Just a routine search!

Here’s a good one for those who appreciate the national kindergarten approach to policing:

Police in Aurora, Colo., searching for suspected bank robbers stopped every car at an intersection, handcuffed all the adults and searched the cars, one of which they believed was carrying the suspect.

Police said they had received what they called a “reliable” tip that the culprit in an armed robbery at a Wells Fargo bank committed earlier was stopped at the red light.

“We didn’t have a description, didn’t know race or gender or anything, so a split-second decision was made to stop all the cars at that intersection, and search for the armed robber,” Aurora police Officer Frank Fania told ABC News.

Officers barricaded the area, halting 19 cars.

“Cops came in from every direction and just threw their car in front of my car,” Sonya Romero, one of the drivers who was handcuffed, told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver.

From there, the police went from car to car, removing the passengers and handcuffing the adults.

So they didn’t have a description of any kind, but the tip was reliable? Does that mean that if a robber fled on foot into a neighborhood, and police received a “reliable” tip that he or she had fled into one of the houses (or an apartment building) but they didn’t know which one, that they could just search all houses and/or apartments in the neighborhood?

Much as I am against robbing banks, if the cops get to set up roadblocks and search all cars because someone allegedly robbed a bank, what’s to stop them from doing the same thing because someone allegedly sold drugs?

I worry that things like SWAT team raids, “zero tolerance” public policies, and humiliating TSA airport searches are softening people into accepting this sort of thing as routine.

(Of course, considering that leading legal scholars believe the Constitution is “imbecilic,” it doesn’t take much softening. HT Glenn Reynolds.)