EDITORIAL: Lawmakers need to weigh in on mass arrest, end option

Looking at individual details of how Aurora police handled a June 2 mass arrest in their attempt to snag a bank robber, it’s hard to find undeniable fault with holding about 40 people for a couple hours, even handcuffing many of them.

It’s in looking at the big picture that the notion of stopping — in essence arresting — dozens of people who truly happened to be in the wrong place at the right time puts the situation in focus. It’s bad policy and needs to be prohibited.

Aurora police ignited a firestorm of controversy when officers reacted to bank robbery like they never have before. It started when a robber wearing a bee-farmer’s mask burst into the Wells Fargo Bank at East Hampden Avenue and South Chambers Road. He took cash, that had been loaded with a GPS tracking device, and fled the bank. That’s what led police to believe the robber was in one of a couple dozen cars eastbound on Iliff near Buckley, about two miles from the bank.

All the officers that Aurora could muster on a Saturday afternoon, including the SWAT team, pounced on the area, stopped about 20 cars, and police began going car to car looking for the robber. Guns drawn, they forced drivers, children and passengers from their cars. They handcuffed a lot of men and some women, detaining people for up to two hours.

Police found their suspect and took him, eventually letting everyone else go.

The scheme and the following press conferences, where police Chief Dan Oates defended the operation, have created a storm of controversy, with many saying police went too far in their zeal to catch a bank robber. There have been repeated calls for someone outside Aurora to determine whether police violated Fourth Amendment rights of some motorists, searching and stopping them without good cause.

Everyone’s happy the bad guy didn’t get away this time. Every time a robber is caught, it can’t hurt to impress some other would-be crook not to try it.

But police and city lawmakers must ask whether the price is too high to use antics like this to catch any kind of criminal. In the case of robbers, the answer is an overwhelming ‘no.’

Here’s why: In looking at the spirit and letter of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there’s no doubt that lawmakers were intent on preventing the government, including police, from stopping people and trying to determine if they’d committed a crime, unless there was compelling evidence that a specific person had committed a specific crime. The law and the courts have made it clear for a couple hundred years: no fishing trips. That’s exactly what this was. Police were certain that one in a couple dozen cars was carrying a robber. While that might be a good argument for funneling traffic through some kind of checkpoint, police undoubtedly went too far in handcuffing —arresting— people while trying to sort the whole thing out. That’s not who we are as a country, and that’s not who we should be as a city.

Even more important, police essentially brought out the constitutional equivalent of howitzer to stop a one-man army. The controversy may have been decidedly different had the criminal the police sought been a mass murderer or terrorist. While a legal argument might still be made against police seizing people while hunting for a crook who has shown unspeakable treachery, the position of Aurora police would at least be strengthened by pulling out all the stops to trap a heinous fiend. Not so with a bank robber who may have acted pretty scary, but who in the end left everyone uninjured.

Aurora council members should have a public discussion about the incident, taking comment from police and legal experts, as well as the public. Lawmakers need to hear from their constituents about allowing police to use such broad powers, even if it’s rare. Police may well have gotten their crook during this scene, but they let their sense of restraint and purpose get away. City council needs to restore confidence in a system that this has damaged.