Nick-Charles's Blog

Another "Isolated Incident"

(Check out what these SWAT goons did to this 86 year old woman! BTW, insurance does not cover "acts of the government")

From

http://www.theagitator.com/2008/09/05/another-isola
ted-incident-22/

Last June, police in St. Louis broke in to the home of an 86-year-old woman, deployed a "smoke stun bomb," and turned her place upside down in what looks to be a mistaken drug raid.  A clergyman from the woman’s church has been trying to get an apology and compensation, but thus far has been rebuffed by city officials.

“We’ve been battling since June,” Brown said. “The (police) board is for the birds, when it comes to citizens. I talked to one board member, but he was very insulting.

They just closed the door in our face.”

Valentine wants an apology from the department and compensation for the damage done to her psyche and home.

“She’s scared, and when she hears loud noises outside she thinks it’s the police coming in her house,” Brown said.

“When they realized they’d been had, why didn’t they just get everyone’s information and write a report for a complaint number and take it to the City counselor, who could get the right department to pay for damages?” Broughton said.

Instead, Valentine and Brown said the officers threatened to the take the elderly lady’s house when they left.

Police tore down Valentine’s door, ripped up her walls, sliced open her mattress, and seized a safe containing stationery.  They found no drugs, made no arrests, and, three months later, have made no offer to compensate her for the damage done to her home.”

Full Story Here: 

http://www.stlamerican.com/articles/2008/09/04/news
/local_news/localnews03.txt

and here:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/s
tlouiscitycounty/story/642875BCA98B721B862574B5000DD0C9
?OpenDocument

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U.S. To Broaden Local Police Spying On Citizens 

More federal intelligence changes planned

Washington Post

"The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that already receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months.

They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders."

The recent moves continue a steady expansion of the intelligence role of U.S. law enforcement, breaking down a wall erected after congressional hearings in 1976 to rein in such activity. The push to transform FBI and local police intelligence operations has triggered wider debate over who will be targeted, what will be done with the information collected and who will oversee such activities. Critics say preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime can violate the Constitution and due process.

 They cite the administration's long-running warrantless-surveillance program, which was set up outside the courts, and the FBI's acknowledgment that it abused its intelligence-gathering privileges in hundreds of cases by using inadequately documented administrative orders to obtain telephone, e-mail, financial and other personal records of U.S. citizens without warrants."

 

UPDATED LINK To Detailed Story: 

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
c
le/2008/08/15/AR2008081503497.html

PEOPLE once this takes hold, and it will, there’s no going back. We have become a wolf police state hidden in a republics sheeps clothing.

Question: Why is it that we, as Americans, never hear about this stuff until it’s done and never get to vote on it?

What American wants a  local "Barney Fife" spying and maintaining huge databases on them for god knows what reason and purpose?

Local police "gathering intelligence on us? Then neighbors "gathering intelligence" on us? Then our own children?

"Sig Heil"

Another Home Invasion By Masked Intruders In The Middle of the Night

NOW, just where have we seen the exact same tactics used?

Yep, that would be our SWAT teams serving a warrant.

What would you do in those 5 seconds when your home is attacked in the middle of the night? Call 911 and wait for the police? If this man had hesitated, he and his family would be dead.

If instead it had been a SWAT team serving a warrant for the son….. oh yeah, same outcome, the man would be dead and charged with assault. And the kicker, the police are still deciding whether or not to charge the homeowner!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/d...


"Kellie Hoehn was finishing one last chore before heading to bed early this morning when two men in ski masks shattered the glass on the front door of her Blue Mound home and pointed a gun in her face.

“It was the most horrific thing,” she said.

Locations of home invasions in Fort Worth and Blue Mound

Mrs. Hoehn said the intruders told her not to scream. But she called for her husband Keith and warned him that the men had a gun. She told her 12-year-old son to grab his 5-year-old sister and the two hid in a closet.

The husband began to wrestle with the intruders. Mrs. Hoehn grabbed the barrel of the gun, pointing it upward and away from the children. One man fled outside as the struggle continued.

Mrs. Hoehn grabbed a candle and threw it at the other man’s head. He became distracted, and her husband got the gun.

The struggle spilled outside the home, and Mrs. Hoehn said she screamed,“Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him.” She said her husband shot twice, killing the man. Mr. Hoehn also shot and injured the second intruder who had been sitting in a stolen Honda Odyssey. The man fled the scene on foot.

“I am not happy that someone is dead … but I am glad that my family is alive,” Mrs. Hoehn said.

Fort Worth police said Dakota Benoit, 21, died at the scene. The second man, John Pierson, 25, was apprehended about a mile away on Burlington Northern Santa Fe property by railroad police. He was attempting to clean himself in a fountain.
Mr. Pierson was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital where he was listed in critical condition, police said. He will face charges of burglary of habitation with intent of another felony.

Investigators are trying to determine why the home on Globe Avenue about 10 miles north of Fort Worth was targeted.

Blue Mound police Lt. Thomas Caine said it was unlikely they would pursue criminal charges against the couple. [Huh??? There's even a question about it???]

Police said the men had arrived about midnight at the Blue Mound home in the van stolen from an earlier home invasion about two miles away in Fort Worth.
In that case, Fort Worth police said, two men entered a home in the 2600 block of Calico Rock Drive about 11 p.m. Tuesday by going through an open garage. They confronted the 38-year-old homeowner and his wife in their bedroom. The couple's children were asleep in the home.

The men stole a laptop, wallet, jewelry box, the van and a police radio, which the homeowner had because he’s a member of a police crime watch group.”

None of us is safe from police raids

From The Baltimore Sun

"Prince George's County case offers a window into the brutal reality of paramilitary-style no-knock home invasions.

Imagine you're Cheye Calvo, the white mayor of Berwyn Heights, an affluent part of Prince George's County. Coming home one night in late July, you find on your front porch a large package that, unbeknownst to you, happens to contain a lot of marijuana. As it turns out, your spouse is the victim of a drug-smuggling scheme that targets innocent customers in the UPS system. You bring the box inside; moments later, the SWAT officers standing by break in and shoot your two beautiful Labradors. As the dogs lie there bleeding to death, you're held in the same room, handcuffed for hours. Nearly a month later, you have yet to receive an apology.

Now try to imagine that instead of a middle-class white man in the Maryland suburbs, you're a young Latino boy in Modesto, Calif. Shortly before dawn, in early September 2000, a SWAT team forces its way into your house. Thirty seconds later, although you comply with police orders to lie face down on the floor, you are dead from a shotgun blast to the back.

The officer responsible is later cleared of wrongdoing in what is concluded an accidental shooting - though it was not the first time his weapon had "accidentally" discharged during a raid. Alberto Sepulveda had just begun the seventh grade.

Or say you're 57 and getting ready for work in May 2003. A battering ram breaks down your door shortly after 6 a.m., and a flash grenade is tossed inside. You're coughing, you can't breathe, while the police search for a stash of drugs and guns they'll never find because it isn't there. Alberta Spruill, a church volunteer and city worker in Harlem, died of a heart attack on the way to the hospital.

Or you're a fierce 92-year-old Atlanta woman, frightened by the sounds of someone prying off the burglar bars that cover your door but determined to protect your home. The door is broken down; you fire one shot at the intruders before being shot at 39 times, handcuffed and left to die while the police (who have broken down the wrong door) realize their mistake and plant drugs in your basement. Two of the cops responsible for Kathryn Johnston's death pleaded guilty to manslaughter last year; a third was recently convicted of lying in the cover-up.

Many lives are lost, and many more are ruined, by these paramilitary operations in the ever-widening circles of survivors and families of those killed. You're in extra danger if you happen to be poor or a person of color.

No-knock warrants may be justified in unusual circumstances. But unreasonable, routine no-knock raids must be stopped. Police should do their homework beforehand, show restraint and use the minimum amount of force necessary in a situation. They must take extraordinary care not to enter the wrong house when conducting a raid. Most important, they need to be held accountable to the communities they serve.

The fact is, raids like the one on Mayor Calvo's home violate every precept of American liberty that is held up as integral to our "free" society.

We can no longer allow our supposedly democratic government to terrorize communities across the country with the very tactics that are publicly decried when used by defense contractors and our own military in Iraq.

That's what makes the Berwyn Heights case so potentially important: It is opening a window into the realities lived every day by innocent victims and survivors of the ineffective and destructive "war". Let's remember this case, keep this window open, and use it to address the misguided (at best), unjust and indisputably failed drug war policies that are destroying the fabric of our society."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-o
p.drugraid02sep02,0,5223646.story

SWAT GETS TANK WITH 50 CALIBER MACHINE GUN!

 

OH, COME ON!

This is just ridiculous:

http://www.policemag.com/News/2008/03/06/S-C-Sherif
fs-Department-Armored-Vehicle-with-Belt-Fed-Machine-Gun
.aspx

"The Richland County (S.C.) Sheriff’s Department has acquired an armored personnel carrier complete with a turret-mounted .50-caliber belt-fed machine gun for its Special Response Team.

Sheriff Leon Lott told the Columbia State newspaper that he hoped the vehicle, named “The Peacemaker,” would let the bad guys know that his officers are serious.

“We don’t look at this as a killing machine,” Lott told the paper. “It’s going to keep the peace. We hope the fact that we have this is going to save lives. When something like this rolls up, it’s time to give up.”

Who wants to set an over under on the first time they use this thing to bust a pot dealer?

UPDATE: Pete Guither found a photo of the thing, and the weird origin of the name the sheriff gave it. "

Article by Radley Bako

http://www.theagitator.com/2008/09/01/oh-come-on/a>

Can anybody seriously argue that things are not out completely out of control when SWAT teams get APC's with belt fed, turret mounted 50 caliber machine guns for use in our neighborhoods?

Picture of tank and SWAT team here:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/2008/09/01.html#a299
9

 

America’s Troubled House

A botched police raid that terrorized an innocent family says a lot about the state of mind in the U.S.A. today.

Excerpts from a Newsweek article, written by a US presidents daughter, and well worth reading. It defines clearly what is at stake for America because of the militarization of civilian police forces into SWAT units. The full article can be found at:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/152412

“It sounds like something out of a police state in another part of the world.

Or perhaps, if you pay close attention to the plight of the poor, a poverty-riddled neighborhood somewhere in America where drugs and violence define everyday life.

A police raid on a house, doors smashed in, guns fired, lives lost … and then the admission that it was all an unfortunate mistake.

But this time it happened in the quaint, small town of Berwyn Heights, Md., and it happened to the mayor.”

Mayor “Calvo went upstairs to change clothes for an evening event.

His mother-in-law was in the kitchen when she saw masked men with guns running toward the house. Not surprisingly, she screamed as they kicked in the door.

They shot Payton who was standing beside her. They then turned their weapons on the other black lab, Chase, who was running away from them. They killed him, too.

Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights since 2004, heard the shots just before he was grabbed and forced to walk down the stairs backward in his boxer shorts and socks into the waiting bloodbath. His mother-in-law was handcuffed on the bloody kitchen floor next to the body of one of their dogs.”

“Mayor Calvo came downstairs into a new time in America, in which no one is presumed innocent and guilt is only an assumption away.”

“While Chief High later expressed regret for the incident, he stopped short of offering an apology. And Sheriff Michael A. Jackson, whose department executed the raid, defended his department's actions.”

“These cases say something about our culture.

A country is not just defined by big sweeping events like wars and treaties and elections. It's defined by what goes on in neighborhoods, towns, homes.”

“ In the past eight years, we have seen our privacy invaded in the name of "homeland security."

We have all been living in a climate of "shoot (or accuse) first, ask questions later." And that attitude is contagious.”

“Imagine being Georgia Porter, one minute cooking dinner, the next handcuffed on the kitchen floor, inches from the bloodied body of a dog who was part of her family.

Imagine Cheye Calvo hearing the shots from upstairs, not knowing what was happening, and then finding himself handcuffed, helpless, forced to kneel in his underwear.

Imagine Trinity Tomsic dealing with her defiled home--not only did the police slaughter their dogs, they tracked blood all over the house in a search that yielded nothing.”

“You need to imagine all these things because, in a way, we all live in that house. It's called our country, and this is what's starting to happen here.”

The “official country Web site defines itself as "a county of livable communities." That's what we all wish for--a livable community, a home where we feel safe.”

“We want to feel that if the bad guys come, we can call the police and they will be the good guys.”

“We want to believe that if we're innocent, armed men with government badges won't handcuff us and shoot our pets and wave their weapons in our faces.

But more and more of us don't believe that.”

“The next president will not only have to deal with the economy, with global warming, with wars in other countries … he will have to deal with fear and rage at home.

A country does not only lose itself by what happens on other shores; it loses itself in living rooms, kitchens, backyards.

America will lose itself when we look around us and nothing feels like home anymore.”

You can never go back home, it seems.

FBI Releases Preliminary Statistics for Law Enforcement Officers Killed in 2007

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel08/leoka0...


“According to preliminary statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 57 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty during 2007. The total number of officers killed is nine higher than in 2006.

A breakdown of weapons used in these slayings revealed that firearms were used in the majority of incidents. Of the 55 officers killed with firearms, 38 were killed with handguns, nine with shotguns, and eight with rifles. Two officers were killed with vehicles.

At the time they were killed, 35 law enforcement officers were wearing body armor. Eleven officers fired their weapons, and 14 of the slain law enforcement officers attempted to fire their weapons. Four officers had their weapons stolen, and two officers were slain with their own weapons.

The 57 law enforcement officers were killed in 51 separate incidents in 2007. Fifty of the 51 incidents have been cleared by arrest or exceptional means.”

NOW, Let’s compare some facts presented by the FBI itself:

Officers Feloniously Killed By Year:

"2002": "56"
"2003": "52"
"2004": "57"
"2005": "55"
"2006": "48"
"2007": "57"

Total Number Of Police Officers:

"2004": "836,787"
"2005": "969,070"
"2006": "969,070"
"2007": "969,070"

Note: Total number of officers for 2006 and 2007 not found. It is assumed the number employed continued to rise during these years, but for this purpose the number has been held constant at 2005 levels.

PERCENT Killed by Felony:

"2004": "0.006812%"
"2005": "0.005676%"
"2006": "0.004953%"
"2007": "0.005882%"

Now remember that’s PERCENT killed and remember the number of police employed has risen.

So what does this tell us? While every death is unfortunate, it tells us this:

Cops are simply not being killed by the bushel load as people would have you believe.

The number of felony deaths has remained virtually constant (actually it has declined percentage-wise given the higher numbers employed in 2006 and 2007).

So the next time you hear that we need more and more militarized police (using the same military equipment as our fine soldiers in Iraq) because the cops are outgunned, or are dropping like flies – remember this:

It is simply NOT TRUE and never has been, according to the FBI.

We are wasting huge sums of money on these SWAT teams and U.S. Citizens are being killed or maimed and private property is being destroyed every single day across this country by them.

MORE HOME INVASIONS BY CRIMINALS POSING AS SWAT

http://www.theagitator.com/2008/06/03/crimina...


"Criminals are quickly learning that the quickest way to get into someone’s home is to pretend you’re police officers on a drug raid:

Three men — some armed with assault rifles — dressed in black T-shirts marked “Police” and said they were detectives with Operation UNITE when they burst into victims’ homes during the summer of 2006 to steal drugs, guns and money.

All of which makes forced entry drug raids all the more perilous.

Here’s another example(see link in full article). And my Overkill paper lays out about a dozen others.

Shows that even when the police do properly announce themselves (by no means a given), why should you necessarily believe them?”

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DEATH

“On May 18, police in Easton, Connecticut conducted a heavily-armed drug raid on the home of Ronald Terebesi, Jr.

They began the raid by throwing flashbang (stun) grenades through Terebesi’s windows, then battering down his door and storming the house.

Friends say at the time of the raid, 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan was visiting Terebesi to discuss the possibility of opening an employment business.

According to police, the unarmed Guizan charged the raiding swat officers, at which point they shot and killed him.

As usual, the police, prosecutors, and state investigators are hunkering down,

(see:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm... )

and not talking to the press

(see: http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_9408498 )

But some information is tricking out. Here’s what we know:

• Police found no guns in the home, but did find some cocaine and the two pipes, and have charged Trebesi with possession, which means there wasn’t enough to trigger an automatic charge of distribution.

So we have a heavily-armed, paramilitary-style raid conducted based on a tip from a stripper of drug use, not distribution. In the process, a slight, unarmed man runs toward the raiding police officers, and is shot dead.

I think it’s safe to say that Guizan likely had no idea the intruders were police.[Who in their right mind would knowingly charge into an army with automatic weapons and throwing grenades?]

We’re told over and over that even in no-knock raids, the police announce themselves as they’re coming into the home, and that everyone inside ought to know they’re being raided by cops, not criminal intruders.

But if that’s the case, why deploy flash grenades just before making entry? They’re designed to disorient and confuse. That’s the whole reason for using them.

You can’t at the same time say it’s necessary to disorient and confuse people, but that they also should hear, recognize, process, and believe the police announcement you make at the same time you’re deploying the concussion grenades.

The raid was done within hours of the tip from the stripper, so it’s unlikely the police did much surveillance or attempted a controlled drug by from Trebesi.

The police will argue the officer who shot Guizan was reacting to a volatile situation.

That’s all probably true, though it doesn’t account for the fact that the police created those volatile circumstances in the first place.

It also doesn’t account for the fact that had Guizan been the one who misjudged the threat and shot and killed one of the raiding officers, he’d almost certainly be in Ryan Frederick’s shoes right now.

Guizan’s parents—who lost their only other son in a car accident—are considering a lawsuit.”

Full article Here:

http://www.theagitator.com/2008/06/09/gonzalo...

Police “Testilying” Outrages Judges

A great New York Time report about the often used practice of police lying on the courtroom stand.

Below are some quotes. Full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/nyregion/12...


“But a closer look at those prosecutions reveals something that has not been trumpeted: more than 20 cases in which judges found police officers’ testimony to be unreliable, inconsistent, twisting the truth, or just plain false. The judges’ language was often withering:“patently incredible,”“riddled with exaggerations,”“unworthy of belief.”

The lack of consequences for officers may seem surprising, given that a city commission on police corruption … pinpointed tainted testimony as a problem so pervasive that the police even had a word for it:  “testilying.”

Whatever one makes of the legal debate, these cases offer a revealing glimpse into some police practices — in the street and on the witness stand — that have gone largely unexamined outside the courtroom.

Questions about police credibility can also hamper other cases. When a judge finds, for example, that an officer has lied, prosecutors must alert defense lawyers in other cases involving that officer.

Judge David G. Trager of Brooklyn federal court was so indignant over what he called an officer’s “blatantly false” testimony in an October 2005 suppression hearing that he told prosecutors,“I hope you won’t darken my courtroom with this police officer’s testimony again.”

The Police Department never learned of his criticism, and the officers — like many others whose word has been called into question — faced no disciplinary action or inquiry.

Judge, John E. Sprizzo of United States District Court in Manhattan, concluded that the police had simply reached into the pack without cause, found the gun, then “tailored” testimony to justify the illegal search.”

And the beat goes on and on and on ………

 Discrepancies found in Dallas officer's account of fatal prostitution sting shooting

 

 http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/
latestnews/stories/022008dnmetcopshoot.3824c21.html

 From the DMN:

 

“A Dallas police officer who says he shot and killed a 17-year-old as the unarmed youth tried to rob him has been placed on restricted duty while detectives investigate discrepancies in his story.

 Mr. Watson was struck once in the back and later died at an area hospital.

 

"There appear to be discrepancies between what the officer stated happened and the physical evidence," Police Chief David Kunkle said Tuesday.

 

Ed Moore, an attorney representing some of Mr. Watson's family members, acknowledged the teen was involved in an attempt to rob Cpl. Dominguez that night. “But if he wasn't threatening that officer's life, he shouldn't have died that day."

 

 Cpl. Dominguez got out of his truck and saw four men surrounding it, police reports state. He told detectives that he fired his .357-caliber semiautomatic pistol at Mr. Watson because he thought the youth was reaching for a weapon in his waistband.

 

 Mr. Watson and Cpl. Dominguez were within a few feet of each other at the time of the shooting. The detective emptied his gun. Mr. Watson was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:12 p.m.

 

 Researchers of police-involved incidents have found that it is not uncommon for officers involved in shootings to give little or no conscious thought to what they were doing, and often officers could not recall some of their actions. "On police shootings, you're asking an officer to recount what may be the most scary, frightening moment in their life," he said.”

 

 HMMMN. It seems this kid was a punk who deserved to be arrested at the very least and one would certainly not stand up for his actions. What is troubling about this unresolved story though, is the following:

 

• There appear to be discrepancies between what the officer stated happened and the physical evidence,

 

 • Mr. Watson was struck once in the back and later died at an area hospital,

 

• The officer states he got punched and my guess was rightfully pissed off,

 

 • The two were within a few feet of each other at the time of the shooting,

 

 • The detective emptied his gun, hitting the kid only once, in the back, from a few feet away.

 

 • The officer made numerous tactical errors (see full story),

 

 • Researchers of police-involved incidents have found that it is not uncommon for officers involved in shootings to give little or no conscious thought to what they were doing,

 

 • The officer was scared and in fear for his life.

 

 Here we have a situation where the evidence appears, at least for now, to not line up with the officer’s story.

 

 Note that the officer emptied his gun hitting his target, only a few feet away, in the back. Something appears to smells – we’ll have to wait and see.

 

The over-arching question relates to the last two points, which are both true and telling.

 

 It is accepted thinking that a police officer, finding himself in a situation in which he is “scared and in fear for his life”, gives “little or no conscious thought to what they were doing”. Now remember, these last two points were made as justification in support of the police officer’s actions.

 

Turn the tables.

 

 Billy Urquiza of McKinney for example, had his home invaded in the middle of the night, by masked gunmen, who deployed multiple deafening stun grenades, didn’t he? So one would expect he too would be “scared and in fear for his life”, and giving “little or no conscious thought to what [he was] doing”.

 

In fact, this reaction is true for any human being placed in a similar situation; but the expectation would be that trained police officers would be more in control because they train for these situations, correct?

 

So on the one hand we have support and probable exoneration for a trained police officer because he faced a situation in which he was “scared and in fear for his life”, giving “little or no conscious thought to what [he was] doing” as he emptied his semi-automatic. 

 

Yet, on the other hand, we have Billy Urquiza sitting in jail because from his bed, he defended himself from masked gunman invading his house in the middle of the night who, it turns out, were in fact the MPD SWAT team conducting an ill advised and unnecessary home invasion raid to simply serve a warrant.

 

It’s indisputable that the type of police officers who  train specifically for such situations are SWAT team members. In fact the SWAT team motto is a triad comprised of the elements: “Surprise, Speed and Violence of Action”.

 

 So I guess the fundamental question is, why is it fine for trained police officers (much less sidewalk warrior SWAT teams utilizing “Surprise, Speed and Violence of Action”) to be given a pass for shooting people because they were “scared and in fear for their lives”

 

YET,

 

It’s not ok for a home owner like Urquiza awoken in the middle of the night by gunmen attacking utilizing “Surprise, Speed and Violence of Action” to attempt to defend himself? Isn’t an untrained homeowner going to be more “scared and in fear for his life”, giving “little or no conscious thought to what [he was] doing” than a trained SWAT team who know what’s going on because they themselves are the people violently attacking?

 

Here is a blatant, undeniable and dangerous double standard in plain view.

 

Remember, the next time it could be you. What will you do when your house is invaded in the middle of the night by masked gunmen using “Surprise, Speed and Violence of Action”? Is it criminals attacking? Is it your friendly neighborhood SWAT team out on another of it’s ill advised raids to simply serve a warrant?

 

Will you instinctively try to protect yourself, your spouse, your children?

 

 One thing I can assure you. Like Urquiza, you will be victimized not only by “Surprise, Speed and Violence of Action”; if you survive the attack;  you will also be victimized by a double standard.

Man sues police over Home Invasion/Taser use

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/697539.html

Seven Woodland police officers burst into Tedral Thompson’s the other day with a search warrant – for a man (Thompson’s son) they already had in custody.

"(Thompson) walked from the rear bedroom toward Detective (Jack) Schubert with a fly swatter in his hand," the court document says. "Defendant appeared agitated and expressed anger through his facial expressions and body language."

The document says Thompson continued to walk toward Schubert, "yelling obscenities." A sergeant deployed his Taser fearing Schubert "was in immediate danger of being feloniously assaulted," the document says.

Thompson said he faced a man who pointed a gun at his head.

"He gave me one of those looks – if you move I'll blow your head off," Thompson said. "I looked at my wife and said,'Can my wife please put a blouse on?' "

"I don't think what happened to me and my wife is in the dictionary," Thompson said in a tearful interview at the Yolo County administrative building. "We were beyond being violated."

FBI officials have looked into the incident and sent a summary of the case to the civil rights division of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., which decides whether the office will launch a full investigation, said Steve Dupre of the Sacramento FBI office.

Tedral Thompson claims in the suit that the arrest was "in retaliation" for his past allegations that Woodland officers used unnecessary force against African American youths.”

Hmmm, yeah. Now lem’me see hearya chilr'n ....

• A “dy-nam-ic entry” to the home of a teenager already in custody,

• Seven cops claiming they were in fear of a half naked man and woman with a fly swatter who “expressed anger through his facial expressions and body language”,

• They Taser the crap outta the guy,

• They guy had complained about police brutality against African American youths.

Yessir, dat seems reasonable to me, don’t t’yall?

Kinda bothersome, tho. A man in his own home having a gun stuck to his face der, by a good ole boy w’ dat “if you move I'll blow your head off” look in his eyes. Now see here y’all da Police is afraid of a man’s “facial expressions” and dat’s ok.

But da man with da gun to his head ain’t n fear fo his life?

No Sir! Der’s something wrong der, I tells ya.

I’m justa hoping thos Federal boys bring some Union boys down hearya. And here I wuz, thinking’ dat “Civil War” was ov’r an we were free men.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SWAT TEAM

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

Interesting video and folk song in the vein of famous folk singer and activist Woody Guthrie by one American expressing his opinion of SWAT teams. Not for all tastes perhaps, but the underlying message about how many Americans feel about these standing armies is undeniable.

Video: SWAT Team Raids Amish School

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS_0YQSaNK0

“On September 14, 2007, Jefferson County Ohio Sheriff Fred Abdala took a fully-armed SWAT team and raided an Amish school to take two young children because of a domestic dispute. These are the victims.”

Listen particularly at 3:40 minutes into the video where the SWAT team is described.

What kind of bone heads are this Sheriff & band of thugs to take a fully armed SWAT team into a school full of children? An AMISH school, who of course are completely law abiding and non-violent people as part of their religion and lifestyle.

Just another example and more proof that “High Risk” warrants being served by SWAT teams are defined as anything the cops decide they are.

The "decision process" in this case probably went down something like this:

“geez we’re bored today, let’s play army!",

"who will we attack? A known violent gang?, a Columbian Drug Lord?";

"(laughter all around.......)"

"Hell no A hole, they are actually dangerous!"

"Who then?"

"How about some "high risk" AMISH PEOPLE?"

"Yeah!  We could terrorize the living crap out of them!"

"What are they gonna do - attack us with their beards and pitch forks????"

"(explosive laughter, falling out of chairs, etc)"

"OK ... lock and load, let's go get them AMISH Tangos"

"(laughter all around.......)"

ANOTHER SWAT TEAM WRONG ADDRESS RAID VIDEO

Watch the video and newscast below. Consider what it means when a neighbor, just returned from Iraq who clears mines for a living, describes the SWAT team members as “enjoying” trashing this poor mothers home.

The destruction shows clearly the mindset of the “best of the best, elite” paramilitary policing.

Look at what they did to the inside of the home and ask yourself,“why?, ask yourself “for what”?

Ask yourself if you are still living in America. This could be you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch...