high school, I'd guess 3 to 5 hours, and then they let us leave. The friend that came to pick me up (I did lose my vehicle to the flood) got to the high school not long after I did and had to wait in the parking lot for hours.

We wanted to feel safe once we got to dry land after the ordeal we went through. I did not feel safe until I got home.

[raxxorraxor]

If this happened as you described it, worst part is that this evident lack of judgement would be detrimental in fighting real crime. If they were legally compelled to do it, there also is a political problem.

Maybe there is a silly explanation about the bus being confiscated from a local drug lord and people needed to be protected, but otherwise I don't see a way how you officials could come out here not looking like idiots.

[amanaplanacanal]

What the hell? Why would they do such a thing?

[chickenchase-rd]

quite simply to screen drugs from reaching the emergency shelter, which is also a school, and save you from special prosecution applied to these situations and protect themselves politically from something the media will monitor closely. if they screened you at the shelter, its worse for everyone if they find anything on premises. emergency shelters will house anyone affected, including vulnerable elderly, children, mentally ill people, and unhoused heavy drug users. everyone was likely checked which also protects you while sheltering. i volunteered for a shelter during katrina and it gets out of hand very fast with just one delusional person or drug user. i stopped a robbery within 3 minutes of starting my first shift. a deranged person was aggressively drug seeking, and robbing pill bottles away from an elderly woman in a wheelchair. could have been your mom or grandma just caught up in it. so- check everyone as a protocol, as its for public shelter safety. seek therapy for ptsd, its never too late to heal. if you have heavy bias against law enforcement, perhaps consider joining a community program or volunteering - do it as a therapy to yourself to help improve your insight which will help everyone work towards improving the situation in your community.

[archerx]

To bust some one too justify their budgets. All paths lead to money, almost always.

[pas]

Naah, hard to say what exact proximate cause (excuse) they entertained in their fucking skulls, but yes, it comes down to budget.

Police budgets are a farce, and this is what the US gets. Public services are (in too many cases literally) criminally underfunded.

And .. obviously the last ~50-60 years of "tough on crime" dogwhistling (as the civil rights movement successfully moved the discrimination boundary) is the new heuristic for quasi-segregation. Of course it's was not invented overnight back then, as it has been ongoing since ~1866. The post-Reconstruction culture and policy changes all boil down to "X while Black" and occasionally "or poor".

[shrimp_emoji]

> Public services are (in too many cases literally) criminally underfunded.

Finish the job and end 'em. The US isn't a compatible platform for that kind of thing. It's a decentralized libertarian wild west with low social development, as intended from the start. Meanwhile, our taxes are going to waste in ignorance of that or in pretending we can (or even should) change it.

[pas]

Kind of ... there's obviously a lot of things that states can do with positive ROI. Infrastructure, policing, etc.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/01/wh...

[2-3-7-43-1807]

am i just a little stupid today or does this story have nothing to do with dea or tsa?

[burnished]

They announce it as an unrelated tangent, reread the first sentence

[2-3-7-43-1807]

i would at least assume some relatedness from his post

[dredmorbius]

Unreasonable / unlawful search, privacy rights, amongst others.

[burnished]

It is related, tangentially related.