Equality under the law? Not under Obama, there wasn’t.
There was one standard for Obama insiders and quite another for ‘mere’ citizens.
As we lay out what happened here, keep in mind that Eric Holder… whose ‘Fast & Furious’ scandal actually connected to the death of At Least one American, a border control agent, no less! Not only has he faced no penalty for it, but he continues to hold his full legal credentials and is practicing law (as part of the ‘resistance’) even now.
Also, keep in mind the DACA order, and also how many thugs and dealers — including those with weapons offenses — Obama issued pardons to in the same period of time.
It gives some perspective on how heavy-handed this particular case was.
Is it as ‘open-and-shut’ as the border guards may have said, or was the ‘right call’ made here?
The original ‘crime’ was taking a photograph of a bridge.
In the end, he lost his truck over it.
How did we get from ‘A’ to ‘B’?
It’s complicated. And it’s also why we have a healthy distrust of too-powerful government agencies.
Gerardo Serrano is a citizen, a farmer, and a one-time Kentucky Statehouse candidate.
On Ballotpedia, he described himself as a candidate this way:
Like many Kentucky citizens I am Pro Second Amendment. I believe strongly in our right to exercise a Carry and Conceal Weapon license. I currently have both a Carry and Conceal (CCW) and a Federal Firearms license class 6 (FFL6.) I am also a member of the National Association for Gun Rights. I am Pro-Life. I believe that life begins at conception and that we should protect every life. I believe that government should act as an individual citizen, balancing their checkbook, as we balance ours. I am Pro Right-To-Work. I believe every citizen has the right to work without government interference. The government should not burden our children with unnecessary debt spent just to stay in office. I am concerned with the debt Kentucky has, and I believe that it is far greater than what the people are led to believe. It is vital for our state to be educated on the money that is being spent. It is also wrong for the government to leave its citizens in the dark
Which makes what happened to him even more disgusting.
He was never charged with a crime, but his truck was seized.
In his brand-new $60,000 truck, he was returning from a visit to Mexico. He took a photo of a bridge and was seen doing so by Customs Officials.
When Gerardo Serrano took photos of a border crossing on September 21, 2015, he had no idea he would soon be handcuffed, thrown into a detention cell and see his truck seized by government agents that very same day. During his ordeal, when Gerardo protested how his rights were being violated, one agent bluntly responded that he was “sick of hearing about your rights…you have no rights here.”
Two years later, Gerardo still has not recovered his truck or even had his day in court to challenge the seizure. Nor has he been charged with any crime. —Forbes
They saw him take the photo, and demanded his cell phone, asking why he was taking pictures. They demanded he unlock it, and he said ‘no’ because they had no warrant.
So, like thugs, they went looking for an excuse.
“You need a warrant for that,” he says he told them. They searched his truck and found five bullets in a magazine clip that Serano, a Kentucky concealed carry permit holder, forgot to remove before leaving his home.
“We got you,” he says border agents told him. He was detained, but never arrested, nor charged, nor tried, nor convicted. However, agents did seize his prized new truck. Two years since its seizure, they have yet to give it back.
Serano is still making monthly payments of $673 on the truck as well as paying for its insurance and Kentucky license fees. —Fox
‘We got you?????’
‘You have no rights here‘????
This was AMERICAN Law Enforcement he was dealing with!
Wasn’t that question settled way back in the 1770s? Some blood was shed over it, wasn’t there?
With all the liberal bleating about ‘police state’ and ‘Nazi’, how did they POSSIBLY miss THIS story?
You’d think they would go wild over this… he’s even ‘ethnic’. Do you suppose the media would have handled it differently if he’d run as a Democrat?
Before you smile and nod about bigger, more powerful government that erodes rule of law, keep in mind that it’s only EVER as good as the worst person wielding it. And we know about the corrupting influence of power.
There is a REASON we insist on the due process of law.
Thanks to the nation’s civil forfeiture laws, law enforcement agencies can seize—and keep—property, even if the owner is never convicted or indicted. Determined to vindicate his rights, Gerardo joined with the Institute for Justice and filed a class-action lawsuit against the CBP on behalf of other car owners.
What happened to Gerardo is not an isolated incident. At just four border crossings in Texas, CBP agents seized 525 vehicles from American citizens and lawful residents in 2015. A victory in Gerardo’s case would mean restoring due-process rights for hundreds, if not thousands, of other car owners nationwide.
“Of course I want my truck back, but that’s not why I’m filing this lawsuit,” Gerardo said. “I’m doing this for my children and the thousands of other Americans who should never have to go through what I’ve gone through.” —Forbes
Some issues aren’t ‘right and left’ so much as ‘right and wrong’.
Is this one of them?
Were they wrong to take his truck in the first place?
