Originally published May 20 2015
Police illegally detain, assault, and stun woman with TASER at domestic checkpoint
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) The Police State of America grew in size again recently after a New York woman was essentially assaulted by Border Patrol agents.
Ogdensburg native and student of criminal justice at SUNY Canton, Jess Cooke, has distributed a video of herself being tackled and then stunned with a TASER for more than a minute by USBP agents near a roadside checkpoint following an exchange and eventual confrontation.
In the video, it looks as though Cooke was pulled over for a secondary inspection at the USBP checkpoint. She can be heard asking two officers -- one a female and one a male who says he is a supervisor -- repeatedly why she is being detained. Initially, neither of the agents give her an answer.
The female agent then said, "I'm not the only one who observed your nervous behavior," indicating a potential reason for the detainment.
At this point, the male agent repeatedly asks Cooke to walk back to her car, but she refuses, telling the male agent that she has a right to stand where she is standing, which seems to be off the road and out of the way of the checkpoint. Eventually, he says he won't ask Cooke move again; when she refuses, he appears to tackle her while the female agent applies a TASER to Cooke's back, according to her Facebook post.
Cooke described the incident in a May 7 Facebook post:
They held me against my will until the K-9 Unit come to check out my car! I tryed [sic] to see what was going on after i had to pull over and wait. A MAN pushed me and then threw me to the ground while a WOMAN stood there and tazed me until I stopped screaming!! Then they cuffed and arrested me and put me in the Border Patrol car while they illegally opened my whole car and trunk and searched it!!! ILLEGALLY!!! They had no warrant and no reason to search it!!
After being tackled and stunned with the TASER, Cooke can be heard screaming for nearly a full minute before breaking down in tears.
"When I was getting tazed it felt like forever. It felt like a good 2 minutes and she wouldn't stop till I stopped screaming. It hurt so bad," she said in an interview with a local public access channel. "And then she reassured me that 'we have to go through this for our training.' It's like...OK. What's your point? And then they pretty much threw it my face about me being a law enforcement student, about the laws and what is right. Because when they were searching...because I gave 'em hell. I gave' em hell when they put me in the cop car. I wasn't going to back down, I had no reason to."
Under investigation
According to Cooke, Border Patrol agents did not find anything of concern in her trunk during the search.
Shelby Benson-Fuller, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol Swanton sector, said a public response to the incident was being prepared but was not yet ready for release. All the agency would say was that the incident was under investigation.
"Roadside checkpoints have become commonplace on roads leading away from the U.S.-Canada border throughout the North Country. U.S. Border Patrol says they are used to find undocumented immigrants, drugs, and potential terrorists," reported North County Public Radio.
Most Americans understand that federal law enforcement agents have a job to do, but ignoring constitutional protections with the imposition of road blocks (impeding freedom of movement and travel) is a policy that ought to go away.
Sources:
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org
http://northcountrynow.com
www.facebook.com
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