Author: Ashley Bischoff

Flex Your Rights is “a new organization devoted to teaching US residents how to exercise their remaining constitutional rights during encounters with police officers.”

And, Durham, NC, resident Maurice McKellar Jr. recently put that knowledge to work during a recent traffic stop:

Although McKellar was absolutely within his rights to refuse such a warrantless search, that’s when things began to go bad. According to McKellar's complaint, instead of accepting his refusal to consent, Hargro responded by calling for back-up. Four more troopers arrived at the scene, along with a drug-sniffing dog. McKellar three more times refused to consent, at which point Hargro placed him under arrest for careless and reckless driving and speeding. [...]

On June 12 he filed a negligence claim against the Highway Patrol’s parent agency, the North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, claiming that he was unjustly punished for exercising his constitutional rights. The state agency was negligent, McKellar argued, because it failed to properly train Trooper Hargro. Because McKellar filed his claim with the state Industrial Commission, which is set up to hear workers compensation cases and tort claims alleging negligent actions by state employees, he could be awarded up to $500,000 for “humiliation, emotional distress, physical pain, and mental suffering.” [...]

I think Steven Silverman of Flex Your Rights sums it up best: “He had nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing so. And he is doing the right thing in filing a lawsuit. Suing North Carolina for big bucks could help reform the system. It would certainly give the state an incentive to follow the Constitution.”