San Diego Cops Who Abused Old 'Seditious Language' Law To Ticket Residents Also Engaged In Other Misconduct

from the lot-of-pretty-sketchy-looking-apples-in-here dept

A few months ago, Voice of San Diego reported cops in the city were ticketing people for the strangest crime: sedition. An old law no one had bothered to take off the books allowed officers to literally police speech. Despite several rulings showing using foul language or flipping the bird to cops is protected speech, cops in San Diego are abusing this bad law to ticket people for "contempt of cop," which isn't an actual crime anywhere.

"Seditious language" tickets have been handed out 83 times since 2013. The 1918 law has been used to ticket someone for singing a rap song's lyrics within earshot of a cop. One person was even ticketed in their own home for swearing a bit too much around officers. The only data on race shows 8 of 11 recipients of these tickets were black. (No race was noted on a majority of citations Voice of San Diego examined.)

If cops are willing to abuse a bad law to punish people for swearing around officers, they're willing to abuse their powers in other ways. Voice of San Diego has dug deeper into the "seditious language" citations and discovered further abuses by officers who are way too familiar with a law that should have been taken off the books decades ago.

Half of the San Diego Police Department officers who wrote more than one ticket for seditious language have also been accused during their careers of violating people’s rights, ranging from harassment to the arrest of peaceful protestors, a Voice of San Diego review has found. A third of those officers have also been involved in fatal or nonfatal shootings.

We'll see if things improve a bit. The city repealed the law shortly after VOSD's expose. But these officers' willingness to abuse bad laws and city residents equally indicates there are more deeply rooted problems in the San Diego Police Department that a repeal isn't going to fix.

One officer -- Michael Rojas -- issued two tickets to twin brothers at the same time back in 2015. One year later, he was caught on tape tackling and arresting protesters who appear to be complying with an order to disperse. This incident was recorded by another protester. Rojas was wearing a body camera but had not turned his on despite radioed orders to do so.

Officers who abused the law most often to punish people for protected speech appear to be habitual abusers.

Of the 54 SDPD officers who issued seditious language tickets, 18 gave out more than one, police records show. Of those 18, at least nine have been accused of misconduct, according to court files and news articles. Six were involved in fatal or nonfatal shootings.

So, why haven't these citations resulted in a Constitutional challenge? Well, they're citations. There's no prosecution involved. Recipients pay the fine and move on. Defense lawyers, prosecutors, and judges aren't involved. It bypasses most of the checks/balances that would have alerted PD officials and city lawmakers that something abusive was happening on their watch. And, since officers were technically enforcing the (bad) law, there's little that can be done to discipline them.

The good news is these cops don't have this law to abuse any more. But, unless someone is willing to address some other systemic issues, it won't end the abuse or the careers of those willing to cite people for saying things these cops don't like.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: 1st amendment, abuse of power, police, police misconduct, san diego, san diego police department, sdpd, sedition, seditious language


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • icon
    Atkray (profile), 19 Oct 2020 @ 2:33pm

    They can enforce a law that no one has heard of in decades and should be removed from the books, but when they are told that they can't stand on someone until they stop breathing they cannot imagine that would be against the law.

    The only thing stupider, is the judges that let them do it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 19 Oct 2020 @ 5:24pm

      Re:

      Further, they "aren't required to know the law", yet strangely are intimately familiar with some obscure and outdated stuff which seems to mesh with their proclivities. How very odd, indeed.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Bobvious, 19 Oct 2020 @ 2:39pm

    Several seditious scribes

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Oct 2020 @ 3:46pm

    defund the police!

    and take guns away from citizens

    then well see who the criminals are

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ed (profile), 19 Oct 2020 @ 4:35pm

    Again...

    There is no such thing as "a good cop". They're all dirty to some degree. Some are just worse than the others.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Alison Wonder Land, 19 Oct 2020 @ 7:16pm

    Hoot hoot hoot!

    One of Maz's minions is unhappy. GOOD! I HOOT at you, Masnick. Oh fuck I'm going to cum!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.