More details on Blackwell/He was escorted out in cuffs

Submitted by umbig11 on
Michigan State University police walked former football staff member Curtis Blackwell out of the football building in handcuffs in early February, minutes after determining that he interfered with their investigation of a reported on-campus sexual assault weeks earlier. http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2017/06/13/police-b…

umbig11

June 14th, 2017 at 9:16 AM ^

1) Despite Dantonio's silly tweet about Copeland not being kicked off the team. That is totally false. When the kid got hurt he started to skip class. Academic casualty as well as issues with "accountability - weed."



2) Cassius Peat was told not to return because he was not the right fit "culturally.". MSU made it clear to him that he did not meet their expectations.



3) Blackwell did in fact "interfere" with the investigation and he did ask the players to delete evidence.



4) Every player must leave their cell phones in a box at the door before entering any of the athletic facilities. No more distractions.

Everyone Murders

June 14th, 2017 at 9:21 AM ^

I don't know how to take:

Cassius Peat was told not to return because he was not the right fit "culturally.". MSU made it clear to him that he did not meet their expectations.

It either means he had too many priors, or not enough.  I'm not sure these days which is more likely.

 

war-dawg69

June 14th, 2017 at 10:26 AM ^

Blackwell was trying his best to keep his boys from going to prison. Were there other people trying to do the same thing?. I am all but sure of it. I really want to know what Dantonio did when Robertson alledgedly told him of the incident. Blackwell was led out in cuffs and then MSU gave him a raise while suspended wtf. This school is so screwed up it has left me completely confused. A guy reports a rape and days later commits a rape, once again wtf. I am so lost on all of this,can someone please give me an educated guess on what actually transpired after incident one ( gang rape ).

UMProud

June 13th, 2017 at 9:03 PM ^

Man as much as I hate MSU (in sports) this whole thing is a non stop shocker-thon.  The only thing sadder than this to watch is the kids who got hurt in all this shit.

war-dawg69

June 13th, 2017 at 9:17 PM ^

Are you naive enough to think Blackwell is going to tell the truth. I am pretty sure he was complicit in a rape cover up. Of course Robertson saying he told Dantonio about it confuses the issue even more. I am pretty sure it will all come out in the wash, well hopefully.

FauxMo

June 13th, 2017 at 9:06 PM ^

What do you call a guy in handcuffs surrounded by five Michigan State Spartans? Coach. 

What do you call a guy in a suit surrounded by 100 MSU Spartans? Warden. 

93Grad

June 13th, 2017 at 10:05 PM ^

Not everyone who is arrested gets put in cuffs. There is certainly no indication he was a danger to anyone. It is also not clear from the article what if anything happened to Blackwell after he was placed in cuffs and lead out. Was he processed and printed? Was he read his rights?

All that we know is that the prosecutor declined to charge him with a crime.

EGD

June 14th, 2017 at 8:00 AM ^

And therein lies the issue.

The legal rationale for handcuffing suspects is that they could pose a danger to the arresting officers or others in the area. And this is why police departments adopt policies calling for all arrestees to be handcuffed. But a byproduct of this is that people who have not been--and may never be--convicted of crimes are humiliated, sometimes publicly, by being handcuffed and marched around.

This is probably what 93Grad has a problem with--that Blackwell shouldn't have been subjected to this public-humiliation-without-due-process, a.k.a. "perp walk," when there was no particular reason to think he posed a threat to officers (since the crime for which he might have been charged was not violent in nature). It's a fair point, IMO. The problem, though, is that police departments probably need to take basic precautions (like handcuffing arrestees) in every case--not make exceptions for public figures or people accused of non- violent offenses.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

June 14th, 2017 at 8:54 AM ^

Nonviolent crime or not, you just never know how someone's going to react when they're told they're under arrest.  Maybe they come quietly, or maybe they pretend to and then grab for a gun.  And let's face it, being walked out by the police is all it takes to raise eyebrows, handcuffs or no handcuffs.

EGD

June 14th, 2017 at 9:32 AM ^

Agreed.

Plus, I can just imagine the kinds of issues that would arise if the police were to start picking & choosing who gets 'cuffed and who doesn't.  People who got handcuffed could rightly start questioning whether the arresting officers had objectively reasonable grounds for 'cuffing them.  Lawyers like me would probably start analyzing whether police departments chose to 'cuff people of color or other minorities at disproportioinate rates.  Departrments might have to draft much more nuanced "to 'cuff or not to 'cuff" policies, which puts more administrative burden on the officers, and so on.,,

In a perfect world with unlimited resources, all of this might be worthwhile.  But for now it's probably better policy to let somebody take an unwarranted perp walk once in a while.  

xtramelanin

June 14th, 2017 at 5:53 AM ^

case:

 
 

 The trial judge, sitting without a jury, found that the initial stop, frisk and on-street questioning was an arrest and that, since the arrest was made at a time when there was not reasonable cause to believe a felony had been committed, in the commission of which Dixon had participated, the arrest was an unlawful arrest. The trial judge awarded Dixon $500 damages.

Everyone Murders

June 14th, 2017 at 9:24 AM ^

This is plainly XM's strike zone, but to pile on, you're "arrested" if you reasonably believe that you are not free to walk away from the police.  One easy way to test if you're arrested is to ask the cop "am I under arrest?".  If he or she says "no", then you can leave.

Otherwise, you're under arrest.  Cuffs or no cuffs.  Police cruiser, or no police cruiser.  Jail, or no jail.  It's about your liberty to leave at will.

Tools Of Ignorance

June 14th, 2017 at 11:02 AM ^

Quick Google search: "The court did not rule that stop and frisk is an unconstitutional policing tactic that police officers can never use. Rather, the court ruled that the way in which the New York Police Department (NYPD) conducted stops and frisks from 2005-2013, without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and often on the basis of a person’s race, was unconstitutional and racially discriminatory." You said that one can be held for legal reasons. Stop and frisk is unconstitutional...making it a not legal reason. You can be stopped and not free to leave if you're being detained. The difference is that you can be released from a detention, but it is illegal to "unarrest" someone without a criminal charge. I think we're on the same page but may not be conveying it correctly. Sorry for the run-on...on mobile

CalifExile

June 15th, 2017 at 2:32 PM ^

You start with: "The court did not rule that stop and frisk is an unconstitutional policing tactic."

Then you contend that "Stop and frisk is unconstitutional. . . . making it not a legal reason."

Whatever point you're trying to make is irrelevant. The fact is, legal or illegal, the court found that it was an arrest.