Posted on 04/25/2015 5:36:41 AM PDT by kindred
(‘They came with a battering ram.”) Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram. VIDEO: David French Discusses ‘Wisconsin’s Shame’ She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full view of the police. Some yelled at her to grab some clothes, others yelled for her to open the door. “I was so afraid,” she says. “I did not know what to do.” She grabbed some clothes, opened the door, and dressed right in front of the police. The dogs were still frantic. “I begged and begged, ‘Please don’t shoot my dogs, please don’t shoot my dogs, just don’t shoot my dogs.’ I couldn’t get them to stop barking, and I couldn’t get them outside quick enough. I saw a gun and barking dogs. I was scared and knew this was a bad mix.” RELATED: Politicized Prosecution Run Amok in Wisconsin She got the dogs safely out of the house, just as multiple armed agents rushed inside. Some even barged into the bathroom, where her partner was in the shower. The officer or agent in charge demanded that Cindy sit on the couch, but she wanted to get up and get a cup of coffee. “I told him this was my house and I could do what I wanted.” Wrong thing to say. “This made the agent in charge furious. He towered over me with his finger in my face and yelled like a drill sergeant that I either do it his way or he would handcuff me.” RELATED: No, the Left Is Not Going to Stop Trying to Criminalize Free Speech They wouldn’t let her speak to a lawyer. She looked outside and saw a person who appeared to be a reporter. Someone had tipped him off. The neighbors started to come outside, curious at the commotion, and all the while the police searched her house, making a mess, and — according to Cindy — leaving her “dead mother’s belongings strewn across the basement floor in a most disrespectful way.” Then they left, carrying with them only a cellphone and a laptop. TODAY ON NATIONAL REVIEWJonah Goldberg: Will The Clinton-Cash Scandal Doom The Hillary’s White House Bid?Charles Krauthammer: Obama’s Inverted Nixon Doctrine: Anointing IranKevin Williamson: California’s Global-Warming GuacamoleCharles C.W. Cooke: D.C.’s Outrageous Second Amendment Double StandardDavid French: Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’ “It’s a matter of life or death.” That was the first thought of “Anne” (not her real name). Someone was pounding at her front door. It was early in the morning — very early — and it was the kind of heavy pounding that meant someone was either fleeing from — or bringing — trouble. “It was so hard. I’d never heard anything like it. I thought someone was dying outside.” She ran to the door, opened it, and then chaos. “People came pouring in. For a second I thought it was a home invasion. It was terrifying. They were yelling and running, into every room in the house. One of the men was in my face, yelling at me over and over and over.” More Scott Walker Late Republic Studies: Towards a Better Conservative Rhetoric Salon on Scott Walker Is Everything You'd Expect On Immigration, Walker Bucks the Beltway Consensus It was indeed a home invasion, but the people who were pouring in were Wisconsin law-enforcement officers. Armed, uniformed police swarmed into the house. Plainclothes investigators cornered her and her newly awakened family. Soon, state officials were seizing the family’s personal property, including each person’s computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information. Why were the police at Anne’s home? She had no answers. The police were treating them the way they’d seen police treat drug dealers on television. In fact, TV or movies were their only points of reference, because they weren’t criminals. They were law-abiding. They didn’t buy or sell drugs. They weren’t violent. They weren’t a danger to anyone. Yet there were cops — surrounding their house on the outside, swarming the house on the inside. They even taunted the family as if they were mere “perps.” As if the home invasion, the appropriation of private property, and the verbal abuse weren’t enough, next came ominous warnings. Don’t call your lawyer. Don’t tell anyone about this raid. Not even your mother, your father, or your closest friends. The entire neighborhood could see the police around their house, but they had to remain silent. This was not the “right to remain silent” as uttered by every cop on every legal drama on television — the right against self-incrimination. They couldn’t mount a public defense if they wanted — or even offer an explanation to family and friends. Yet no one in this family was a “perp.” Instead, like Cindy, they were American citizens guilty of nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to support Act 10 and other conservative causes in Wisconsin. Sitting there shocked and terrified, this citizen — who is still too intimidated to speak on the record — kept thinking, “Is this America?” “They followed me to my kids’ rooms.” For the family of “Rachel” (not her real name), the ordeal began before dawn — with the same loud, insistent knocking. Still in her pajamas, Rachel answered the door and saw uniformed police, poised to enter her home. When Rachel asked to wake her children herself, the officer insisted on walking into their rooms. The kids woke to an armed officer, standing near their beds. The entire family was herded into one room, and there they watched as the police carried off their personal possessions, including items that had nothing to do with the subject of the search warrant — even her daughter’s computer. And, yes, there were the warnings. Don’t call your lawyer. Don’t talk to anyone about this. Don’t tell your friends. The kids watched — alarmed — as the school bus drove by, with the students inside watching the spectacle of uniformed police surrounding the house, carrying out the family’s belongings. Yet they were told they couldn’t tell anyone at school. They, too, had to remain silent. The mom watched as her entire life was laid open before the police. Her professional files, her personal files, everything. She knew this was all politics. She knew a rogue prosecutor was targeting her for her political beliefs. And she realized, “Every aspect of my life is in their hands. And they hate me.” Fortunately for her family, the police didn’t taunt her or her children. Some of them seemed embarrassed by what they were doing. At the end of the ordeal, one officer looked at the family, still confined to one room, and said, “Some days, I hate my job
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisconsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french
I wonder why, Scott Walker is NOT talking about this.
Kinda strange.
I understand that the John Doe laws of Wisconson kept the people who would and should have immediately been in the news silent for a year or so due to peculiar laws of the leftist state.Wisconsin has been using John Doe laws in lieu of the grand jury process since the early 19th century. It gives the prosecutor additional powers, powers that can be used to deprive people of constitutional protections and attack political opponents.
[In Wisconsin, the law allows a prosecutor to go to a judge with a “suspicion” and the judge can sign off and let the prosecutor bring in witnesses they can force to testify in secrecy. Federal grand juries operate all the time in Wisconsin but they have rules about secrecy and timelines that John Dow laws do not have.
In the hands of the corrupt prosecutor, there are no First Amendment rights. There is no due process.]
Mitch McConnell efforts to get Loretta Lynch confirmed this week clearly shows this is not a “phase”.
This is a war on us and the Constitution, and the Republicans are front & center allies of the Democrats.
The future is slavery or blood. I see no logical process that will bring anything in between.
This story needs to be everywhere.
Call the prosecutor, his wife, the judge, the police. They need to be broken.
Wonder if they will ever be able to identify the cops who did the raid? How can they live with themselves?
They live with themselves because of the pay, the power and the prestige. Oh, and the pension. It is amazing what people will do for a pension.
I don’t get the don’t call a lawyer part. That is the only thing you can do.
Teacher, wake up.
Standard 7.62 NATO ammo will defeat the standard cop vest.
AP ammo is a whole ‘nother thing, and will likely defeat the vest AFTER penetrating the car.
If they’re gonna kill you anyway—why not take some with you??
Inquiring minds want to know.
The only reason they got away with this is that there is an incestous marriage between the Liberals, socialists and communists in the government and the Lame Stream Media. All of them knew that this was going on, but did nothing. As of today, no one of these two has said anything about this UNCONSTITUTIONAL home invasion. And both are just keeping very quiet, hoping it will just go away.
They were not allowed to call a lawyer under Wisconsin state laws which gag the victims of the this evil politician who started this in the Marxist state of Wisconsin.
4th amendment violation of the US Constitution and no one will do anything, I believe.
“The future is slavery or blood.”
Let me put it this way...I WILL NEVER BE A SLAVE.
Face the facts. Way too many police enjoy being home invaders. These folks have the same moral code as the Clintons.
Paragraphs are our friends...
I’ve been wondering the same thing; these are his supporters this is happening to, this has been happening for 18 months he should at the very least be talking about it, maybe he didn’t know or doesn’t know, that does not bode well, maybe he agrees with the law, maybe he doesn’t care, maybe he has just been to busy, there are many questions here and no answers so we are left to speculate about it, just seems to me he should be on this issue like white on rice.
He wants to be president and turn this country around, yet all this atrocity is happening on his watch right under his nose, IMO this is worst than any issue he has already dealt with, maybe he can claim he has been working on it behind the scenes; yeah makes me wonder.
Maybe I’m being overly cynical, but how can one not be in the current political environment, maybe I’m biased; I’m an avid Cruz supporter and I think there is no one else who can handle the job as POTUS in times such as these.
Sickening to read. This “lawfare” will lead to bloodshed.
I expect the Wisconsin example to become the national experience at some point in the future. Dems just naturally yearn to wield that kind of power over people’s lives and activities.
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