Police perform house-to-house raids in Watertown MA ripping innocent families from their homes

YouTube ^ | Apr 20, 2013

[grundle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LrbsUVSVl8

Published on Apr 20, 2013

WATERTOWN, MA -- On Friday, April 19, 2013, during a manhunt for a bombing suspect, police and federal agents spent the day storming people's homes and performing illegal searches. While it was unclear initially if the home searches were voluntary, it is now crystal clear that they were absolutely NOT voluntary. Police were filmed ripping people from their homes at gunpoint, marching the residents out with their hands raised in submission, and then storming the homes to perform their illegal searches.

https://www.facebook.com/PoliceStateUSA

This was part of a larger operation that involved total lockdown of the suburban neighbor to Boston. Roads were barricaded and vehicle traffic was prohibited. A No-Fly Zone was declared over the town. People were "ordered" to stay indoors. Businesses were told not to open. National Guard soldiers helped with the lockdown, and were photographed checking IDs of pedestrians on the streets. All the while, police were performing these disgusting house-to-house searches.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I can say that searches could always work. There are hundreds of unsolved crimes now. Why isn’t it OK for the police to search door-to-door of every dwelling in a city, with a full lockdown, in order to find every person of interest that happens to be in the city?

There are always known criminals that are around somewhere. If the fact that there is someone who killed people loose is enough to justify locking people in their houses and police doing no-warrant searches of entire communities, then the police can do that any day of the week.

And if they run out, they can start searching for all those people who they THINK might be building bombs in their basement. I’m pretty sure if you searched an entire neighborhood, you could find something illegal going on somewhere.

[outpostinmass2]

Why don’t you ask these people how they feel about being called keystone cops:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/22/sean-collier-family-share-their-stories/dtrqb0ajfZajr3SNuNzBKL/story.html

[longtermmemmory]

yes

[outpostinmass2]

all that expensive equiptment.

all that overtime paid in training.

all those federal subsidies.

The most effective weapon against a terrorist was an observant citizen.

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You could also say this about the entire war on terror. Do you apply this logic to our military?

[caww]

I suspect some of those resisting their homes being searched probably had something there they didn’t want discovered.

[Kartographer]

Think of all the crimes that could be stopped or solved if the would just have periodic neighborhood lock downs followed by house to house searches. If you have nothing to hide then why would you mind? Just think how much more secure we would be?

[caww]

That’s not going to happen...you missed my point.

Saying again...I’m sure some would have had something to hide and resisted for that. ..and reasonable to assume that.

[palmer]

I’m sure some would have had something to hide and resisted for that. ..and reasonable to assume that.

Sure and since the searches were illegal any evidence gained through the searches against those homeowners would be tossed in a heartbeat.

[caww]

Might make them think twice next time around though. Never can tell when another search might come.

[brent13a]

If the search is illegal then all the evidence obtained of that search is “fruit of the poisonous tree” and inadmissible.

I do expect lawsuits to go flying regardless. Just because there is an issue does not give the police unfettered ego trips to play judge jury and executioner.

If all the police that went into the houses were summarily executing Jews and Homosexuals when they were momentarily detained to search their houses....
or
If all the police that went into the houses were now going back and arresting people for things they saw while searching for the bomber....
or
If all the police that went into the houses had imprisoned the residents they removed....or even arrested everybody and still had them detained....

then by all means there is a huge constitutional rights issue.
However, as far as I've heard no one besides the bomber was injured, or arrested.
So since none of those things happened, the alarmist bullcrap gets old, has gotten old, real fast.

[brent13a]

What is the alternative? The way we normally operate, in harmony with our Constitution.

Knock, identify, ask for permission. Ask questions to determine if the people in a home are under duress, if not, move on.

It’s not like the search actually found the guy. So all of the searches were an abject failure.

So you provided an alternative plan for every situation that doesn't involve a terrorist bomber/gangbang shooter/armed criminal of which law enforcement is in hot pursuit of.

It’s not like the search actually found the guy. So all of the searches were an abject failure.

I don't see how it was an abject failure, at the end of the search they knew where the terrorist wasn't.

[brent13a]

You want to know whats really sad? There are more people right now worrying about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Constitutional rights then there was people worried about the Constitutional rights of all those people who were locked down and had their homes searched.

I say, just to be on the safe side, all law enforcement must stay inside their headquarters offices, or police departments. Any and all pursuits of any criminal(s) be it in a car or on foot or on bicycle will be made illegal. Any arrests must be processed through congress for approval and only then can the law enforcement leave their respective departments or headquarters. That means major crime responses must get approval through their respective governors and such before law enforcement can respond to those as well. Let everybody fend for themselves.

You know, "just to be sure" nobody's rights are being violated.

[Daffynition]

Do we have any news of any residents who stood their ground?

[Daffynition]

I say resist.

[palmer]

So you provided an alternative plan for every situation that doesn't involve a terrorist bomber/gangbang shooter/armed criminal of which law enforcement is in hot pursuit of

Hot pursuit does not apply. The police were not in hot pursuit once they lost the suspect. If you want to use your own definition of "hot pursuit" that's fine, but it doesn't mean squat. The searches in Watertown were illegal unless the homeowners gave permission and not permission under duress as appears to be the case.

[palmer]

Let everybody fend for themselves.

Sounds good to me. If you want a police state (e.g. no 2nd, 4th, 5th) then move to Japan. Don't bring it here.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Maybe. But they couldn’t be sure he hadn’t managed to sneak around them and moved into a house they had already searched.

During the time of the DC Sniper, after every shooting, the police would set up obtrusive roadblocks, stopping every car. Toward the end, that included major highways, and there would be multiple-hour backups.

And at least twice, the actual sniper was able to drive through these checkpoints.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

You look at that picture and tell me who are those people at that moment more affraid of the terrorist or the police?

Of course people were afraid.

A homicidal islamist terrorist was loose in a residential neighborhood. Earlier that night he and his brother had carjacked, robbed money, and murdered a 26-year-old MIT cop named Sean Collier. Something on the order of 200 rounds were spent. The younger brother actually killed the older brother by running him over in the street to escape from the cops.

Then the next day, paramilitary police roamed several blocks of the residential neighborhood searching door-to-door for the islamic terrorist, who, we have every reason to have believed, would have been perfectly content to go out in a blaze of glory.

Of course people were scared. The whole effing day was unsettling. The whole week was.

And you're latching on to this fear to make political hay.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

You seem to think that if the government isn't marching us to camps as we speak, then there is no danger to the Constitution.

Untrue.

I invite you to look at my posting history to get an idea of my feelings on this general subject.

I join my fellow FReepers in stating I believe the case law carving out the exigency exception defines the exception to be narrow and specific - that an officer may enter and search a particular place for a particular person or items without a warrant - when there exists an emergency situation, subject to judicial scrutiny.

An armed and dangerous islamist terrorist who had committed an act of mass murder a few days earlier, and had just murdered a cop named Sean Collier, engaged in a gun battle with cops on the streets in which 200 rounds were fired, carjacked someone and then robbed the person of his money, and was now on the loose in a densely settled metropolitan neighborhood rather fits the bill of an emergency situation, does it not?

I do not believe that the Boston searches were conducted in this way. To mock this position as a "sky is falling" cry is to ignore that many of us opposing the police actions in Boston have legal and criminal justice backgrounds.

No, I'm mocking the reactionaries here who are trying to make hay for their political beliefs out of this tragedy.

I was about a half mile away, as the crow flies, from where the first bomb went off. I saw paramilitary-style cops in full black combat gear and M4s all over my city the entire week, including, ironically enough, in front of the statue of Samuel Adams in front of Faneuil Hall. I saw big black humvees that looked like armored personnel carriers rumbling through the streets all week. Three DHS special forces vehicles are still parked outside of Boston Garden on Causeway Street.

I get it.

But enough is enough. This wasn't the King's Troops busting down doors to root out radicals, subversives, or undesirables. This was cops trying to keep their people safe, and this was people working with the cops to keep themselves safe AND nail the fucking bastard who did this to our city and to our people.

Let's keep our eyes on the prize and keep our powder dry for when we truly need it. Now is not the time, and when this kind of crap gets posted all over Free Republic, and people on our side buy into it, we walk right into the stereotype, and look exactly like the paranoid freaks the left likes to paint us out to be.

[don-o]

Well said and I copied it over w/o the F bomb which might get it deleted.

---

An armed and dangerous islamist terrorist who had committed an act of mass murder a few days earlier, and had just murdered a cop named Sean Collier, engaged in a gun battle with cops on the streets in which 200 rounds were fired, carjacked someone and then robbed the person of his money, and was now on the loose in a densely settled metropolitan neighborhood rather fits the bill of an emergency situation, does it not?

I was about a half mile away, as the crow flies, from where the first bomb went off. I saw paramilitary-style cops in full black combat gear and M4s all over my city the entire week, including, ironically enough, in front of the statue of Samuel Adams in front of Faneuil Hall. I saw big black humvees that looked like armored personnel carriers rumbling through the streets all week. Three DHS special forces vehicles are still parked outside of Boston Garden on Causeway Street.

I get it.

But enough is enough. This wasn’t the King’s Troops busting down doors to root out radicals, subversives, or undesirables. This was cops trying to keep their people safe, and this was people working with the cops to keep themselves safe AND nail the bastard who did this to our city and to our people.

Let’s keep our eyes on the prize and keep our powder dry for when we truly need it. Now is not the time, and when this kind of crap gets posted all over Free Republic, and people on our side buy into it, we walk right into the stereotype, and look exactly like the paranoid freaks the left likes to paint us out to be.