![]() ![]() What Officer Bartman clearly remembered what he did not say, which was to tell Sparks and Luna that they were free to leave or could refuse consent to the search. No matter which version was actually correct, the court points out Officer Bartman at no point made it clear this was a consensual interaction. In other words, this wasn’t a request, could you please? It was put your bags on the ground correct? A. ![]() at 83:5–6 (“uring the security scan, I said, ‘You guys can put your bags on the ground.’”) and id. at 49:8–9 (“ asked if they’d mind putting their bags on the ground so my K9 can conduct a sniff.”) with 12/14/21 Tr. at 18:3–4 (“I asked the - both individuals if they could put their bags on the ground so my K9 can conduct a sniff.”) and id. His testimony inconsistently characterized the instruction, at times describing it as a request and other times as an order. And the reason why we don’t have the exact words is because you hadn’t activated your body-worn camera at that time. Do you remember the exact words you used? A. Officer Bartman testified that he did not remember the exact language he used to tell Sparks and Luna to place their bags on the ground, and no body-worn camera footage of that crucial moment exists because neither officer had yet turned on their camera at that point. #RECEIPTBOX ERROR ON MAC SERIES#And once again, the court catches him in a series of misrepresentations. Officer Bartman tried to argue both defendants consented to this search and voluntarily placed their bags on the ground. In addition, they were told to step away from their bags while Officer Bartman and Koda conducted the sniff, effectively foreclosing their use and control over their belongings. When the Defendants placed their suitcases, jacket, laptop bag, and purse on the ground, they were temporarily deprived of the ability to access those items and anything in them. Rather, those items had been in Defendants’ immediate possession up until they were instructed to place their belongings on the ground and would have remained in their possession absent the instruction from Officer Bartman. Sparks and Luna had not voluntarily surrendered their luggage to a third party such as Amtrak or left it unattended on the platform. Is irrelevant, because that is not what happened. Nor was Officer Bartman’s action akin to “an officer merely pick up an individual’s property to look at it.” The fact that Koda could have sniffed the luggage if it had been checked or left on the platform Taking away travelers’ possessions restricts them from moving since it deprives them of the items they chose to take with them while traveling. The government argued that ordering the couple to place their belongings on the ground and step away while the dog performed its search was a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Pretty much everything after that did, however. The court says the initial stop to check tickets did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The timing of that statement as shown on the video and acknowledged in his testimony before this Court contradicted both Officer Bartman’s affidavit and grand jury testimony in this case, where he claimed that Luna made the statement before he handcuffed her. After she was handcuffed and was told she “may or may not get arrested” “depending on what it is,” Luna stated that she had “a pipe” and “maybe a gram of coke” in her purse and asked whether that would get her arrested. He claimed that he did not see the Amtrak employee escorting Sparks and Luna despite looking for one, and despite acknowledging that the surveillance footage showed the usher being only about “six feet” away from him.įollowing Koda’s alert on the purse, Officer Bartman placed Luna in handcuffs and at the same time directed his partner to handcuff Sparks. ![]() Officer Bartman testified that Sparks and Luna were on the platform too early and that passengers were still disembarking. Officer Bartman lied early and often, the DC Court’s opinion shows: The evidence has been suppressed and the pair are as free to go as they should have been last June. It’s as if the officer had never stopped them in the first place. Officer Bartman stopped Bryan Sparks and his traveling companion, Autumn Luna, at the Washington, DC Amtrak station.Īfter a series of unconstitutional missteps, he searched their belongings and recovered contraband. This particular cop, Amtrak Police Officer Brandt Bartman, has just seen his train station drug bust disappear in a cloud of misstatements and Fourth Amendment violations. This case - coming to us via - contains yet another cop’s lies. It’s called testilying and it happens so often hardly anyone can even be bothered to act surprised when these lies are exposed. ![]()
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