Andover Police Department, Town Of Andover Massacusetts Andover Police Department is Framing Citizens for Bogus Crimes Andover Massachusetts

With a background in the theoretical bases of police science, coupled with the beginnings of a legal education, I read through the batch of reports on the Andover P.D. and presented my objective analyses of the reports (these are under a different report).

The crux of my rebuttals was that many things the police do might look, sound and smell like civil rights violations, but have nonetheless been sanctioned by the Supreme Court (usually, but not always, for good reason).

For example, the Supreme Court has stated that police are permitted to use deception in investigations. Usually, this leeway is used to tell a suspect that more is known about his crime than is actually known in order to extract a confession (i.e. "your buddy already told us what you guys did").

Apparently, the Andover P.D. has sought to use this leeway in an attempt to violate a couple of our civil rights that have not been abrogated.

The right of the people to air their grievances against government officials was so important to our founding fathers that they put it at the top of the list. (As a side note, there were originally over 200 proposed amendments to the Constitution. Only ten made the cut.)

Regardless of how I may feel about the validity of the original reports, the right of this individual (or individuals) to post them cannot be denied if we are to live in a society free from arbitrary and over-reaching police tactics. If "homeland security" means that we cannot call out the police for suspected constitutional violations then I think we'd be better off without it.

But I highly doubt that "homeland security" had anything to do with this. Ed was smart enough to recognize that this was a ploy designed to make him think he would be in criminal trouble if he didn't divulge the source of the report. God bless him for knowing his, and our rights and for taking a stand.

Maybe the Andover P.D. is ignorant of the fact that Ed opens up his forum (I know he hates it when you call it a forum, but I'm not talking about the worthless insult-fest kind of forum) to the complainors as well as the complainees. In the interest of our democratic and free society, the cornerstone of which is open public dialogue, I encourage the Andover P.D. to file a rebuttal rather than resorting to placing ridiculous demands on the Editor. They can start by answering a few questions for us:

1) In another report, I tried to defend some of the tactics used by your department that were being attacked on constitutional grounds (specifically Fourth Amendment violations in regards to prostitution stings). However, in noting your recent disregard for the First Amendment, I am not sure I should have been so quick to defend your acts. Now it's time for you to take the yoke. Are these reports grounded in fact? If not, what is the correct version of the story? If they are grounded in fact, how do you justify your actions, specifically in the purview of the Fourth Amendment?

2) Why would you resort to a legislative scheme that is supposed to protect our freedoms (homeland security) to abridge the rights of people who criticize your department? Do you feel that civilian review of police activity is something that needs to be combatted?

3) Why exactly are you interested in finding out who filed the original report? You have the full opportunity to defend yourself on this open forum. That would seem like the practical thing to do, if you were in the right, because the rest of us could see the other side of the story. Is it that there is no other side of the story, and you just want to shut this guy up? If that's the case, how exactly were you planning on going about that? Will you opt to stifle criticism through the litigation process (instead of simply defending your actions), or will you resort to "other" means? We have ample, undisputed evidence of a flagrant disregard for civil rights in your department, I can understand why the Editor would refuse to open one of his reporters up to whatever harm you may plan on inflicting.

Do the right thing and defend yourselves. I'm sure there are many fine officers in your department who do not want their reputations tarnished by being part of an organization that chooses to stifle criticism rather than confront it. As it stands, we have several undispuetd reports of serious civil rights violations. You know that they exist, yet you choose not to dispute them. Until you do, we can only accept them as true. And until that time, I can no longer stand by my earlier rebuttals defending your organization.

These Andover PD reports are amazing.

People dying mysteriously while in police custody, police setting up and stealing from citizens while supposedly "doing their duty", and now this poor guy gets abused.

Using "Homeland Security" to try to obtain information about those exposing the corruption. This bunch of strong-arms sounds more like they want information for retaliatory purposes. Then they could send out the SWAT teams and helicopters against posters at this forum. Sounds like that would "make their day".

Kudos to the editor of this site for getting the FBI involved. I hope he will keep us updated on this issue. Something is very rotten in the state of Massachusetts.

The citizens of Andover need to be filing charges against these jackbooted thugs as threats to the citizens of that town.

The entire Andover Police Department needs to be studied under a microscope and DNA tests done to see if they are all descendants of n**i war criminals!

Following the posting of this series of reports, the Andover police department contacted Rip-off Report and attempted to obtain the identity of the individuals who filed these reports. The representatives of the police department lied and said that they needed the information so they could investigate the allegations and when I asked for additional details was told that this was a Homeland Security matter. I then told them that I would only deal with the FBI and reported this incident with the Andover police department to the FBI.



We believe that the Andover police crossed the line in their use of police deception in an attempt to abrogate the civil rights, of the individuals, who posted these reports, under the 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution, and that the FBI has the responsibility to investigate these crimes.



Further, the abuse of the Homeland Security Act by the Andover Massachusetts police department was especially odious, because it further erodes the confidence in our US law enforcement entities to protect the very freedoms the Act was designed to assist them that protection detail.



The main reason I am even taking the time to bother with this announcement is because it is illustrative of what we are up against and to what lengths we will go to help and protect you. In this particular case, as is true with every case, we did NOT divulge the identity of the individuals who posted these reports.



We also want to communicate to you all that we would never divulge this information, even if served with a subpoena for the information because we believe that we have a special journalistic protection under the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution to protect our confidential sources (you) of information and our repository for that information, we would be willing to go to jail opposing an illegal subpoena.



Very Sincerely,



ED Magedson Founder, Rip-off Report

EDitor@RipoffReport.com

badbusinessbureau.com

www.ripoffreport.com



Don't let them get away with it.

Make sure they make the Rip-off Report!



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