Posted on 07/06/2015 2:09:10 AM PDT by markomalley
It was still dark outside when “Jonah” (not his real name) heard the pounding on his front door. As luck would have it, he was awake — or mostly awake. He’d gotten up at 4:00 a.m. on October 3, 2013, to see his parents off to the airport. They were leaving on a quick trip to raise money for the children’s charity his father runs. Jonah was 16 at the time, old enough to stay home alone for a short time, but not old enough to deal with what awaited him on the other side of the door.
The pounding continued, and Jonah peered out the window to discover its source. To his horror, he saw uniformed officers, their guns drawn. “Police,” they yelled. “We have a warrant.” An officer shined a flashlight on a document Jonah couldn’t read. Unsure what to do, but unwilling to defy the authorities, he let them in.
The officers sat him down, read him the entire search warrant, and ordered him not to tell anyone about the raid — not even school officials. He asked if he could call his parents. They said no. He asked if he could call a lawyer. They said no.
Then, they proceeded to turn his house “upside down.”
This story should sound familiar. In April, National Review shared the accounts of three women — Cindy Archer and two others, “Anne” and “Rachel” — who related their own terrifying experiences with dawn or pre-dawn police raids. The police brought a battering ram to Archer’s house, literally watched her dress, and then ran into the bathroom as her partner showered. “Anne” thought for a moment she was facing a home invasion as investigators poured through her front door and screamed taunts in her face. Police followed “Rachel” into the bedrooms where her children slept, where they woke to the sight of armed officers looming over them.
The pretense for the October raids was suspected “coordination” between various conservative organizations and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s campaign — activity that a trial court has held constituted nothing more than entirely legal “issue advocacy,” if it even occurred. Because they’d had the temerity to engage in this issue advocacy — constitutionally protected free speech — multiple conservative citizens were subjected to so-called John Doe proceedings by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat.
A quirky and dangerous Wisconsin legal mechanism, the John Doe proceeding allows, among other things, for expansive and completely secret criminal investigations, supervised not by the citizens of a grand jury but by judges who all too often simply rubber-stamp prosecutors’ demands. As a prominent Wisconsin conservative and political consultant, Jonah’s father was one of Chisholm’s targets.
The origins of the affair are complex. It began almost four years before the October raids, with a request from Governor Walker’s own staff to investigate the loss of $11,242.24 from a local veteran’s fund. Chisholm waited almost a full year to investigate and then launched his first John Doe investigation, now known as John Doe I. He subsequently expanded that initial investigation no fewer than 18 times, raiding Walker’s office and campaign headquarters, his county-executive offices, and the homes of his advisers and supporters in an attempt to make any possible criminal charge — the initial embezzlement complaint, sexual misconduct, campaign-finance violations, the alleged misuse of county time and property — stick to the governor.
All of this occurred against the backdrop of one of the most dramatic political fights in the country, as Walker and Wisconsin’s Republican legislature enacted conservative public-employee-union reforms over the objections of tens of thousands of chanting protestors and virtually the entire American Left. Chisholm’s wife was a teachers’ union shop steward, and a whistleblower has said that Chisholm “felt it was his personal duty” to stop Walker’s reforms.
He failed. The reforms passed, and Walker won a closely contested recall election. John Doe I claimed a few scalps — the initial embezzler, an employee guilty of sexual misconduct, and some convictions for minor campaign violations — but the governor himself was unscathed. So Chisholm tried again, launching John Doe II, the comprehensive investigation of conservative “issue advocacy” that led police to Jonah’s door.
Jonah’s father may have been the target of the raid on his home, but according to the family, investigators went well beyond the scope of the warrant to seize business records in his mother’s possession, including confidential donor and financial information for two conservative Wisconsin nonprofits, which were paralyzed for weeks as a result. Yet despite the overly expansive search, to this day, no one in Jonah’s family has been charged with a crime.
The damage to the family’s reputation was immense. Soon after the raid, and despite court orders mandating confidentiality (orders that prevented the family from publicly defending themselves), their names leaked to the press. Jonah’s father — working to help the most disadvantaged kids — found himself struggling to defend a professional reputation under siege. In both his day job as a political consultant and his nonprofit work, even the slightest rumor of illegality can cause clients and donors to shy away. As he puts it, when you’re hired as a consultant, “No matter how good you are, you can’t become the issue.” A consultant whose home was just raided by law enforcement is, most definitely, an “issue” for any politician or political movement.
At present, John Doe II is halted. In response to a challenge from Wisconsin conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth, a trial judge blocked multiple prosecution subpoenas, holding that they “do not show probable cause that the moving parties committed any violations of the campaign-finance laws.” This ruling has been appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and a decision that could potentially end Chisholm’s witch hunts once and for all is expected any day. At least one victim isn’t waiting for such a decision before she takes action. Cindy Archer has filed a civil-rights lawsuit against Chisholm, and more suits may be coming.
Still, no lawsuit or court ruling will undo the harm the investigations have already inflicted on their victims. Even reliving the experience of the raid in an interview was difficult for Jonah. He has a “deep sense” that his home is no longer safe. His family lives in a rural part of their county, and cars — especially dark SUVs — approaching their driveway now cause him deep, immediate anxiety. His family used to be more politically active; now, they watch what they say. They used to be more trusting, especially of police; now, they assume the worst.
And his mother continues to be terrified by the thought of what could have happened in the raid.
“We’re so fortunate that he’s okay,” she says. “He could have been in the shower. They could have broken the door down. He could have been shot. Over politics.”
So you are saying police blindly following orders like a little child, and do not have the ability to think as an adult???
Quit making excuses for Tyrannical behavior!
Before the officers went to the house, police are told what to find. So when the police heard it was “political” papers.... That alone should have been a BIG RED FLAG.
If the officers are just TOO STUPID to understand the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, then they have no business being a Police Officer.
Perhaps flipping burgers is a better route?
Point for my side.
You are stretching it for attempting to rationalize BRUTALITY.
These Nazi Swat units know full well what they are doing. Do you think they can not tell what effect they have on US CITIZENS?
Machine gun armed stormtroopers for the most mundane of warrants? Really? The good lil nazis were just following orders and didn't know?
Who send death squads to raid a guitar factory over fingerboards? Rationalize away, be a good lil nazi sympathizer.
Yep. An ugly mean-looking SOB.
Treason. Guilty. We all know the punishment..............
Incidents like this make my blood boil..............................
What “brutality” took place in this story? Tell me. You try to generalize this situation where there is no “brutality” that took place to fit your agenda of hating cops. Your anger should be aimed at the Nifong-wanna-be prosecutor and the Dems who set out to terrorize and intimidate.
But that wouldn’t fit your narrative, would it?
Try sticking to the story in the article and put the blame at the feet of this disgusting prosecutor and his minions. They use use law enforcement to enforce their will.
I’ll never change your mind nor would you be worth trying to convince that your focus of blame is extremely misplaced.
Congratulations on having so much in common with Soros and the “Black lives matter” bullssh!t.
My god, you are delusional.
you are the one who is delusional.
You did NOT just write that.
Brutality is USING COPS AS POLITICAL WEAPONS.
Brutality is ordering people to NOT SPEAK TO ANYONE ABOUT A POLICE RAID.
Brutality is DENYING PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO SPEAK TO AN ATTORNEY.
These are brutalizations of your rights as a human and an American.
In a word, from the way I read it, yes.
He looks like Lerch the Butler from the Addams Family and p*ssy whipped by his even more socialist wife.
Yes, it IS...to a point.
1st question to be asked: It took a SWAT unit to do WHAT exactly?
Why was Special Weapons And Tactics required to serve a warrant? Were those being served needing such over-reach?
Was the families known to have weapons? Deal drugs? Have attack ‘pets’?
What’s the justification of having SWAT in this instance, if NOT for the ‘fear factor’....Yet, I doubt anyone in the black masks were complaining about playing soldier boy
They refused the "accused" the ability to call a lawyer or or his parents (according to the story the child was 16). Whether or not they knew the specifics behind the warrant itself, this speak volumes. (And no - if you check my posting history I am not in the knee-jerk "cops always wrong" camp).
Thank you for explaining it in simple terms. You did a far better job than could I.
Are you daft?
Do you think a nurse injects a patient with anything a doctor says just because they said?
These positions require training for a reason! One of the biggest reasons is knowing when your superior is or is not giving you a lawful order!
No Ma’am
I’m sorry that the U.S. Constitution and The Bill of Rights is a foreign concept to you.
Men in World War II and going all the way back to the inception of our country fought and died against governments that do the very illegal actions that YOU..., defend.
We learned during the Nuremberg trials, that “I was just following orders.”, is NO EXCUSE....
The officers all swore an oath. They are in violation of their oath when they blindly follow illegal orders. Not only is it illegal, but it is their duty not to follow it.
I’m sorry you are too stupid to understand this basic concept. Furthermore, did it ever cross your mind that this could be abused by someone that did not like you? Did that thought even cross your mind once????
Good grief!!!! No wonder why our country is in so much trouble. Too many people think it’s okay to blindly follow orders that violate the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
OMG!
I think you're overly optimistic about there being any actual consequences for killing a mere serf. Especially if said serf is not a serf of color.
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