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Raid on Kmart lot leaves shock, anger( America PoliceState in the Making)
Houston Chronicle ^ | Aug. 19, 2002 | By RON NISSIMOV

Posted on 08/19/2002 11:53:25 AM PDT by USA21

Raid on Kmart lot leaves shock, anger

Teenagers, parents question arrests of 425 outside store

A crowd of angry teenagers and their parents accused police Sunday of arresting many innocent bystanders during an overnight raid on a west Houston parking lot where youths apparently congregate.

Scores of Houston police officers swarmed onto the Kmart parking lot in the 8400 block of Westheimer about 12:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested about 425 people for criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor.

Steve Campbell / Chronicle Soneary Sy is overcome with emotion outside the police station as she waits for her son to be released. Sy said she waited all night for her 17-year-old son, a straight-A student, to come home.

Houston Police Department spokesman Martin DeLeon said many cars were towed.

DeLeon said business owners have been complaining about youths gathering on their parking lots on weekend nights and causing a commotion.

DeLeon said he did not have more details about the incident because the two captains in charge of the raid, M.A. Aguirre and J.P. Mokwa, were sleeping Sunday after working all night.

The Kmart store is open 24 hours a day, and many of the people at the HPD station at 61 Reisner said Sunday that they had simply been shopping or eating at a Sonic drive-in restaurant that adjoins the discount store's parking lot when they were arrested.

Kmart and Sonic supervisors referred all questions to their corporate headquarters, which were not open Sunday.

"We went to use the restroom at Kmart and to buy a Scrunchi (hair band), and when we came back to our car, cops were coming in (the parking lot) and they tied our hands," said Brandi Ratliff, 18, who said she was a straight-A student at Waller High School and never had any problems with the law.

Ratliff said that even though she and two friends told police they had just come out of the Kmart, all three were arrested and spent the night in jail.

"It was traumatic," said a tearful Ratliff on Sunday morning after her parents drove from Stafford to pay her $300 bail at the downtown city jail. "It was sick where they were holding us. A prostitute was fighting with another woman. The food they served was food you would serve to a dog, not a human."

Ratliff and her two friends, Kris Karsteter, 21, and Kyesa Scott, 18, all had pink marks on their wrists from where they said police had tied plastic handcuffs too tightly.

Scott said she didn't have the money to pay bail and so she pleaded guilty to avoid spending another night in jail.

Steve Campbell / Chronicle Brandi Ratliff, left, and Kyesa Scott, both 18, comfort each other after being released from police custody. "It was traumatic," Ratliff said of her arrest in a Kmart parking lot and a night in jail.

Emily Demmler, 19, said: "All I was doing was eating ice cream."

Demmler said the only trouble she'd previously had with authorities was being called into the principal's office twice in elementary school for gossiping. She said she pulled her car into the Sonic lot shortly after midnight so she and her two friends could get some ice cream after a night of karaoke.

After about five minutes, police "just swarmed," Demmler said.

"We thought we were in the middle of a drug bust, and we thought, `We're cool; we're not doing anything wrong,' " said Demmler, a part-time lifeguard at the Jewish Community Center who is starting college this fall at the University of Houston.

Instead, all the patrons at the Sonic were ordered by police to march to the Kmart lot, where they joined throngs of other people who were being arrested, she said.

"My purse and my friend's purse were still in the car ... but the cop wouldn't let me get them," said Demmler, whose mother eventually recovered her car and both purses.

"We asked police why we were being arrested, and they said, `Everybody is receiving equal treatment from the Houston Police Department tonight.' It didn't matter what you were doing; they arrested you."

Demmler said many youths appearing to be 13 or 14 were arrested and taken to juvenile detention facilities, adding, "They even arrested a 10-year-old girl who was having dinner with her father and took her to juvenile detention.

"She got separated from her father and I asked her how old she was, and she told me she was 10," Demmler said. "She was dazed."

In a phone interview, Demmler claimed to have "huge marks on my arms" from tight handcuffs.

Leanne Williams said her 19-year-old son called her from jail and told her he showed police a receipt for bottled water from Kmart, but he was still arrested.

She said her son called her five times from the downtown jail, but police still couldn't locate him at 11 a.m. because his paperwork had been delayed.

"I gotta spend my Sunday at the jail searching for my son they can't find," said her husband, Jerome Williams.

Soneary Sy didn't know her 17-year-old son, a straight-A student, was arrested until he called her at 6 a.m.

"I didn't sleep all night waiting for my son to come home" said a sobbing Sy, a Cambodian immigrant who moved to Houston 22 years ago. "He tried to go to Kmart and as soon as he got to Kmart he was arrested."


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: donutwatch; policestate
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To: EBUCK
Tell me if I'm wrong, but this sounds eerily similar to the current state of security affairs in the airline industry. First, ignore repeated warnings that a problem is at hand (customer/owner complaints; numerous attacks on American interests) . Don't use reasonable and proactive means to deal with the problem (frequent drive-bys to shoo away loiterers and ticketing of repeat offenders; careful screening of suspicious passengers and tight immigration controls). Then, when the problem becomes a real or potential disaster, overreact to the point of assuming everyone is guilty (and is detained) until proven otherwise.
141 posted on 08/19/2002 4:50:34 PM PDT by RANDomScout
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Comment #142 Removed by Moderator

To: USA21
Assume you mean officers?

Interesting post of yours: Non- citizen are now Police offers in most State part of the U.N Police and Military Exchange.

Do you have ONE iota of proof to support your assertion? MOST states? Non-citizens are police officers? U.N. Police and Military exchange?

And I don't want tin-foil sources. Give me hard facts please.
143 posted on 08/19/2002 5:25:25 PM PDT by justshe
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To: justshe
You miss my point. My point is that if you want to say, on this thread, that police departments all over the country are out of control........then cite evidence. But to make your statement based on a single incidence in Houston is simply building a house of cards.

You are right, they are not out of control. They are extremely efficient against unarmed teenagers, but it evens out when they come face to face with the minorities in the L.A. riots for example.

144 posted on 08/19/2002 6:09:14 PM PDT by bjs1779
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To: justshe
Police chief wants noncitizens as cops{"people who have not sworn allegiance to the U.S}
145 posted on 08/19/2002 6:52:59 PM PDT by USA21
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To: justshe
it not job to wake you up
146 posted on 08/19/2002 6:54:26 PM PDT by USA21
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To: USA21
I've got a Super K-Mart near me and schools are close to it.

Children don't mass in front of the K-Mart there!

Maybe the arrest will give them a clue that they don't "Have it going on" hanging in front of stores in large numbers during the late hours.

Of course, they cold be POD people!!!!!
147 posted on 08/19/2002 7:00:07 PM PDT by A CA Guy
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To: USA21
bump
148 posted on 08/19/2002 7:03:03 PM PDT by USA21
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To: Coop; USA21

"Contrarian Homey" Dont Play Dat!

149 posted on 08/19/2002 7:03:03 PM PDT by VaBthang4
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To: TheBattman
425+ people . . . at a Sonic . . . or just in transit in or out of KMart. They must be some awfully large establishments.

Logistically, wouldn't it be rather difficult to arrest over 400 people? The number of police required to do that must have required a huge proportion of the force.

150 posted on 08/19/2002 7:12:16 PM PDT by AmishDude
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To: All
Been here for awhile. I love this site. Mr. Robinson has done something truly unique in the creation of this forum. Just wanted to comment on this little episode. Growing up, I had woods to run till my hearts content. I had beautiful things around me that made me feel robust and free. Never any money, didn't need it. But I had everything in just being free. Would appear that some of you folks have lost sight of that God given right. Clinton has made sure that our beautiful children shall never have the woods to run in again. Our country...taken from us by an illegal government. So, my question is, where do the chrilden play? Why, they play where they feel they can, in the only places left open to them. Wake up folks, your bullshit spewing ain't gonna work any more. Open your eyes and get off your dead asses. Put the wants aside for a time and concentrate on the values that made this country great. You really love this country? Time to prove it. Lets, you know.
Peace and love, in Christ,
John
151 posted on 08/19/2002 7:52:02 PM PDT by spooner
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To: AmishDude
My question is this:

Suppose K-Mart calls the cops to clear their lot. Sonic doesn't have the same view as K-Mart. They actually like people on their lot. Do the police then have the right to arrest people from the Sonic lot? I don't think so because the police don't have a complaint from Sonic.

If the police dragged people from one lot to another so they could make the arrest, then that would make for a very interesting court case.

As I understand it, Sonic did not allow the cars on their lot to be towed. That tells me they weren't a party to the complaint. Of course, I suspect I will be corrected by some of the new homeland security volunteers very shortly.

152 posted on 08/19/2002 7:55:50 PM PDT by rwt60
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To: USA21
Well, apparently this was another police op gone bad.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/1540867
153 posted on 08/19/2002 10:09:38 PM PDT by chaosagent
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To: A CA Guy
There used to be a "youth" crowd that would hang out very near here in the mid to late 90's. People would come for miles around at any time of night and drink, hang out cuss real loud, sell and do drugs.

Now if they'd been quiet about it, it would've been OK. But of course, they weren't and it was horrible.

It took years of calling the cops to get rid of them. Let them hang out in front of thieir own homes and make noise.

Once the police finally cracked down, instead of sympathizing with them, it finally stopped.

Now all we hear is crickets. Ahhh.

154 posted on 08/19/2002 10:33:20 PM PDT by Dec31,1999
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To: Harrison Bergeron
A civilized police force would respond to a large group of loiterers by simply dispersing them. This "mass arrest" thing is a very ugly sign of the times.

That you don't live near one of these hang-outs is obvious.

155 posted on 08/19/2002 10:35:55 PM PDT by Dec31,1999
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To: Poohbah
Normal people understand that large amounts of teenagers doing nothing in a parking lot is a BAD thing.

Especially if it's within earshot!

156 posted on 08/19/2002 10:42:55 PM PDT by Dec31,1999
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To: Biker Scum
Cops! I guess they couldn't do the right thing and drive by periodically to disburse the people.

If it plays like the one that was near me, they had, but it didn't work. Imagine yourself as a cop on duty dealing with an unruly mob that heckles and disrepects you. Not fun.

157 posted on 08/19/2002 10:50:45 PM PDT by Dec31,1999
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To: RandomUserName
Hey, now that you put it that way. I don't believe one word any of these kids say. Of course they ALL have an excuse to be hanging out in the parking lot in the middle of the night. "I was JUST eating ice cream" Right! No one was drinking beer or using drugs or violating curfew, right?

You must think cops have nothing better to do than arrest kids for eating ice cream, that's just rediculous.

There's two sides to this story and I have a feeling the adults have a more credible one.

158 posted on 08/19/2002 10:55:29 PM PDT by Bullish
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To: Bullish
Don't trust anyone under 30! ;)
159 posted on 08/19/2002 11:06:56 PM PDT by Dec31,1999
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To: rwt60
Suppose K-Mart calls the cops to clear their lot. Sonic doesn't have the same view as K-Mart. They actually like people on their lot.

Bad assumption. Remember, 400 people were involved, that's why they were gathered in one place.

160 posted on 08/20/2002 3:50:09 AM PDT by AmishDude
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