MoGo, ACLU, and Singleton Law team up to protect protestors

Video source: NBC San Diego, 9/27/2020

San Diego jails have apparently adopted either a written or de-facto policy of seizing protesters’ cell phones and refusing to return them upon release, even when protesters are released without having any charges filed against them. Sheriff’s deputies are failing to log the seizure of protesters’ phones, making it difficult if not impossible for them to be retrieved after booking. San Diego Police Department officers have been taking phones from arrestees before they are booked in at the jail and while they are being detained in patrol cars, entering no record of the seizures. 

MoGo, the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, and Singleton Law Firm sent a letter to Sheriff Gore, District Attorney Stephan, Chief Nisleit, and City Attorney Mara Elliott to demand the immediate repeal and repudiation of this policy that violates protestors’ Fourth Amendment and due process rights. The county jails or police should also immediately return any cell phones that have been seized from protesters who have been released, or to explain why this is not possible.

Read the letter here.