Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Baton Rouge, LA — What would you do if you found a creepy device attached to your car that looked like something used to track you? Would you simply leave it there and go on about your business? Or, would you remove it? Well, a Louisiana woman decided to remove it, not knowing what it was, and the people who put it there are now demanding it back. It was a GPS tracking device and it was put there by the Louisiana State Police.
Earlier this month Tiara Beverly said she noticed a group of men hanging out by her car in her gated apartment complex. As she observed them, she saw one of them reach underneath her car to put something there.
“I instantly panicked,” Beverly told WBRZ. “I didn’t know if it was a bomb, but then I did find out it was a tracker.”
Because the state is a soulless machine that lays waste to people’s rights over their decisions to voluntarily engage in the sale and use of arbitrary substances, Beverly was arrested last month on drug charges. Her life has been in turmoil ever since.
Last week, she was visited by a half-dozen state troopers who came to her home to question her about a person she knew. Two days later, she noticed the tracking device on her vehicle.
After realizing that the tracking device was placed there by police, Beverly didn’t have anywhere to turn so she went to the local chapter of the NAACP in Baton Rouge.
Eugene Collins, president of the Baton Rouge NAACP, told reporters he contacted the police on Beverly’s behalf and the cops immediately demanded the return of the tracking device.
“They asked me to return the box,” Collins said. “It could make the situation more difficult for me.”
Such devices are illegal for civilians to use in Louisiana, but totally legal for an “investigative or law enforcement officer, judicial officer, probation or parole officer, or employee of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections…” according to Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:222.3.
Police claimed they had a warrant for the tracking device they placed on Beverly’s vehicle, but when asked to produce it by WBRZ, the state trooper’s office refused to do so, only releasing the following statement.
“Upon speaking with our detectives, this is part of an ongoing investigation involving Ms. Beverly and a suspect with federal warrants. As part of the investigative process, a warrant was obtained for the surveillance equipment. Upon the conclusion of the investigation, further information will be available regarding charges and investigative documents.”
For now, a cunning woman who noticed some strangers by her car has managed to beat the cops at their own game. This is a point, Collins found noteworthy.
“It’s bush league,” Collins told WBRZ. “The fact that a young woman can see you doing something like this means you’re not very good at it.”
Laughably enough, the cops were not the ones to find the tracking device either, despite being the ones who monitor it. WBRZ found it before them — mounted to a pole across the street from McKinley Middle School.
This is not the first time the Free Thought Project has covered cops putting tracking devices on vehicles. In 2018, the Warrick County Sheriff’s Office suspected Heuring of being drug dealer like Beverly, so they began tracking his every move. But after a week, Heuring discovered the GPS device and removed it.
One week later, the GPS device stopped signaling its location. When police went to retrieve the device from Heuring’s vehicle, it was missing. Police obtained a search warrant for Heuring’s residence, alleging that there was probable cause to believe he had committed theft of the device. Unlike Beverly, Heuring was subsequently charged with theft of a GPS device.
I’d be a sneaky bastard and go stick it on one of their cars