A teen prospective recruit stands in front of an armored car serving the state’s Department of safety and homeland security, which oversees privilege enforcement and taxation on state roadways. (Photo department of safety and homeland security)
It’s been more than two years since city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County have been put under administrative notice regarding their widespread abuse of innocent people by use of police power outside the scope of state law.
Members of the bar are proving slow to catch on as to making a profit from police abuse. When you, a member of the public, are ready to sue the city or county for false arrest you will have to inform your hireling about opening the treasure box I have placed before you.
This public benefit is a legal filing called Tennessee transportation administrative notice — or T-TAN. It is intended for use in criminal defense in transportation cases and in civil litigation for abuse of state law by police and sheriffs departments.
T-TAN is useable in court and is intended to give your claim the element of aggravated abuse vs. just the regular kind of police abuse.
It is useable on the side of the street when you have been stopped under the state’s trucking and shipping law — you, a person not operating a motor vehicle for hire, you, a person not involved in transportation as either a common or private carrier.
The officers acting on a legal presumption which is rebuttable, starting at the moment of the encounter after he has made a mistake about your status and your activity.
Godly progress is slow, but steady
It is my hope with this project to deliver reform up to the state person by person, traffic arrest by traffic arrest, court case by court case, city by city and county by county. Eventually, as I propose this 3 ½-yearlong project, it will affect the shape of how the law works in a largely lawless state
The gospel works just this way.
It works outwardly from the individual to larger society. Repentance and conversation bring self-government to the sinner. It improves his marriage, instructs his family. That growth in grace and obedience affects the Christian’s business, his investing, his voting, his mercies, his educational decisions, his address, his destination, his travels, his commitments.
My argument for ending police abuse is bottom-up, not top-down. It does not rely on great ones such as the city or county mayors, or the governor. I appeal to them, I talk to them com I make public statements to them come I write to them but, in the end, the individual citizen is responsible for making the gains.
Here a little, there a little
Isaiah 28:9-12 tell of the prophet’s work to bring reform among the people, whom the profits wonders are not like nursing infants.
Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts?
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little.”
11 For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people,
12 To whom He said, “This is the rest with which You may cause the weary to rest,” And, “This is the refreshing”; Yet they would not hear.
The wicked lose ground bit by bit, and the godly advance. The wicked in the case of police powers reform are abusive policing practices against the poor, the alien and the stranger — and everybody else as well.
Deeply set establishment
These powers are upheld by the judiciary, by the lawyers and attorneys, by the media and the press, and are implicitly taught in schools. Dissent is rarely heard about how these great powers work.
But over time, as we change public consensus, person by person, change will come for the better, for God’s glory and the benefit of the individual citizen in this part of the country.
I work in confidence that my duty is to God, to talk and publish and run my radio station, and God will bring the fruit in the results by the power of the Holy Spirit.
From individual actions, massed together, over time, changes will be affected in the law and in court procedure and in the general assembly.
The fight for liberty, is part of the progress of humankind, from judgment to redemption, from the fall of Adam’s race to its restoration.
David Tulis is live on the air weekdays 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. on NoogaRadio 96.9 FM and other NoogaRadio Network stations, covering local economy and free markets in Chattanooga and beyond. Nothing here is legal advice; if you want legal advice, find a law firm downtown or on another planet — where the law actually matters.
