Recently we got documents from Memphis Police Department using “Authorization of Agency” as a search key, and we obtained an excerpt of MPD’s “Uniform Patrol Station Standard Operating Procedure”. The extract was very helpful as it outlined the procedures for Authorization of Agency, which we wrote up in our blog.
Tag: Trespassing
Authorization of Agency (AoA) is a pair of processes at Memphis Police Department and the DA’s office, which are designed to circumvent provisions in the Tennessee criminal trespass law, TCA § 39-14-405. AoA is designed to enhance public safety by controlling unwanted citizens who access private business property.
We have written extensively about one AoA process, the MPD’s form AA 0306, which is summarized in the most recent blog. We provide links to our blogs and other documents at the end of this piece. We have not previously written about the second process, which is based on signage located mostly in apartment complexes, but we describe the second process here.
We recently discovered, via Open Records Request, the regulatory device used by MPD for AoA. It is section 52 of the Uniform Patrol Station Standard Operating Procedure, page 35.
Uniform Patrol Station SOP AoA Regulations
We provide the text of the FOIA we received from MPD below, with section headers inserted by us. It is the Uniform Patrol Station Standard Operating Procedure.
AoA UPSSOP Section 1: Definition of AoA
AoA UPSSOP Section 2: Advising the Target of AoA
AoA UPSSOP Section 3: LEO Witness and Complainant signature
AoA UPSSOP Section 4: Filing of AoA
AoA UPSSOP Section 5: AoA Verification for Arrest
AoA UPSSOP Section 6: Arrests and File maintenance
AoA UPSSOP Section 7: Appendices, omitted from FOIA.
About the AoA SOP.
We see numerous problems with the current implementation of AoA. As examples, section 1 confines AoA complainants to businesses only, and there were 112 AoAs (6.6%) for residence owners who were private individuals in our 2018 FOIA.
In section 2, the business owner must advise the AoA target, in the presence of an MPD witness, of the imposition of AoA. There is one alternative procedure provided involving the posting of a notarized affidavit. We received notification, in response to a FOIA request, that there are no such affidavits on file at MPD.
In Section 3, the business owner and the witnessing officer must sign and complete the AoA form at the local police station. The combination of sections 2 and 3 require one three-way meeting which must include the AoA target, which can be anywhere but is assumed to be at the alleged trespass location, and a second meeting and filing which must include the complainant and the original witnessing police officer, and must take place at the local MPD precinct.
We have an email from MPD Colonel Worthy, commander of Ridgeway precinct, emphasizing this inflexible procedure.
“Sir, you will have to give the a verbal order to the individual to not be on the property in the presence of an officer. Then we can fill out the form. You have to have the name of the officer and his IBM number. Then the form is to be completed at the station. If the form is completed before that step it is not valid…”
Of the 45 cases we have sampled, this procedure was not followed in a single instance. We are following up on interviewing additional AoA targeted individuals.
Section 3 also lists a number of data points which must be on the AoA. The majority of the 2,200 AoAs we have seen do not have all these data points, or the officers IBM# as required in the Colonel’s email.
The SOP contains numerous other requirements which are not followed, among them the requirement for annual purging of year-old AoAs. When we obtained 1677 AoAs via FOIA in mid-2018 with readable dates, 358 of them (6.6%) were dated 2016 or earlier and must have been more than a year old, and the 584 FOIAs for 2017 looked like the entire year’s worth of FOIAs.
We also have an email interchange between an attorney for an AoA targetted individual, from February 2017, who had to escalate to Bruce McMullen, City Attorney and City PR Ursula Madden in order to get an erroneous AoA removed. The procedure in the UPSSOP for correcting erroneous AoAs was apparently not applied or did not work, possibly because no-one was aware the procedure existed. This AoA target had to pay an attorney for redress, something not available to everyone.
In summary, it looks like the majority of AoAs on file are invalid because of defective procedures, and we would not be surprised if every AoA on file is defective in some way.
The other type of Authorization of Agency
The MPD AoA form AA0306 is clearly labeled Authorization of Agency and this matches the verbiage in the UPSSOP. The DA’s office frequently refers to another AoA mechanism. This is manifested in the form of signs frequently posted in apartment complexes, which state that the property is posted against trespass by anyone who is not a tenant or their guest. Here’s a Youtube video of Amy Weirich (2:46 minutes) describing these signs as AoA and conflating with the AA0306 forms.
These signs purport to allow the police to arrest an alleged offender without the notice required in the Tennessee criminal trespass law, TCA § 39-14-405.
In order for a premises to be posted under TCA § 39-14-405, the property must be entered in the No Trespass Public Notice List at the Tennessee Secretary of State. We have viewed this page repeatedly between 2017 and the date of writing, 12/1/2019, and have never seen a Memphis address posted in this database. Therefore we assume that all these AoA no trespass signs contravene the State trespass law and are invalid.
We have not yet received data on the use of both flavors of AoA in actual trespass arrests, but we are told, anecdotally, that hundreds of such arrests have been seen, and will post that information when we receive it.
Why was AoA under the radar for ten years?
We could find no public mention of AoA between 2007, when a blogger mentioned it, to 2017 when our FOIA produced the City blacklist, including 43 people on AoAs. We believe, anecdotally, that hundreds of trespass arrests were made, using both forms of AoA.
Only a small population knew about AoA, the AoA complainants, people to whom AoA had been marketed as possible complainants, some of the AoA targets, some MPD police, of which less than 10% actually created AoA forms, prosecutors and public defenders.
When you have secret police processes, you get secret police.
Public Defenders and AoA.
There are about 45 politically targeted individuals, who generally had private attorneys when they interacted with the criminal justice system.
All other instances of arrest for trespass with either flavor of AoA that we know of went through the Public Defender’s office. Sadly, the combined actions of the DA’s office and MPD have severely hampered the PD’s ability to defend AoA arrests.
PD’s workflow for AoA arrests.
Bear with us as we outline the PD’s workflow. When a person is arrested for criminal trespass, they are brought to 201 Poplar or Jail East and booked. Some time afterwards, during bankers’ hours, the defendant will be arraigned. At that time, if the defendant does not have funds for a lawyer, a public defender is appointed. The PD receives the jacket, containing various documents, including an affidavit of complaint and an arrest ticket from MPD, a bond recommendation, criminal history and others.
At this point, the PD may see a small photograph of the AoA document on the affidavit of complaint, which is reproduced at quarter size and can’t be read. So the PD knows there’s an AoA or a posted location but can’t see details. In order to get the AoA form, the PD would have to walk the couple of blocks to MPD HQ at 170 N. Main, go through security and wait at the public records counter on the 7th floor. PDs, who often have up to thirty cases per day, are limited to three police records per day. Restrictions on the data practically available to PDs has been progressively tightened over the years, not least when the MPD records counter moved from 201 Poplar to North Main.
If the PD is to take 45 minutes from their busy schedule, they’ll probably wait until the end of the day and do all the day’s AoAs together. There is not enough time in the day to get MPD records for every case. In most cases, as the defendant probably needs to be released to get to work, cases are settled for time served awaiting trial before the end of the day. First time defendants often accept a misdemeanor record to get back to their daily schedule. This is a problem if they get arrested again, as the trespass offense is taken into account when bail, diversion and sentence recommendations are decided. This is a slippery slope into a possible criminal career. AoA is a gateway into mass incarceration for many.
Hopefully PDs can use some of the information here to question the imposition of AoA in more cases. In the meantime, considering the workload on PDs, it is not surprising that they did not investigate and publicize the nature of AoA while it was under the radar.
Our current interest in AoA stemmed from its use in the City blacklist and the information we developed required hundreds of hours of research. Without the publicity generated by the Blacklist and the ensuing ACLU court case, the public might still be in the dark about AoA.
Summary
AoA has been an almost secret police process at MPD and the DA’s office since at least 2007. It has the appearance of having been heavily marketed by various public safety interests in the interim, resulting in heavy usage.
The availability of this secret tool was apparently attractive to the City, MPD and the Zoo when they desired to punish and harass political activists, after which law enforcement lost the advantage of this secret police process.
We believe that the 2,200 AoA targets include about 45 political actors and over 2,100 regular folks, who generally have been unable to mount a criminal defense against the numerous irregularities we outline here.
We are appending a links section as a resource. Anybody who is on an AoA, who has been notified they are not allowed at a certain location, or who has been arrested for criminal trespass where “authorization of agency”, AoA, no trespass signage, or “being on a list” should contact us. We will share your information with some attorneys we are working with, but with otherwise keep your information completely confidential and protected. You can also use our confidential contact option if you have AoA information but wish to be anonymous.
AoA Resource Links
All the information here is publicly available.
On our FTP server.
http://www.fnolan.com/A/A-List.pdf: A-list containing FOIA with, 43 political AoAs.
http://www.fnolan.com/AOA/files/AoA_analysis_spreadsheet_links_20180911_v02.xlsx: Indexed spreadsheet with about 1700 AoAs.
http://www.fnolan.com/AOA/ Directory listing for the raw files in the above spreadsheet.
http://www.fnolan.com/AO2/Publ_AoAs_20191010.xlsx: Indexed spreadsheet with 473 additional AoAs received in 2019
http://www.fnolan.com/AO2/ Directory listing for the raw files in the above spreadsheet.
Lagniappe
Finally, Shelby Co. Sheriff’s Office has announced it will shortly be starting its own AoA process.
Blogs.
Some of the information in the earlier blogs is inaccurate and was corrected in later blogs. E.g. I wrote that there was no MPD P&P for AoA in 2018, now we know from the current article that it is covered in UPSSOP.
https://memphistruth.org/2019/10/11/authorization-of-agency-update/ Blog about the recent 473 AoAs obtained in 2019.
https://memphistruth.org/2018/09/06/authorization-of-agency-mpd-invention/ Blog with the 1690+ AoAs obtained in the 2018 FOIA.
https://memphistruth.org/2018/09/11/authorization-of-agency-initial-analysis/ Additional analysis of the 2018 FOIA.
https://memphistruth.org/2018/02/26/blacklists-from-a-to-z-new-zoo-z-list/ Hunter Demster and Fergus Nolan receive an AoA at the Zoo.
https://memphistruth.org/2019/07/30/dan-rosson-placed-on-aoa-by-city/ Dan Rosson, animal rights activist, placed on AoA at Memphis Animal Shelter.
https://memphistruth.org/2019/07/26/rodney-fisher-fired-by-mpd-via-aoa/ Rodney Fisher takes video of ab MPD cop informing him he is on an AoA at his job at NIKE.
https://www.facebook.com/100005058287008/videos/1256158231229441/ Rodney’s video.
https://memphistruth.org/2017/02/08/mpd-has-activist-list/ A-list breaking news with 43 political AoAs.
http://www.paulryburn.com/blog/2007/07/18/authorization-of-agency/ 2007 first public AoA mention by blogger Paul Ryburn in 2007.
Other
Various public sites and reference material
TCA 39-14-405: Tennessee Criminal Trespass Law
No Trespass Public Notice List at Tennessee Secretary of State
MPD Policy and Procedures Manual
Safeways Apartment AoA scheme.
— concluded —
We wrote about Authorization of Agency (AoA) last year, providing source data, collations and some analysis of almost 1,700 Authorization of Agency reports, obtained by public records request from Memphis Police Department (Est 1827).
We recently received another 473 AoA forms covering July 2018 to July 2019. We collated the data in a spreadsheet, which is available on Google Docs, or downloadable as Open Office or MS Excel formats. Each row of these files contain a link to a .PDF document containing a scanned copy of the original AoA and the page number to look in this .PDF. The entire corpus may be downloaded here.
These data are provided for free under the GNU open source agreement. Please let us know of any errors or bad links.
What is AoA?
Authorization of Agency is an off-the-books system carried in 3-ring binders in the cruisers attached to a given ward, as copies of the original form. A ward is a subdivision of an MPD precinct. It violates Tennessee trespass law, has no due process, entraps children as young as eleven, and is unsupported by MPD’s policy and procedures manual, the MPD Academy curriculum or the official computer systems at MPD.
Because the process is off the books, there are no systemic checks for typos, accuracy, completeness or readability. All records are maintained in the original, handwritten state as photocopies or faxes.
We have found a mention of AoA as early as 2007. Our original AoA report traces rapid increases in the use of AoA from around 2011, the start of Amy Weirich’s tenure at the DA’s office. The use of AoA reached a peak of almost 600 in 2017 and has remained high since. The rise, from just a few in 2011 to the 2017 high suggests that a marketing campaign, spearheaded by the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission and the DA’s office, was in place throughout Weirich’s time as prosecutor.
AoA as political weapon.
AoA, as an off-the-books system of sanctions, was used for years as a method of rousting “undesirables” from business premises. As such, the poor and disenfranchised victims had little recourse.
MPD started using AoA as a political weapon when two Greensward protesters were secretly placed on an AoA by the Zoo in summer of 2016.
Then, following a “die-in” protest at the Mayor’s house, 43 politically active individuals were placed on an AoA, for an event which had at most a dozen attendees. This was the basis of the City blacklist and subsequent Federal case.
Later, in 2017, an additional AoA at the Zoo listed two individuals and resulted in a confrontation with police, but no arrests. Neither of the two Zoo AoAs were notified to the listed individuals, in violation of the procedure specified on the AoA form. In addition, a forgery was committed as proven by a form which had a second subject added over the same signature. This addition of subjects happened in several AoAs in the 2018 corpus.
In 2019, an animal welfare activist, Dan Rosson, was placed on an AoA after incurring the wrath of City COO, Doug McGowan and officials at the Animal Shelter.
Later, in the summer of 2019, industrial activist Rodney Fisher, was functionally fired from his contract logistics job by an MPD officer sent to his house. Fisher captured video of the event, implicating a senior MPD officer in the process.
With the addition of two new politically-motivated AoAs in 2019, a clear pattern of the abuse of this off-the-books system as reprisals for political actions emerges.
First look at the AoAs.
MPD have started writing a new version of the AoA form, still titled AA0306, but containing much more data and appearing to be the result of a booking-style process, with fingerprints and photographs. We saw one outlier in April and several starting in June 2019.
As you can see from the sample pictured, which is redacted, the new form records police report and booking numbers, drivers license, address, date of birth. Before, it was just name and physical characteristics.
This form has the appearance of something that was produced by a booking process. The legality of police fingerprinting and photographing a person who is not being booked for a crime is questionable, and holding sensitive information in a file which is public record may also be a HIPPA issue.
We redacted personally identifying information for this illustration, although that information is in the database as released by MPD as public records.
Race Analysis
MPD categorizes everyone by race. Only eleven AoAs, less than three percent of the total, did not track the subject by race.
So we went ahead and graphed it. 83% of respondents were African American, two percent fewer than the 2018 report.
Whites represented 14% of the total, up two percent from last time.
There were a total of 12 Asian, LatinX and Other individuals.
In view of the over-representation of African Americans in the AoAs, this may provide evidence of MPD’s racial profiling.
Age
We noticed an individual as young as eleven years of age on an AoA in the 2018 report, so this time we collected age, where it was given in the AoA. This time, the youngest were two individuals aged 13, two more aged 14, eleven aged 15, fourteen aged 16 and nineteen aged 17. These 48 individuals were too young to be charged with a crime, and a quasi criminal process like AoA may not be appropriate for juveniles.
Age was not given in 23 cases. The oldest was one individual aged 78, there were five people over seventy and seventeen in their sixties.
AoAs by Officer
Some were curious about the distribution of AoAs by officer. We found that the 473 AoAs were distributed by 220 officers, including three postal police, so a little more than 10% of cops use AoAs. Seventeen AoAs had no police signature, in violation of the procedure outlined on the form itself.
The 49 most prolific officers wrote three or more AoAs for a total of 231, roughly half the total number. Officer M. Lester wrote eleven, followed by J Holmes with ten, and the leading 17 cops with six or more AoAs wrote a total of 123, more than a quarter of the total.
AoAs as reprisal, harassment or punishment
We wrote in 2018 how the Mayor placed 43 individuals on an AoA for his property in retaliation for a “die-in” protest in which no more than a dozen people participated. Lieut Bonner of the City Hall detail added a stricture that the “A-list” people were to be escorted while in City Hall. The rest is history.
We also documented the existence of two AoAs at the Zoo, with Maureen Spain and Fergus Nolan being banned from this public facility a couple of days after their May 2016 arrest at the zoo, against whom no crime was committed. An additional AoA was issued for Fergus Nolan and Hunter Demster at the Zoo in 2017 on another occasion where no crime was charged. On these two occasions, the police used the AoA as a political weapon on behalf of themselves or others. (Author’s note: I was on all three of the AoAs mentioned above. )
In our new dataset, we include two AoAs of which we had written before:
Dan Rosson was targeted by City Chief Operating Officer Doug McGowan and other city and Memphis Animal Services officials after he blew the whistle on conditions at the Pound. His AoA is page 1 of this file. (PDF).
Rodney Fisher was discussing conditions for contract workers at a logistics warehouse when he was informed by a cop who came to his house that he was effectively fired via AoA. His is on page 3 of this file. (PDF). There is video of the event as captured by Mr. Fisher on his doorstep.
It seems that MPD has a pattern of harassing not only generally disadvantaged individuals with AoA, but there is also a pattern of AoA use by police as a reprisal for political action and views of which they disapprove, and this is tied in to the keeping of files and social media snooping on activists.
Data description
#: is an arbitrary number
Business: Name of the business
Street#, Street: as labeled
Business Catg: Type of business
Surname, First Name: as labeled
Race: As described by MPD
Date: Date of AoA as signed by police
Source file See Page: Clickable link to the .PDF scan of the AoA
# Pages: Number of AoA pages in the source file
Page: The page number of this AoA in the file
Note: There is additional information on the AoA. This and the following fields are newly added since the 2008 version of the spreadsheet
Count: it is always 1
Station: MPD station originating the AoA
Ward: A ward is a subdivision of a police precinct. We captured it when available
Officer: Name and IBM# of the cop who witnesses the AoA, when decipherable
Age: Age of the AoA recipient.
–concluded–
We have another Authorization of Agency case to share, this time that of Dan Rosson, against whom Memphis Animal Services, in collaboration with City Chief Operating Officer Doug McEwen, have created an AoA. Once again, the City has used AoA to silence a political opponent.
AoA and the City Blacklist.
Authorization of Agency first came to public attention when the City’s Blacklist was published on half a dozen AoA forms. Placement on Jim Strickland’s AoA was purportedly in retaliation for a December 19th Die-In action at Strickland’s, but it contained over forty activists’ names, far more than the ten or so protesters at that action. The list was correctly interpreted as a City action against a list of activists which MPD was managing in contravention of the 1978 Kendrick Consent Decree. The ACLU took the City and MPD to court and won.
AoA used against Zoo critics.
We publish some research on Authorization of Agency, compiling almost 1,700 AoA records obtained from MPD via Open Records Request. While 84.9% of the AoA victims were African Americans victims of police racism, a few, featuring Hunter Demster, Maureen Spain and myself were clearly in retaliation by the Zoo and MPD for harmless political speech. In my case, I was on two AoAs, one issued days after my 2016 arrest at the Zoo, which was judged by the courts to be a wrongful arrest, dismissed and expunged. My second Zoo AoA was illegally created by forging my name to an existing, pre-signed AoA with Hunter Demster, after we uneventfully visited the Zoo. Again, this was an act of political retaliation, supported by MPD files collected in violation of Kendrick.
MPD working for private employer with AoA.
Last week, we wrote about Rodney Fisher’s AoA at DHL/Nike. In this case, Mr. Fisher’s employer used MPD to inform him that he had been fired, in retaliation for political speech at his place of employment. The MPD Lieutentant Colonel who ordered the patrolman to inform Mr. Fisher was quoted as saying he had been targeted for non-existent “threats” made via social media, indicating that Mr. Fisher’s first amendment speech on political subjects had been investigated, and that a social media search had been performed by MPD.
New: Dan Rosson’s AoA
Now, we have a new AoA of concern, against animal activist and dog rescue volunteer, Dan Rosson. In this case, city employees at Memphis Animal Shelter and City Chief Operating Officer, Doug McGowan, were behind the retaliatory use of AoA.
Dan Rosson was a long-time volunteer at Memphis Animal Services. He was a dog foster, caring for shelter dogs at his home, and performing various tasks at the shelter. He photographed dogs and helped document their temperaments among other valuable services that saved money for the City and the lives of many dogs scheduled for euthanasia.
Mr Rosson recounts an incident at a Collierville vet, when a dog, which had been secretly labeled as potentially vicious by MAS. attacked another dog. Rosson subsequently, at an April 2018 MAS advisory board meeting, called for volunteers to be warned about dogs labeled as problematic. Mr Rosson, in the following months, also shared a long list of administrative issues at MAS that he wanted addressed.
On February 13th 2019 Mr Rosson posted on Facebook about some critically ill pups who needed urgent veterinary treatment. He had been banned from transporting animals and no-one else was available to drive the pups to the vet.
Mr Rosson, as a proponent of the humane treatment of animals, was upset at the unnecessary suffering caused by the delay in the treatment of the canines.
On February 14th, Mr Rosson circulated a petition to volunteers and others, and engaged in first amendment protected speech critical of the City administration of MAS. The petition asked the City to promote due process and prevent First Amendment abuse by MAS officials, naming MAS director Alexis Pugh.
On February 18th, Mr Rosson posted that City Chief Operating Officer Doug McGowan had allegedly called Rosson’s former employer, University of Tennessee. Mr Rosson is retired from UT but had availed of the customary policy of allowing retirees to continue using their UT email. UT canceled Mr Rosson’s email account with resultant chilling effect on his ability to engage in free speech on this issue.
On the 20th, Mr Rosson received some Open Records Requests information from the City attempting to clarify the MAS policies on administering volunteers and asking for records on his own case, and the petition was delivered to the Mayor and City Council. That was the day the AoA was signed by Alexis Pugh.
On February 21st Mr Rosson was informed that he would be arrested if he set foot at MAS and was informed of other charges made by Pugh against him. These additional charges might constitute illegal acts but were not recorded (as sometimes happens) as marginal notes on the AoA. This suggests that MPD was maintaining other documents relating to Mr Rosson. This implies the existence of an investigation, which, being likely to uncover political information relating to Mr Rosson’s communications with the City and MAS, should have been approved by Police Director Rallings pursuant to the Kendrick Consent Decree, which had been well aired in Federal court by this time.
The accusations made by MAS management, if they could be substantiated, should have resulted in a police investigation. Mr Rosson has not been charged with any offense relating to alleged incidents at MAS.
We believe that Mr Rosson’s case is an clear example of AoA being used by MPD to harass political opponents of the City, which is a pattern we have been seeing lot of.
Note on Authorization of Agency.
If you are told, by MPD or property management, that you will be arrested if you set foot on a given property, ask if you are on an AoA.
If you are on an AoA, you can get the document for free via the City Open Records portal. You need to specify a date range, which should be a few days before and after the date you are informed. You need the address of the premised, and also the MPD precinct and ward in which it is located, which you can look up in the link.
Sometimes AoAs are placed without informing the victim. In this case you find out about it at some later point, when you visit the premises. In that case, figure out when the AoA was placed and straddle that date in your open records request.
Share your AoA adventures with us. If you feel that the AoA is the result of an MPD investigation not approved by the Director, or if its deficient due process is being used to threaten or intimidate you, or to impede your constitutional rights, contact the MPD Court Monitor. Read our AoA information. If you are arrested for trespass on an unposted location without being given notice to depart, share this information with your attorney.
— concluded —
Rodney Fisher made video of a visit from an unidentified MPD officer on the evening of July 25th, around 10 PM. Fisher is admin of the Memphis (Real News) facebook page.
We transcribed the conversation.
Police Officer: (talking on phone outside front door): AoAs, all right. Yes, sir. (Hangs up cellphone).
Police Officer: (talking to Rodney Fisher): Mr Fisher, I guess the lieutenant colonel wanted me to call you regarding the Nike incident or something. You worked at Nike, correct?
In our most recent post, we revealed the extent of MPD’s Authorization of Agency (AoA) program, inspired by Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission (MSCCC).
We did some preliminary analysis of the data and there are updated spreadsheets (CSV, ODS, XLSX). The update includes some address corrections and the addition of a business category field.
We saw the racial disparity in the initial AoA post. The profiling nature of the scheme, with seven times (84.9% vs 12.3%) the number of Black versus white victims of AoA is confirmed.
We broke down AoAs by the year the initial AoA was signed. 2018 is low because only half a year of data was collected. Years 211 through 2016 are incomplete because we asked in our FOIA for all AoAs between December 1st 216 and July 9th 2018. All precincts but one simply sent all their AoA data rather than selecting the data range we asked for. In addition, we noted many AoAs which were signed on a given date and had additional lines added over the same signature and date later. We have not quantified this factor as of yet but we think it will skew a couple of percent of the dates earlier.
We adjusted the yearly graph by doubling up the 2018 number to estimate a full year, and we added 15% to 2016 and earlier to account for the number of AoAs missing in our sample.
The graphs look similar. From small beginnings in 2011, the scheme grew to about 240 in 2014, then took a big jump to 665 in 2016 and plateaued out to around 600 each in 2017-2018.
We need to look for the impetus behind the 2014 and 2016 bumps. Most likely, some form of marketing or promotional assets were assigned to the program to cause these bumps. We’ll also submit another ORR to obtain the missing data.
We created a new field in the spreadsheet for business category and ran this report. The biggest category is apartment, which also includes mobile home parks, condos, retirement communities and townhouses.
The dominance of this sector may be the result of “Operation Safeway” which had a focus on apartment managers. The majority of these had a just a few AoAs, but complexes like Greenbrier with 48 AoAs and a dozen or so with double digits stand out. Clearly a number of apartment managements embraced the scheme enthusiastically.
The retail sector is largely a handful of AoAs in each store. All branches of chain stores are included. Three chains of dollar stores (Family Dollar, Dollar General, and Dollar Tree) had a total of 38 AoAs, which probably reflects the dollar stores’ well known skimping on security staff. Other chains with large numbers includes Walgreens with 24 and Kroger with 17. Otherwise, few retailers had more than three or four per location.
We think that, like with the apartment sector, that the heavy retail users had an internal policy to use AoA while the light users were probably recruited by police.
The food sector includes all vendors of prepared food and alcohol by the drink. The chains with most branches are the biggest offenders, and CiCi’s Pizza in Poplar Plaza’s 17 AoAs were associated with a well-publicized disturbance at the venue. We know that Operation Safeway targeted food establishments in certain areas, but we think that most of the rest may have been instigated by MPD, including the CiCi’s incident.
The hotel/motel sector includes hotels, motels and boarding houses, has a few stand-outs, probably related to prostitution. The manufacturing sector, though small, is dominated by Smith and Nephew who initiated 85 of the 100 AoAs. This is an anomaly which probably reflects a decision in management to use MPD as part of its security apparatus.
The gas sector looks very much like retail, and when you eliminate the effect of supplier chains like Shell or Exxon, not much stands out.
Public facilities include the downtown MATA terminus, with 24 AoAs and three at the Zoo. We talked about the Zoo political blacklist in the original AoA post. We dispute the legality of public entities barring members of the public.
Churches banned 37 people. It sounds unchristian to us to put people in the system. Even worse, schools had 35 AoAs, and we cannot envision a world where young people can be legally barred from education, or even where a school would involve the police in its disciplinary process.
Summary
We see some high-frequency users of AoA. These AoAs are probably due to business policy and may have been influenced by Operation Safeway in some way. The vast majority of AoAs have the potential of being instigated by police, including a handful where we know the case history.
We will follow up with additional analysis, including enriching the data and sampling some case histories to determine the marketing initiatives that shape the AoA usage curves.
–concluded–
We’ve been hearing about MPD’s Authorization of Agency (AoA) process. It surfaced in the media during the A-list controversy, where the actual blacklist was on form AA 0306, the Authorization of Agency form. We also wrote about a couple of Park Protectors who featured on AoAs at the Zoo.
What is Authorization of Agency (AoA)
Authorization of Agency is generally accepted term in real estate law, where it allows an agent to sign property documents in lieu of a principal.
Some police agencies have the concept of authorization of agency, the San Diego PD being an example. In the case of all police agencies we could find, the authorization of agency is a blanket measure against all trespassers, so it’s similar to posting your property.
MPD’s AoA is different. It specified the property, but also has one or more individuals who are barred from the property. This is unique to MPD’s version of AoA.
Normally, trespass does not occur, in the case of property that is not posted, until an accused person has been informed that she is trespassing, and is given time to leave the property.
The legal theory behind the AoA is that the persons listed has been informed that they will be trespassing without further notice if she enters the property again. It supposedly authorizes the police to act as an agent of the landlord in giving notice.
AoA is also promoted by Shelby Co. DA Amy Weirich as part of Operation Safeway. Anecdotally, we hear that it is used against the homeless, by apartment complexes and by businesses who seek to prevent “undesirables” on their premises. The data tends to confirm this.
Our Open Records Request.
We submitted an open records request for all AoAs filed since December 1st 2016, and received about 200 files containing over 1800 PDF forms, many of them older than December 2016. Most precincts sent all their AoAs. We think we have over 90% of AoAs.
As can be seen from the chart, there were 1697 unique AoAs in the data, and race was identified in all but 75. 84.9% of listed persons were Black and 12.3% white, with a couple of percent Latinx and a few Asians. African Americans are over-represented by a factor of 350% compared with the demographics. There are seven times the number of Black people over whites.
The original map can be seen on Google Docs.
Click the “Map” tab to view the interactive map, and the “Rows” tab shows the data, with the source field clickable to go to the source PDF.
The collated data table is available on Google Docs, as a comma-separated CSV file, Excel XLSX and OpenOffice ODS files. These files also contain the name of the barred person, a clickable link to the source .PDF and the page number to search within this PDF. (Updated 9/11/2017: updated spreadsheet with corrections and added business category field; CSV XLSX ODS.)
The map shows a large concentration stretching through downtown, Midtown, Orange Mound, Parkway Village and Hickory hill, with some outliers in Raleigh and Frayser. Most of these places are where the races mingle as in downtown and midtown, or in transitional areas where demographics are changing. But the vast majority of AoA listees are African American.
How AoA is supposed to work.
The forms are filled in by hand by the property manager and are to be witnessed by a police officer. They are maintained in the original form via scanning to .pdf. They are apparently kept in hard copy folders by ward which are carried in police cars. Many of the forms have a three digit ward number written near the top of the form. The data are accessed by manually searching through the forms in the book.
As manual, hand-written forms, there are no controls on handwriting, spelling or general accuracy. Many entries are hard to read, either because the original script is undecipherable or because the documents have been scanned, faxed or copied many times.
Many of the forms have additional data, such as sex, weight, height, and marginal notes with drivers license numbers or scanned licenses, phone numbers, addresses, behavioral notes, details of alleged offenses, car tags or descriptions. DL numbers, Social Security numbers and photos are redacted. Access the original documents to see additional data.
Although some property managers keep the forms on hand and initiate the application, the suggestion to file often comes from a police officer.
Problems with AoA administration.
The forms state that the complainant has notified the subject that they are not permitted on the property, but we have many instances where the subjects were not duly notified, and there is no checking or control on
- Fergus Nolan and Maureen Spain are on an AoA at the Zoo from 31/5/2016 but were not notified, see example.
- Hunter Demster was placed on an AoA on 9/28/2017 and not notified.
- Up to 12 protesters at the Mayor’s house die-in from 12/19/2016 were placed on an AoA, and an additional 40+ people who were not at the die-in were also placed on the “A-list” AoA, but only Keedran Franklin was notified, and not by Mayor Strickland, the complainant, but by MPD plainclothes police.
Lack of notification of being on an AoA can expose the subject to arbitrary arrest for trespassing while unknowingly being listed on the property.
The “protection” afforded a property owner by AoA is similar to an order of protection, in that it prevents an subject from approaching a complainant while on her property, but AoA does not embody the same opportunity to legally challenge the listing. AoA may be viewed as an attempt to bypass the safeguards embodied in the Order of Protection process.
The AoA process is not documented in MPD’s P&P manual, and has no maintenance or purge process. Conditions attached to the AoA listing, such as limited duration of the listing, cannot be enforced. We have examples of AoAs which were supposed to have limited one-year duration still being on file after many years. The AoA my still be in effect after the property is transferred to another owner.
The forms are supposed to be signed by the complainant and witnessed by an MPD member. We found numerous instances of missing signatures of both types, and signatures that were “witnessed” on a different date to the original signature.
We also found numerous instances where a duly signed and witnessed AOA form had additional names added over the original signature, which is a falsification of official records, as the purported signature and witness do not apply to the subsequent changes. We have instances where both the original form and the updated version are on file, and also instances where later names were added in a different hand to the original list. Forms should have unused subject lines crossed out to prevent subsequent additions.
Our example.
From personal experience, this example illustrates several of the problems with AoAs. On 5/31/2016, the day after their arrest at a Greensward protest, this AoA (PDF, see page 7) was created for Maureen Spain and Fergus Nolan, without notification. Their drivers license numbers were provided to the Zoo by MPD for this purpose, in violation of open records laws, which requires DL numbers to be redacted before sharing with members of the public.
Fergus Nolan unknowingly visited the Zoo on at least three different occasions in 2017. On one of these visits, he was with Hunter Demster, when both were asked to leave. Subsequently, on the 28th, an AoA was created for Hunter Demster, who was not notified.
During the incident described in our February blog, the police were seen working on some papers. Once again, for at least the fourth time, they failed to find the existing AoA for Fergus. The police added him into the existing AoA for Hunter. The two versions are shown above, where the second line was added in a different hand.
This illustrates what we think are common problems with AoAs. They are frequently altered to add more names, making the witness signature fraudulent. Subjects are often not informed of their inclusion on an AoA, making them subject to arrest if they re-enter the listed property unawares. The system is ineffective. Fergus Nolan’s 5/31/2016 AoA was not found on four separate occasions. In addition, the police often add confidential information to the AoA including driver’s license, social security number and photos, which are required to be redacted before sharing with members of the public, and the complainant gets to see this information.
Legal Basis
I’m not a lawyer. AoA form AA 0705 is another version of the form, and some are present in our document cache. It cites TCA 39-3-1201, which was repealed, as the authorizing statute. These AoA forms are still active.
TCA 39-14-405 is the successor statute to the repealed trespass measure and it does not mention AoA or describe its mechanism. We have consulted attorneys who believe that the process is not legal, but there has not been a legal challenge to date.
Due Process Issues.
As there is no formal record keeping system for AoAs, and as there are no regulations in the P&P manual, the records are chaotic.
There is no judicial oversight, means of correcting, changing data, purging outdated records, or appeal process.
We saw AoAs as old as 2011, and children as young as eleven listed, with no mechanism for parental involvement.
We saw one situation where the same policeman hawked the same AoA against and individual to four different businesses in an area, suggesting that individual police have a lot of latitude in applying this sanction.
The quality of the system, in terms of data accuracy, legibility, efficient access and data maintenance procedures is rock bottom.
We are aware of several AoAs which have been removed fro the database. These include the original AoA signed in January 2017 for the December 19th die-in, which formed the basis of the A-list. Also missing is a December 31st for Malco theater which had the names of Keedran Franklin and other CCC members who gave out free theater tickets. The deletions we know about occurred after political pressure was applied.
Summary
AoA is racist in implementation, has no legal basis, has no checks and balances, is unwieldy, capricious and ineffective, violates due process and has been used as a weapon by MPD officers against the weakest members of our community.
It is questionable if a police force can act as the agent of property owners, in violation of the State trespass law, without compromising their oath to uphold the law.
It needs judicial intervention.
–concluded–
In this Smart City Memphis article, “with the Memphis zoo parking design now revealed, the final decision is headed inevitably to Mayor Strickland’s desk after a week of public comment. That’s where the buck stops. There will undoubtedly be intense lobbying of the mayor by both sides. It is hard to see how the design, which seems senselessly to consume more than two acres of parkland at Overton Park, will not light the fuse for another round of vigorous opposition.”
First we had the City’s A-list, the blacklist of individuals requiring escorts at City Hall. Now we have the Zoo’s blacklist, the Z-list. This list has Hunter Demster and myself on it. It has another thing in common with the A-list – a mysterious MPD construct, the “Authorization of Agency” form.
Hunter called me on Tuesday February 21st and told me that the Zoo had posted photos of both of us at their security checkpoints. So we saddled up and arrived at the Zoo a little after 4 PM . We photographed our Zoo mugshots through the glass of the unattended parking shack.
When we got to the Zoo entrance, we engaged the Zoo attendants and asked them why our photos were posted, and they said that we were banned from the Zoo and we had to leave. They said they’d called the police and we should leave to avoid arrest.
Zoo employee calling MPD at Plaza entrance
Zoo employee at Plaza entrance.
While we were walking back across the parking lot, a police cruiser pulled up in front of Zoo plaza, and Officer Dan Adams dismounted. He called us, and we turned around and went back to the south-western end of Zoo Plaza.
Officer Adams was combative right off the bat. He said that MPD had an Authorization of Agency on us and we had to leave. We asked why we were being asked to leave public City property and mentioned that we had committed no crimes.
At that point, a second cruiser pulled up with an unidentified female officer. We asked for a supervisor because her colleague was raising his voice. She led Officer Adams a small distance away to the lion statue and they conferred briefly.
The officers came back over and informed Hunter and I that we were being detained. Hunter was cuffed behind his back by Officer Adams, led to Adams’ cruiser, parked in front of the Plaza and locked in the back.
The female officer locked me in her cruiser, uncuffed, but took away my phone and camera.
Here’s the video Hunter took of this interaction, from the first appearance of Officer Adams to where we were informed we were being detained.
At this point, the narrative continues from the back of Adams’ police car where Hunter managed to get his camera going and broadcast live. This video was featured in the Commercial Appeal article.
Antonio Blair and Mark Ravi take up the video narrative from the Zoo parking lot.
During the twenty minutes or so we were in the cruisers, the two original cops were seen in the video working on an Authorization of Agency form, which the Zoo and those police officers had said that they already had filed. An MPD supervisor arrived after a while, talked to the officers but did not address us.
Eventually, the two cops released Hunter and me, and waved a folded piece of paper at us, which they said was an Authorization of Agency. They said we’d be arrested if we again entered Zoo property. They would not show us what was on the paper.
Hunter was later interviewed on video. Channel 5 reported.
What is an Authorization of Agency?
I am not a lawyer. Tennessee trespass law is governed by § 39-14-405. This requires a subject to be advised that she is trespassing, and be given an opportunity to leave, before trespassing can be alleged. There’s also a provision for property owners (or “employers”) to pay a fee to the Secretary of State to have their property listed on the No Trespass Public Notice List.
Besides the Z-list, we saw Authorization of Agency (AOA) used in the A-list (PDF). The list is printed on MPD form AA0306, their Authorization of Agency form. The form is entitled “Listing of Persons Barred from Premises”. In theory, the named property owner has previously notified the named individuals that they are banned from the named property. The A-list AOA was written for Mayor Strickland’s home address, and contains 57 activists’ names, Other individuals who were already on the City Hall exclusion list were added to the A-list, without being on an AOA form. There were some individuals listed twice on the A-list.
Lieut. Albert Bonner, MPD head of City Hall security at the time, had extracted the 57 names from active MPD political intelligence files, had the Mayor sign the order, and added a note in the corner of each page saying the named individuals were required to have an escort in City Hall. The rest is history. The ALCU court case is ongoing.
Another prominent misuse of the AOA is Amy Weirich’s (Shelby Co. DA) “Operation Safeway” , which has been used to harass homeless individuals and for fishing expeditions.
We can’t find any law locally that modifies the State law, or any regulation in the MPD Policy and Procedures manual relating to the Authorization of Agency. Several cities in California, Virginia, Alabama and Oregon have a similar letter, but it does not designate individuals and is like the Tennessee law, in that the property must be posted.
Authorization of agency, as a legal term, is usually a form of power of attorney authorizing a representative to act in relation to specific transactions.
We have concerns as to the legality of the AOA, its use to implement a political blacklist by a quasi-Governmental City contractor, and the absence of due process around the device. This may well be a civil rights matter, especially in view of its repeated use as a blacklist.
Hunter and my previous Zoo visit.
The SmartMemphis article is unclear about why we were banned by the Zoo. The answer may lie in our previous visit to the Zoo. After reports that chainsaws had been heard somewhere north of the 17 Acres, Hunter and I decided to visit the Zoo during Free 3-hour Tuesday on 26th September 2017.
We entered the Zoo without incident and walked eastwards towards the Reticulated Giraffe enclosure on the eastbound tram route. Along the way we noticed that two Zoo employees were following us. We checked out construction of an ice rink that was in progress east of the giraffe house, and then turned back towards the Zoo entrance.
Zoo security on Sept 26th
Zoo security guy
Along the way, we turned south towards the 17 acres, in an unfenced and unposted area used for Zoo employee parking. The two Zoo employees shouted at us from a 50 yard distance to leave the area. We immediately headed north back on the main drag and resumed heading for the exit, pausing from time to time to view exhibits.
When we got near the Hippo Camp, we were approached by an MPD officer in motorcycle gear. He asked us to leave, and the policeman walked Hunter to the main gate, while the Zoo employees walked behind me. When we got to the main gate, Hunter inquired why we were being asked to leave. The cop said that the Zoo wanted us gone and we’d be arrested if we didn’t, so we left. There was no violence or even raised voices, we never entered any fenced or posted area, and we left when asked.
I also visited the Zoo in June and took photographs without incident, and also took photographs in the Zoo parking lot and from a drone at various times in 2017.
What’s next?
“Save the Greensward” is planning an event, “Free Tuesday at the Memphis Zoo”, on Tuesday Feb. 27th. Park protectors intend to line up in an orderly manner for admission to the Zoo. Hunter and I plan to attend.
The Zoo Parking Plan, a highly defective document, goes to the Mayor for contract approval on Wednesday.
Memphis Truth Commission 