SWAT tries to take down Internet meanie; raids grandma instead

rt.com ^ | 27 June, 2012 | NA

[Strategerist]

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/jul/01/no-headline-—ev_threat/

Basically some guy turned himself in (to the paper, strangely) - lived two houses down the street and indeed was using the wifi of the house that was raided. Apparently saw the raid.

Really oddly written article - police were looking for a (different) 21 year old guy they thought was at the address raided who also was in unspecified “troubling” photos (I bet there were pictures of him with a.........GUN or something horrific like that.)

[BigpapaBo]

One day.... This is going to happen to a law abiding citizen where the citizen turns the tables on these thugs. Imagine the thugs being hunted down individually in their homes while they are sitting down for dinner. Someone is going to snap. Especially when innocents are gunned down by a SWAT team due to a “mistake”. I hope it never happens, but I believe it will. (no, not by me, I don’t own guns anymore)
If I was on a jury for the citizen, (If he has one) I wouldn’t convict him.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

WHO wears masks in the commission of criminal conduct or "executing their duties?"

Bank Robbers:

Anarchists:

Islamic Jihadist Terrorists:

Oh yeah, and COWARDLY SWAT Team members
who are afraid to have their identity known....
for what reason, one might ask rhetorically...
as if we didn't know???

[starlifter]

I think you have it wrong. Grandma has nothing to prove.

[Boogieman]

Well, if you are making specific threats to murder people and commit acts of terrorism, then yeah, that is an instance I can see where the SWAT team approach might be warranted. One of the very few instances.

[Venturer]

Yes: I lost all of my guns in the big Duck Hunting mishap a few years back.

[MaxMax]

What the police don't seem to comprehend is that if some nutjob wants
them, there is nothing to stop them. Sure the nut may be killed in the end
but it's not rocket science to stalk or kill anybody.

I fear that too many will die before the police rage ends.
And they used the media to show off their (Look at us) asses.

[X-spurt]

Zactly!

But hey, they have to justify the pile of moolah blown on all that nifty SWAT shite some way.

Sounds a bit CS to raid Granny instead of some potentially well armed jerk, then again CS is interchangable with LEO.

[Lazamataz]

Dude definitely doesn't want to be posting how he's gonna 'hit' a cop's house and that he's got explosives.

That said, they need a lot less gestapo and a lot more information gathering.

[hoosiermama]

Since I'm a grandma and might make a comment or two, was being a bit sarcastic.

[hoosiermama]

Thanks for the update.

[starlifter]

mea culpa

[robowombat]

Actually these things have happened but are sent down the memory hole after appearing in the news. A decade or more ago a mentally disturbed man who had violated no laws but who aggravated Alexandria Virginia cops by conducting ‘counter surveillance’ of them was visited by the Prince William County Virginia Swat team. As the Swat boys were just about to break down his door this citizen , who was not napping, suddenly opened the front door and shot the commander of the Swat team in the throat . It was a fatal wound. The rest of the team then fled in disarray and started firing on the residence. Many more cops arrived and an extended gun battle ensued.The resident kept firing at the army of police and sent a couple more to the hospital. Eventually after several thousand rounds were fired by the forces of order the resident was fatally wounded. The Prince William County cops were obviously enraged that they had been made look like fools and their was a lot of hot air vented about the need for more gun control laws. Something, I am happy to say , the Old Dominion has been universally resistant to. I am sure there have been other such events when one man has managed at the risk of his life to make an army of heavily armed state officials look like Santa Anna at the Alamo.

[NormsRevenge]

“To bring a whole SWAT team seems a little excessive,” says Milan.

Authorities say it should prove their point, though.

—

OH Yeah. Their point. Which is.. ?

[Wallace T.]

SWAT teams behave like Keystone Cops with military grade weapons. They need to be disbanded, except possibly for one or two units per state associated with the State Police agencies, which usually have better standards than the local cops.

[zeugma]

. Imagine the thugs being hunted down individually in their homes while they are sitting down for dinner.

I'm surprised this isn't already happening. Maybe it is, but they aren't reporting it.

[TXnMA]

I believe you should have said, "Santa Ana at San Jacinto."...

[robowombat]

Well in this case it was like the Alamo as the massive police fire power did prevail over a lone rather screwed up individual. The disproportionate force correlation and the siege of a private residence was Alamo like. The Prince William PD didn't do much crowing but tried to cause this fellows family some grief for financially supporting him and ‘allowing him to have guns’. The bottom line was this man committed no crimes. It is not a crime to surveil police or while foolish it is not criminal to write down plate numbers of police vehicles parked in a restaurant parking lot. (The Alexandria Virginia Police liked to gather at the Sizzler that was then on King Street where the new Alexandria Library is now located. This fellow would collect their plate numbers. One Alexandria cop caught his plate number and ran it and from that his address was found out and a complaint sent to the Prince William cops that this fellow was some sort of menace. Prince William County decided to send the jack booted thugs forth to crush this guy. Unfortunately it didn't quite go down that way.) This was the first example of real disproportionate overreaction and use of paramilitary tactics for no reason against a citizen I had encountered. I thought it was very disturbing and the ‘he had it coming’ attitude of most coworkers to be even more disturbing. Admittedly these people were federal employees who have a definite bias in favor of what ever the state does.

[Altariel]

So, a few people post online comments in response to an apparent police abuse story. In response to online comments, the police break into the home of innocent citizens who are minding their own business.

Typical government incompetency, I suppose.

Yet if any non-police officer would take the same remark (don’t care about myself, your lady or your kids), they would tell the person with the report to come back when the person actually *did* something.

[TXnMA]

I was wrong. Although that loner did inflict some damage, the overall balance of forces and eventual outcome is much more like the Alamo. Good analogy!!

Ever since the ATF/FBI Waco assault/siege, I have been half-way expecting some vengeful nut/group to stuff the walls of some old house with explosives and shrapnel -- then phone in a tip that the house was full of auto-sears and "machine guns"...

I suppose the tragically mis-directed response by McVeigh/Nichols was the closest approximation "the wacko fringe" has made so far...