Saturday, September 22, 2007


Special: FreedomsPhoenix interview with Sheriff Hartman about roadblocks for Private DNA extraction

Ernest Hancock
Website: www.ernesthancock.com
Date:
Subject: Law Enforcers or Peace Officers

I interviewed Gilpin County Sheriff in Colorado, Bruce Hartman, this afternoon and he has agreed to be a radio quest on The Charles Goyette Show KFNX 1100 at 6:36am Phoenix time Monday the 24th of September. I'll also be sure to post the audio of the show in MP3 here on FreedomsPhoenix. During my interview with Sheriff Hartman it was clear that he was doing everything he could to cooperate with any media to help them understand what happened and how he feels that he made a terrible mistake.
Declan McCullagh of POLITECH: Politics and Technology has even more background on the agencies involved with this story (very important information here)
Sheriff Hartman faxed me 3 pages of material that include a half page of information in small print that was said to be supplied drivers at the roadblock or was the outline of what was told them. The print is small enough that I am certain many would have trouble reading it at night on the side of the road with flashing law enforcement lights near by. The second page was a short report from a Sergeant Troy Hendricks to Under-Sheriff Jon Bayne that detailed the number of cars that were stopped at the “Voluntary Survey” conducted by PIRE’s Roadside Survey on 09/15/07 from 21:00hrs until the following morning at 04:00hrs.
HWY 119 at Mile Marker 22.5 / 21:30hrs-00:30hrs
Total Vehicles traveling in both directions: 91
Total Vehicles directed over to Surveyors: 40
Non-Qualified Vehicles (Commercial, Casino Busses Etc.) 3
Vehicles That Chose not to participate 4
HWY 119 at Mile Marker 1.5 / 01:30hrs-04:00hrs
Total Vehicles traveling in both directions: 1290

Total Vehicles directed over to Surveyors: 45
Non-Qualified Vehicles (Commercial, Casino Busses Etc.) 25
Vehicles That Chose not to participate 07
A Denver television station (KWGN TV 2) reported on their web site what motorists experienced (Video Here http://cw2.trb.com/news/kwgn-invasive-checkpoint,0,2092732.story?coll=kwgn-home-2 )
“At five spots alongside Colorado Highway 119, Gilpin County deputies worked to maintain traffic flow at the different survey spots. According to Hartman, deputies were not to talk to drivers at all. But some motorists say the deputies forced them off the road and into the surveyors hands.

"They kept stressing 'voluntarily'," said Soni Brosze. "But none of this was voluntary."

Brosze said he was handed a sheet of paper explaining the point of the survey and that his participation was voluntary and anonymous. But, he wasn't given time to read it as the persistent surveyor asked him to put out a cigarette and offered him $10 for his participation.

"That meant giving them a mouth swab," Brosze said. "Maybe I watch too many cop shows, but a mouth swab is what they use to set up a DNA file. They just weren't being honest about what they were doing." “

Sheriff Hartman was very cooperative and stated that he has contacted the Colorado 1st District Attorney (Colorado’s version of a County attorney that has the County of Gilpin and Jefferson in his jurisdiction) Mark Pautler at 303 271 6891 to inform him that as Sheriff he would be forwarding further complaints to his office and asked that he investigate the whole issue if he saw a need and that he would bear the consequences.
Earlier I spoke to the Sheriff department’s Cherokee Blake that was fielding questions and informing the sheriff of interested media. She informed me that the whole thing started due to their being contacted by an organization that had credentials from the federal government.
The Sheriff would later confirm this and said that the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation http://www.pire.org had contacted him and produced documents that convinced him that they were commissioned by two Federal organizations to conduct voluntary surveys that would collect saliva, breath and blood.
The first was the NHTSA “National Highway Traffic Safety Administration” http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov
Colorado Regional Offices: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/whatis/regions/Region08/Colorado.html
And the second was the NIAAA http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/ “National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism”.
I wasn’t surprised to find the Federal Government behind this project since I remember a similar effort in the mid 90’s that we were involved in here in Arizona called “Project Lead” that was about identifying motorist that carried guns (and the other cars traveling with them – More about that is included in another story here http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?InfoNo=020353%3Cbr%3E )

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