Posted on 01/11/2016 3:40:20 PM PST by TroutStalker
A couple weeks ago, I posted about a case in Kansas in which a couple was wrongly raided by a police tactical team. Robert and Addie Harte and their two children were held in their home by armed officers for over two hours as the officers searched the house for marijuana. They found no drugs. After spending $25,000 to get a judge to order the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department to turn over documents related to the search and investigation leading up to it, the Hartes discovered that Robert Harte, along with hundreds of other people, became a suspect when Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Jim Wingo saw Harte, his son and his daughter emerge in August 2011 from a hydroponic gardening store and wrote down the Hartes’ license plate number.
About eight months later, Johnson County Sheriff’s Department deputies Mark Burns and Edward Blake conducted trash pulls at the Harte’s home. According to police, drug field tests on some wet plant material found in two of the trash pulls tested positive for marijuana. Based on those tests, the department raided the Hartes on April 20, 2012. The Hartes later learned that more conclusive crime lab tests on the “plant material†revealed it to be the looseleaf tea enjoyed by Addie Harte.
My post generated quite a bit of attention and outrage. Subsequently, Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy blog, hosted here at the Washington Post, took issue with the headline I wrote for that post, “Federal judge: Drinking tea, shopping at a gardening store is probable cause for a SWAT raid on your home.â€
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The 4/20 publicity stunt
“Operation Constant Gardener†was essentially a publicity stunt by a slew of law enforcement agencies in Kansas and Missouri. Sheriff Denning, along with other law enforcement officials across the state, had pre-planned press conferences on the afternoon of April 20th, which of course is the unofficial holiday of pot smokers. The press conferences were to announce all the busts and arrests produced by the operation. The public information officer for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department had already pre-drafted a press release under the heading ““Law Enforcement Celebrates 420 with Multitude of Arrests.â€
Ping for your interest.
My wife blends her own loose leaf tea. Good thing we don’t live in Johnson County, Kansas.
I buy my tea from Gentea. Awesome stuff. But looks can be deceiving! I gave a bag to a friend, and told him to hide it in his trunk, because if he were stopped for any reason, the fuzz would think it was pot. If you really like good tera, check out Gentea.
I am of the opinion that ANY use of a SWAT team should REQUIRE the local Sheriff to sign off and approve. That way there is at least the election recourse to remove the abusive user. Further, I am of the opinion that use of the tactical team should only be allowed in instances where there is life or limb in KNOWN jepardoy.
In this case, the team could have been outside, an officer approach and present the warrant, and ultimately, the tactical team never used.
I’ve brought oolong loose tea in bags thru TSA on biz trips. Waiting for the day it is a problem, I know it’s coming.
At home, used-up loose tea goes directly into the compost, perhaps bypassing nosy detective types.
This is what has become of LEO mentality in this country: “What there isn’t enough crime to fund our budget? Bullsh!t! Go out and find some damn criminals, and if you can’t find any, then create some criminals. Do what you have to do. We got to keep the gravy train rolling.”
This is why I support the decriminalization of drugs. The damage to our freedoms is much greater than any safety that the drug laws provide.
bookmarked
False no-knock searches and bogus warrants by Joe Smith are common in the inner city. The police play the odds like a door-to-door salesman. If they knock on enough doors, their bound to get lucky.
A major mistake of Constitutionalists is to ignore ripe issues.
Reminds me of Waco exc. no one was shot by LE. Funny how the big heads in LE line the dog & pony show up before all else. Only thing semi-positive to come of it is the sheriff will retire.
In the last 5-6 years I have lost much respect the law enforcement system. Due to my personal experiences with them, I now know they lie, fabricate, stand up for the actions of other leos who lie, fabricate, ignore the law, whatever. I am now quite suspicious of all of them. No, I do not welcome this feeling. I hope I do not lose my good naturedness.
I grow a plant that looks like marijuana. To the botanically ignorant. Star of Texas Hibiscus.
I grow it in the back yard. A Texas man got arrested for growing it in thefront. A kid got in trouble for taking a Japanese maple leaf to school.
Also cleome, chaste tree, and okra. Maybe any palmate serrated leaf.
Then I read about police office Jarrod Shivers, killed by homeowner named Ryan Frederick during a no-knock raid; evidence for the raid warrant included Japanese maple leaves.
Maybe I better stop growing the hibiscus. My Japanese maples have woody trunks - do you think any police officers think there is such a thing as Tree Marijuana?
Way back in the mid 70s, I attended a university in Kentucky that boasted the second or third largest law enforcement degree program in the US. The school also had the largest enrollment in Kentucky of VietNam vets.
One day I walked into the new student center and smelled the unmistakable odor of marijuana. It turned out to be acquaintance of mine who also was a law enforcement major. He was smoking a cigarette that he had put tea leaves into. It had the entire student center in a tizzy and especially the police majors who invariably froze on the spot when they smelled the odor. It was hilarious to watch them follow their noses trying to locate the source of the weed.
Harmless then but as this article shows, it isn’t so harmless when those in authority are so pre-occupied with burnishing their arrest records at the expense of common sense and smart investigative work.
I hope the Harts will own the town soon enough.
It all dates back to Clinton and the 100,000 more police on the streets. Standards were lowered and kept low. This is what you get.
The “War on Drugs” — allowing militarized police to put the boot of the state on the necks of families for decades!
I have a problem. I don’t like Nazis and I don’t like wannabe Nazis in equal proportion. Most of them turn out to be Lefties, just like the original Nazis in the Third Reich. But, in the modern day, it sometimes get complicated. In this case the Nazis include the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department who proclaim to working hard to cleanse the county of law breakers, include the evil druggies. Also included amongst the Nazis are the journalist and editors of the Washington Post who are all in favor of drug busts as long as they don’t show up at their apartments. And finally, the many loyal members of this forum who have no problem with the Sheriff trodding on peoples’ Constitutions rights as long as they were believed to be evil druggies that they were pursuing. Any finally a special mention to “The All Knowing All Seeing Oz” who doesn’t like the man who keeps publishing these annoying articles on the grounds that he is a dope smoking Libertarian who does not like the local Nazis rounding up anyone that they please on whatever excuse they find to suit them.
So to all the Nazis, whether they are in law enforcement, politics, journalism, dollar a day Freepers, or running the local ACLU chapter; I do not like green eggs and ham and I do not like you.
Barney Fife would blush at this idiocy. The Harte’s and the gardening store should file lawsuits and get a few million each for damages.
emerge in August 2011 from a hydroponic gardening store and wrote down the Hartes’ license plate number. “
Pretty loose lead there. Anyone going to the store is a preliminary suspect?
Better hope someone with a phone number the fbi or nsa is watching doesn’t dial one of your numbers by mistake...
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