the heavy militarization of cops - swat out of control!!

[Illuminated Profile]

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really long but good article linking off to other articles..

basically its swat teams for everything these days!

Two recent incidents involving SWAT teams are adding fuel to the fire in the emerging controversy over the routine use of such paramilitarized police units to prosecute the drug war. In Chicago, the Chicago Police Department has been hit with a $10 million lawsuit over a September raid on a social club. Meanwhile, in Florida, the Pembroke Pines Police Department Special Response Team, a SWAT-style unit, shot and killed a 46-year-old homeowner in a dawn raid June 13 that netted a whopping three-quarters of an ounce of marijuana.



http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/540 ... t_hodgkiss

comments section was 'interesting'

Do unto others

Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 06/22/2008 - 7:46am
Everyone needs to read The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In it he describes the only way this American horror will stop. When the Russian police did exactly what these arrogant and criminal thugs do he lamented from his cold rat infested cell (he was GLAD about the rats because they were a source of food!) that if only the cops were not secure with their own safety and that of their families, if only the population took out their anger on them and their families the cops would not continue their crime spree. If the cops feared that they would encounter armed and aggressive neighbors and that the cops families would pay for the crimes the cops committed then and only then would the terror cease.

In a simplistic description We The People must take back Liberty from this criminal government. Liberty cannot be given, it must be taken and held by force by an organized and ardent populace. These cops deserve death by the most painful of methods. If you commit a violent crime and go unpunished are you going to stop?

If you commit a violent crime and you AND your family dies as punishment what do you think that will do to the outlook of the other criminal cops AND their wives and children. Can you picture the divorce rate as the wives desert their criminal cop husbands? Can you picture the peace that will result when these criminals are eliminated? Are We The People human or sheep? If human do we not have the right AND duty to revenge against these criminals?

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/540 ... t_hodgkiss

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Police State: Cops Seize Beer

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homep ... aint_.html

More than a dozen armed State Police officers conducted simultaneous raids last week on three popular Philadelphia bars known for their wide beer selections. The cops confiscated hundreds of bottles of expensive ales and lagers, now in State Police custody at an undisclosed location.

The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board - a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania.

Based on a complaint from someone the State Police refuse to identify, three teams of officers converged last Thursday on the three bars, run by Leigh Maida and her husband, Brendan Hartranft. Checking their inventories against the state's official list of more than 2,800 brands, the cops seized four kegs and 317 bottles, totaling 60.9 gallons of beer, according to police calculations.

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Guy gets swat teamed, tacken to mental ward for Buying guns legally

Police act swiftly after gun purchases
ODOT worker who'd been put on leave is mentally evaluated after buying handguns, AK-47
March 09, 2010
By Anita Burke
Mail Tribune

Concerns about an Oregon Department of Transportation employee who purchased several guns after being placed on leave prompted law enforcement across Southern Oregon to step in.
Negotiators and a SWAT team from Medford police safely took a man — whose name wasn't released — into protective custody Monday morning in the 500 block of Effie Street, Medford police said in a news release.

He was taken to Rogue Valley Medical Center for a mental-health evaluation.

The man recently had been placed on administrative leave from his job and was "very disgruntled," the news release said.

ODOT Communications Director Patrick Cooney said there were administrative, personnel matters involved that limited what the department could discuss.

However, the state agency had reported concerns about the man to law enforcement agencies, who started monitoring him, officials said.
"We had concerning information regarding a personnel issue and were watching the subject," Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said.

In two days, the man bought a Heckler & Koch .45-caliber universal self-loading handgun, a Walther .380-caliber handgun and an AK-47 assault rifle, Medford police Lt. Bob Hansen said. All of those firearms were purchased legally, with required record checks by the Oregon State Police.
Authorities were "extremely concerned" that the man may have been planning to retaliate against his employers, the news release said.
"Instead of being reactive, we took a proactive approach," OSP Sgt. Jeff Proulx said.

Douglas and Jackson County sheriff's departments, OSP officers based in both counties and police in Medford and Roseburg collaborated, he said.
Medford police watched the man's home overnight, starting at about 9 p.m. Sunday, Hansen said.

Because he was known to have weapons, police wanted to defuse the situation and ensure the man wasn't a danger to himself or others before the neighborhood awakened and people started their daily activities, Hansen said.

Medford's hostage negotiators and SWAT team were called in at 3 a.m. Monday and arrived on the scene at about 5:45 a.m., he said.

About a dozen officers responded. They closed the street for about an hour and evacuated three homes to protect neighbors and prevent bystanders from gathering, he said.

After a phone conversation with negotiators, the man — who was alone in the home — agreed to come out, Hansen said.

Police seized the recently purchased firearms, as well as another .45-caliber Heckler & Koch handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun. Police are holding the weapons for safekeeping, but no criminal charges have been filed.

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... WS/3090315

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ATF gun raid sends us all a message
There's been an armed raid in Connecticut. Mary Ellen Godin of the Record-Journal reports:


A usually quiet mobile home park was shaken Friday morning when about 15 officers from the U.S. bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police descended on one of their neighbor's homes with force.

"They had their guns drawn and were surrounding the house," said Jennifer Monroe of Hosford Bridge Road. "These weren't small guns, they were machine guns. It wasn't normal."

"Machine guns"? You know, true "assault weapons," not the neutered kind the citizen disarmament cartel says you and I can't be trusted with, because they are "weapons of war designed only to kill people."

Except when deployed by the "Only Ones," they magically transform themselves into "patrol rifles"...

And the purpose of the raid? The compelling reason 15 heavily-armed police state ninjas used a battering ram on an unlocked door, assaulted and threw citizens to the ground, put guns to their heads, terrorized a man with a heart condition, destroyed and seized property, and generally trashed the place?

Because a son who "was arrested 34 years ago at the age of 17 with a friend who had forged a check [and] hasn't been arrested since" was living with his gun owner father.

"This could have been handled so much easier," Boynton said. "All they had to do was have an officer come to my door and tell me."

Indeed. But that presupposes you are dealing with creatures who feel any need to treat you like a citizen and respect your rights, Mr. Boynton. That presupposes you're dealing with Oath Keepers who understand the purpose behind giving government authority in the first place was to "secure the blessings of Liberty."

Perhaps it's trivial, but one of the first things that struck me was the inclusion of "holsters" on the search warrant. Then there's the question of why no arrests were made, and why, if having the guns and his son on the same premises is illegal, the raiders left a pistol behind--would that not subject the residents to further charges, further armed assaults?

And it also brings up the subject of prohibited persons. My position is that anyone who can't be trusted with a gun can't be trusted without a custodian. But back to our story:

"At the end of it when they didn't find nothing, they were real nice," Gilman Boynton said.

I'll bet--perhaps they realized things weren't exactly as their pet rat...I mean...confidential informant led them to believe (and what his incentive was has yet to be disclosed), and are anticipating a legal backlash. But they weren't so "nice" the veiled threat "that Paul Boynton could still be arrested because the keys to the gun rack were hanging up in the kitchen" wasn't made (perhaps to discourage that backlash?).

The object lesson here could not be more clear--we exist at the convenience and pleasure of the state. What we do, what we may possess, all are subject to permission and revocation that can, at any moment, be violently wrested from us. Nothing is ours. Not our bodies, not our lives. And this no doubt foreshadows some of that "change" and sets the tone we can expect now that the Bureau gets its marching orders from a new administration.

At least that's the way some see it. And we know how those of us who disagree with that are regarded.

This also brings up an interesting double standard. We know the names of the citizens who were minding their own business when all hell broke loose and their lives were put in immediate lethal and continued legal danger. In a free society, where citizen is supposed to be master and government the servant, why are the names of those responsible for initiating force protected?

And speaking of double standards, here's another one, a news report from Florida involving a cop and his wife:

A Polk County deputy disgraced by his family's pranks gave up his badge earlier this week.

Charles "Chip" Buckner resigned... An arrest report shows Bucker's wife, Gail, and his mother-in-law took his patrol car without his knowledge and drove around Lakeland.

And here's the kicker:

Gail Buckner is also looking at a charge of Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon.

"Law enforcement" clearly had first-hand knowledge of this situation. So where was the 15-man home invasion?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af9_1242734096

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Cop Finds Hair in Food; Cook is Arrested, Fired


A cop in Evesham, New Jersey went to a restaurant -- nothing too fancy; it's called Good Foods to Go -- and found a hair in his bagel. Instead of sending his story to our food blog or complaining like anyone else, the cop had the cook arrested.


The officer knew that he had given the cook tickets before, yet kept coming back to the restaurant, perhaps to humiliate the cook. The officer decided the hair was purposefully placed. The cook, Ryan Burke, 26, was jailed for four hours, had to come up with $25,000 bail. And he was fired from his job. Good Foods to Go's owner, presumably sweating heavily, told the Cherry Hill Courier-Post that the incident had "nothing to do with anything involving the business," and produced satisfactory health inspection reports. Punchline: The owner, the local PD, and and town manager all asked the Courier-Post not to run the story -- not because it embarrasses them, mind you, but because it "may trigger copycat acts and generally contribute to the discomfort of our officers." (The cop's name has not been released.) Courier-Post reporters, watch out; the Evesham police may decide you put some hair in their reputation on purpose.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninsca ... s_hair.php

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Phoenix police raid home of blogger whose writing is highly critical of them

http://www.CarlosMiller.com | 2 April, 2009 | Carlos Miller

In what should send a frightening chill down the spine of every blogger, writer, journalist and First Amendment advocate in the United States, Phoenix police raided the home of a blogger who has been highly critical of the department.


Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the officers confiscated three computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging.

The 41-year-old software engineer said they also confiscated numerous personal files and documents relating to a pending lawsuit he has against the department alleging harassment - which he says makes it obvious the raid was an act of retaliation.

Maricopa County Judge Gary Donahoe signed the search warrant that allowed at least ten cops to raid his home in North Phoenix on March 12 while handcuffing his female roommate for three hours as they tore the place apart.

Pataky, who was out of town on a business trip during the raid, also believes police were retaliating against him for the content of his blog, much of it which comes from inside sources within the department.

“They broke into my safe and took the backups of my backups,” he said in a phone interview with Photography is Not a Crime on Wednesday.

“I can’t even file my taxes because all my business plans are gone. They took everything.”

The search warrant lists “petty theft” and “computer tampering with the intent to harass” as probable causes. He has yet to see an actual affidavit that lists in detail the probable cause and is skeptical that one even exists.

“They say everything has been sealed,” he said.

The conflict between Pataky and the Phoenix Police Department began two years ago during “a nasty divorce” after moving out of the house he had shared with his wife. His said she was not taking the divorce too well and began filing false allegations against him accusing him of stalking and harassing her.

Many of the reports she filed accused him of doing things when he was out of town, he said.

So he began filing complaints with everybody from Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon down to Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris to no avail. He was eventually indicted for harassing his ex-wife.

A month before the trial, he and a few friends launched the website as a rant against the police department. When he went to trial in May 2008, his charges were immediately dismissed because of lack of evidence, he said.

“We were going to shut down the website after that but then all of a sudden all these good cops started hitting the site and sending us tips,” he said.

He said they would also deliver all kinds of internal documents from within the department exposing everything from a cop with multiple DUIs to another cop whose son was a child molester and was trying to get on the force (and was eventually arrested).

“We have about 50 to 100 retired and active cops who provide us information,” he said.

Police apparently believe one of the tipsters is an officer named David Barnes, who fell out of favor with the department in 2007 when he was a detective and went public with claims of mismanaged evidence at the city crime lab.

Police also raided Barnes’ home and according to Pataky’s inside sources, plan to raid the homes of more cops.

Police have been extremely vague about the nature of the raids, according to the arizona republic.

Police officials said Wednesday that a Phoenix detective prompted the investigation after complaining about harassment, though they declined further comment…

Phoenix Assistant Chief Andy Anderson said the harassment case is unique because of the connection to an unaccredited grassroots Web site. He said the blog is one part of the case, though he did not provide specifics of the ongoing investigation.

“This isn’t about the blog,” Anderson said. “That’s just where the investigation led.”

The allegation of “petty theft” against Pataky stem from photos he posted on his blog of police name plates that appear to have been taken from within the department. He said he actually made the plates himself.

The allegation of “computer tampering with the intent to harass” obviously has to do with his no holds barred criticism of the department.

Pataky, who has since purchased a new laptop, is taking the raid in stride and has added it to the allegations in his pending lawsuit.

And he has not let it stop him from blogging.

“They thought they were going to scare us into a corner but they just made us stronger.”



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Update: Below is the leaked memo from Phoenix City Attorney Gary Verburg advising Phoenix police that a litigation hold has been placed on the Pataky case, meaning all documents relating to the case must be preserved under legal obligation. The memo also recommends officers to “exercise caution and discretion” when discussing the case electronically

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=883_1239022056

Not even cops are safe - grow a soul on working with a child molester for examp or crook - bam your fucked !

I could literally find Dozens & dozens more of these (i've read them over the months)
Swat teams for some weak ass inane shit = police state!! duh we knew this.

[Theklown Profile]

"shot and killed a 46-year-old homeowner in a dawn raid June 13 that netted a whopping three-quarters of an ounce of marijuana."....
three-quarters of an ounce
that is far from anything to be killed over. i would give away that much simply to avoid a confrontation with the cops let alone be killed by them for it.
it is deeeeefffintaly not a 'whopping' amount. you could find that much on an 8th grader with a lot of money and little to do with his time.

[Boondox681 Profile]

in denver,this is the norm.personally i do not trust anyone who enlisted in the armed forces after 9/12/01.out of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who stood for hours at the recruiting offices,NONE of them were there for the g.i. bill program.they were there because the wanted to kill an arab.period.every single one of them are murderers before they even get a uniform.so no we take these unstable people,train them to kill,send them to kill and then send them home all fucked up with no help.the suicide rates speak for themselves.obviously a large majority join law enforcement,but the brainwash will never go away.they are trained to kill,whether it's an arab or an american makes no difference as all they know is how to follow orders.sad...but true

[Illuminated Profile]

in denver,this is the norm.personally i do not trust anyone who enlisted in the armed forces after 9/12/01.out of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who stood for hours at the recruiting offices,NONE of them were there for the g.i. bill program.they were there because the wanted to kill an arab.period.every single one of them are murderers before they even get a uniform.so no we take these unstable people,train them to kill,send them to kill and then send them home all fucked up with no help.the suicide rates speak for themselves.obviously a large majority join law enforcement,but the brainwash will never go away.they are trained to kill,whether it's an arab or an american makes no difference as all they know is how to follow orders.sad...but true

and just to Show how right you are on that..

the paramedic Choker.? iraq vet

[youtube]-wxPnJlJoFo&feature=related[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wxPnJlJ ... re=related

i'm not against soldiers or cops...
i'm just against barbarity, oppression, abuse & corruption

[Illuminated Profile]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ioL3B7qnU

&


Seattle SWAT raids wrong house based on neighbor report he 'looked like the suspect'
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a1b_1265385044

[E6722maj Profile]

that sucks

[Mep630 Profile]

I worry about the police force much more then the american soldiers. Least the soldiers care about the civilians. The cops would kill everyone no problems.

[Illuminated Profile]

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Please Please watch

[youtube]SXj97-G_1hs&feature=related[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXj97-G_ ... re=related

[Illuminated Profile]

OMFG ^ from above - Infragard

In civil unrest - martial law Bankers & other biz executives (or elitists)
have Federal Powers & Immunity to KILL YOU>


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1vIYgpCRpg

according to AJ its up to over 100,000 participants in 2009!

[Illuminated Profile]

remember Katrina emerg with evac orders!!


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

they went for the Registered gun owners!
so seriously only criminals would be left armed