Trouble With Customs and Border Protection: Boy Scout Held at Gunpoint

Recently, this story broke without a lot of attention. We are saturated with media stories of cops taking things too far, but this case is extremely telling of trends within US law enforcement policy.

http://youtu.be/FkgT5GCgg5U

There was a time when the Boy Scouts were seen as a symbol of American young men. Of their potential. Of their ability to be young men who would take responsibility for themselves and those around them. It was seen as an excellent way of preparing them for the real world.

Those days are long gone.

There are many things wrong with this picture. I’m going to go over them. Let’s start with the incident itself. Logic states that if you are an officer of the law, you would deal with children a little differently than adult citizens. You don’t talk to children the same way you do with adults. It is a commonly known fact.

For years now the idea of photographing police has become an issue as police forces and various federal agencies have arrested citizens for videotaping or photographing federal employees. The ACLU and human rights groups insist there is nothing legal to back up these arrests. These groups maintain there is nothing Constitutional about confiscating cameras used to photograph these individuals. You can read the ACLU list of photography rights here

So what is the real motive here? If photographers are being harassed for reasons outside of a rare instance where a photographer is impeding an arrest or the work of officers, what is the reason? The most common reason would be intimidation. So, CBP (Customs and Border Protection) spends their time making sure citizens crossing the border are in line with the law. A Boy Scout takes a photo of one of them. So what went wrong? How did an officer go from making sure Boy Scouts didn’t pose a threat to suddenly threatening them over a photograph? Whatever the reason behind this snap judgment, it was the wrong one. Children photographing law officers are not a clear and present danger.

But according to Boy Scout Troop 111 leader Jim Fox, “The agent immediately confiscated his camera, informed him he would be arrested, fined possibly $10,000 and 10 years in prison,” It doesn’t take much to conclude that intimidation tactics were used here, and uselessly so.

Asking the troop to unload luggage so they could search through the contents, the headline making incident allegedly occurred. Troop leader Jim Fox recounts that after trying to take luggage from the roof of a van, one Scout “hears a snap of a holster, turns around, and here’s this agent, both hands on a loaded pistol, pointing at the young man’s head.”

As for the officer who pulled the gun out of its holster, the CBP is denying the incident. In a written statement made last Wednesday,

“CBP’s review of this group’s inspection, including video footage review, indicates that our officer did not un-holster or handle his weapon as stated in the allegation,” the statement said. “The review revealed nothing out of the ordinary. We have reached out to the Boy Scout troop for additional information in reference to the allegation. The video footage has been referred to CBP Internal Affairs for further review.”

So it’s contradictory stories so far.

For me, the story takes a twist when in his interview representing the Mid-Iowa Council of Boy Scouts, Charles Vonderheid stated ““we want to make sure they follow the rules. A Scout is a good citizen. It would be a great lesson in civics for that young man and that troop.”

I am not here to criticize you, Charles Vonderheid. But your voice is one of many that fear our government and are too afraid of speaking out for common sense. You had a media platform at your disposal and instead of reacting to it by defending Scouts everywhere, you merely nodded in silent approval and compliance for the actions of government officials which are totally baseless.
This is what happens when good people are caught up in the machinations of trends within a government IN SHIFT. Our government is changing, and clamping down has been the theme of the last decade and a half. Is it merely paranoia on the part of a few officers, or is it more? One who is looking at this logically must conclude that the reaction on the part of the officer was either a) premeditated based upon training or b) entirely unjustified.

But it must be noted that the CBP has not stated that the threat against a minor of 10 years in prison for taking a photo was unwarranted overreaction. It is my hope a lawsuit is made against the CBP by the ACLU for trying to cover its actions as agencies normally do when mistakes of this proportion are made.

Let us hope this case is not precedent for similar threats against citizens to come.