Posted on 03/30/2014 5:30:13 PM PDT by QT3.14
In 21st-century America, the most innocent of activities could have a SWAT team busting down your door. Reason profiles the Harte family, who were the victims of a SWAT home invasion after police raided their garbage cans (h/t Ben Domench). An unreliable field test falsely identified Addie Harte’s trashed teabags as marijuana, and SWAT leapt into action. The Hartes didn’t just suffer the trauma of the raid—they had to spend $25,000 just to find out why they were targeted.
(Excerpt) Read more at the-american-interest.com ...
I drink Brown&Bigelow “Constant Comment” and Lipton “Black Pearl”.
Come get me jackboots!
(I’ll make sure the cat litter is well used and in the trash so you can dig through it!)
They weren’t targeted over tea. It’s all about the WOD, which trumps your rights.
JBs being JBs.
If they’re too stupid to not know the difference between tea bags and pot, they should not be wearing any kind of a uniform.
What morons.
The family is lucky they didn’t have a dog.
What would have happened if the law-abiding residents were armed and ready to defend themselves?
AmeriKa is coming.
good thing they didn't have a dog...
Oo! Oo! Oo! Pick me! I know the answer to this one! They would have been shot where they stood. Every one of them. And each of them would be found to have been a “good shoot” because the police would, in each case, have been found to have been following proper procedures.
Don’t look now, but it might already be here.
Police field tests for illegal drugs are garbage. They misidentify common substances as contraband. No wonder the police often find out they were mistaken.
Article is a bit weak on details. I would like to know about the $25,000 to find out why they were targeted. Did the author think this wasn’t important?
End the WOD now.
“What would have happened if the law-abiding residents were armed and ready to defend themselves?”
Dead bodies on both sides. This is just nuts. Time that the government got out of the drug, alcohol and gun business. Just hope that when it does happen, that the cops get their collective noses bloodied. Something simply has to underscore that this kind of lawless behavior by LEOs is not going to be tolerated any more. And time to start Jailing Sheriff’s and Chief’s of Police who drive this kind of “law enforcement.”
“Police field tests for illegal drugs are garbage. They misidentify common substances as contraband. No wonder the police often find out they were mistaken.”
And I bet they refuse to document the reliability of the tests. Same as the drug sniffing dogs. They don’t want to document and show the truth, that it is BS. The actually value would fall well under any concept of probable cause if the truth was accepted.
Same thing with SWAT. A state had to ORDER their police to track SWAT use, reasons, accuracy, convictions, etc. Why? Because cops know that people would balk at SWAT raids because far too many end in crap like this story here.
Way short of dates, current status and possible outcome at link.
I DO AGREE that there is an over-use of SWAT but also know that there have been ugly incidents of out-gunned police in the past. Still I remember USAG Janet Reno’s various adventures in military attacks and USAG Eric Holder seems to follow that same meme, and the average citizen caught has the feeling of a fly under the swatter. This is NOT what the US Constitution authorizes but it seems endlessly compliant judiciary has lost their copy of that document!
Access to information can be very expensive, because bureaucrats often take the long road when it comes to releasing documents.
Since when is it legal for the cops to go through your trash that is on your property?
“Access to information can be very expensive, because bureaucrats often take the long road when it comes to releasing documents.”
“We can’t release any information, it’s currently under investigation”.
It will ALWAYS be currently under investigation.
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