# Texas Police Hit Organic Farm With Massive SWAT Raid



## RevWC (Mar 28, 2011)

They are coming after you....

"A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.

Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft. Worth NBC station that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said.

Local authorities had cited the Garden of Eden in recent weeks for code violations, including "grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house, and generally unclean premises," Smith's statement said. She said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began, and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified. According to ABC affiliate WFAA, resident Quinn Eaker was the only person arrested -- for outstanding traffic violations.

The city of Arlington said in a statement that the code citations were issued to the farm following complaints by neighbors, who were "concerned that the conditions" at the farm "interfere with the useful enjoyment of their properties and are detrimental to property values and community appearance." The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises," the statement acknowledged.

The raid on the Garden of Eden farm appears to be the latest example of police departments using SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics to enforce less serious crimes. A Fox television affiliate reported this week, for example, that police in St. Louis County, Mo., brought out the SWAT team to serve an administrative warrant. The report went on to explain that all felony warrants are served with a SWAT team, regardless whether the crime being alleged involves violence.

In recent years, SWAT teams have been called out to perform regulatory alcohol inspections at a bar in Manassas Park, Va.; to raid bars for suspected underage drinking in New Haven, Conn.; to perform license inspections at barbershops in Orlando, Fla.; and to raid a gay bar in Atlanta where police suspected customers and employees were having public sex. A federal investigation later found that Atlanta police had made up the allegations of public sex.

Other raids have been conducted on food co-ops and Amish farms suspected of selling unpasteurized milk products. The federal government has for years been conducting raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized them, even though the businesses operate openly and are unlikely to pose any threat to the safety of federal enforcers.

Radley Balko is a senior writer and investigative reporter for The Huffington Post. He is also the author of the new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.

This story has been updated to clarify that a federal investigation found that the Atlanta police officers who raided a gay bar had made up the allegations of public sex."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...nducts-_n_3764951.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

I doubt it was a "farm" within the city limits of Arlington, a city with a population of nearly 400,000 & that stretching of the truth causes me to question the rest of what the author said. The SWAT team was there because of the reported marajuana. When illegal drugs are involved, the likelihood of other illegal activity & the threat to the officers goes up. Showing up with lots of manpower decreases the odds that someone will get hurt, I'm all for it. Want to grow marajuana? Move to where it's legal to do so. Don't want to mow your yard regularly or have a couch & piano in your yard? Move where you can do that. This sounds like a case where the "farmers" pi$$ed off the wrong neighbor who knew how to get something done. Neighbor seems like my kind of people!


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Seems reasonable, in Nazi Germany and communist Russia if your neighbors felt you weren't doing your best at conforming to the group there would have been a similar reaction, so it is not without precedence. After all if your neighbor is doing something to bring down your property value wouldn't you call a swat team? Mine has pink flamingos and they are so tacky that I might make a call myself.


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## MetalPrepper (Nov 25, 2012)

tsrwivey said:


> I doubt it was a "farm" within the city limits of Arlington, a city with a population of nearly 400,000 & that stretching of the truth causes me to question the rest of what the author said. The SWAT team was there because of the reported marajuana. When illegal drugs are involved, the likelihood of other illegal activity & the threat to the officers goes up. Showing up with lots of manpower decreases the odds that someone will get hurt, I'm all for it. Want to grow marajuana? Move to where it's legal to do so. Don't want to mow your yard regularly or have a couch & piano in your yard? Move where you can do that. This sounds like a case where the "farmers" pi$$ed off the wrong neighbor who knew how to get something done. Neighbor seems like my kind of people!


If you read the article it says the police alleged there was marijuana...none was found.....the HOA police would have been a better fit for this "raid


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

MetalPrepper said:


> If you read the article it says the police alleged there was marijuana...none was found.....the HOA police would have been a better fit for this "raid


The outcome cannot dictate the preparation. They were equipped for a situation expecting to execute a felony warrant to people who could be drug dealers. They were prepared for what they expected to find.

If the warrant was for suspected presence of bomb-making materials, would they have been unreasonable in bringing a bomb squad along?


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

It took them 2 hours to produce the warrant! Gestapo is not. Too strong a term.


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

This story doesn't seem to give all the facts. I agree with tswirvey that it was probably a neighbor falsely reporting pot plants to take care of an eyesore. If that's the case, the fault doesn't lie with the cops but with a neighbor who thinks that is an appropriate course of action. Bad neighbors suck but that's no reason to call the swat team on them. There are more appropriate ways to handle that through city council.


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## mdprepper (Jan 22, 2010)

Okay, you go in looking for pot plants, yet you confiscate blackberry, okra, tomatillo, sunflowers???


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

mdprepper said:


> Okay, you go in looking for pot plants, yet you confiscate blackberry, okra, tomatillo, sunflowers???


They were probably pissed they wasted all the time and resources on a false call. Had to justify the expenditure and make the point to the "farm" so the neighbor dispute ended and no more calls were received. All this is just an assumption based on what's available in the story of course.


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## biobacon (Aug 20, 2012)

Well fruit is expensive these days


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

CrackbottomLouis said:


> They were probably pissed they wasted all the time and resources on a false call. Had to justify the expenditure and make the point to the "farm" so the neighbor dispute ended and no more calls were received. All this is just an assumption based on what's available in the story of course.


Maybe they should be mad at the folks who sent them on a false call instead of the victims of their heavy handed tactics. This constant use of SWAT tactics is going to get innocent people killed. Someone with a garden hose could have been mistaken for having a weapon and gotten gunned down. The police in this country have become irresponsible in the use of SWAT tactics.


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Geek999 said:


> Maybe they should be mad at the folks who sent them on a false call instead of the victims of their heavy handed tactics. This constant use of SWAT tactics is going to get innocent people killed. Someone with a garden hose could have been mistaken for having a weapon and gotten gunned down. The police in this country have become irresponsible in the use of SWAT tactics.


I agree completely. My first post made this point. Once they were there they probably had to make the best of it going forward. I certainly hope they do something to the neighbor that filed the false report to further their own agenda. I do have a hard time blaming their response to a report of illegal drug production while it is their job to put themselves in harms way to prevent that. Shouldn't be illegal in the first place anyway. Damn intrusive government.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

Texas cops... Organic farm... Come on people. This was a standard raid sponsored by the beef industry to make sure the 17 vegans and 32 vegetarians who live in Texas get scared and move back to California.


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

What they have actually accomplished is that no one on the receiving end of that raid will ever trust any cop again, no matter what the ultimate resolution is.

Every time you have a SWAT raid that isn't an axe murderer you insure that the people on the receiving end will hate all cops forever. This is just plain stupid tactics.


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## farright (Mar 25, 2010)

crap like that is why i almost 80 miles from nearist city and try to know my local cops if i like them or not they will never know.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

It would be very interesting to know what really happened, instead of a spin to sell papers. All I can say for sure is that some how this is Obama's fault, but he will blame Bush.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

Geek999 said:


> Every time you have a SWAT raid that isn't an axe murderer you insure that the people on the receiving end will hate all cops forever.


That's so true. Every meth cooker, pedophile, drug dealer, human trafficker, wife beater, armed robber, hardcore burglar, domestic terrorist and money launderer I ever raided when I was on SWAT hate cops. And probably will forever. And (seriously) in my experience most non-axe murdering criminals hate cops even before they get raided (I know, hard to believe). Axe murderers just expect us and seem relieved, thankful even.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

mdprepper said:


> Okay, you go in looking for pot plants, yet you confiscate blackberry, okra, tomatillo, sunflowers???


Well ...

I guess they needed to take something back with them ... Just to make them feel better.


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

Sentry18 said:


> . Axe murderers just expect us and seem relieved, thankful even.


Thank for you the humor


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

Sentry18 said:


> That's so true. Every meth cooker, pedophile, drug dealer, human trafficker, wife beater, armed robber, hardcore burglar, domestic terrorist and money launderer I ever raided when I was on SWAT hate cops. And probably will forever. And (seriously) in my experience most non-axe murdering criminals hate cops even before they get raided (I know, hard to believe). Axe murderers just expect us and seem relieved, thankful even.


Now you can add organic farmers to the list. BTW: Money laundering is not a violent crime and isn't a crime at all in many countries, and I seriously doubt you ever hit a domestic terrorist. Violent crime has also been dropping steadily for decades so why is SWAT use increasing?

We are reading about incidents at least once a week where a SWAT team hits the wrong house, or something like an organic farm.

These tactics may have their place but we are also starting to see settlements for millions when these raids go wrong. I think folks who have been erroneously hit should collect bigtime.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

What you seriously doubt, but yet remains true, seems to be fairly extensive.

You probably assumed I was talking about someone who actually cleaned dirty currency. Like a $5 bill that got mud on it. Not the case. I was talking about people who turn large sums of cash into smaller sums of "clean" untraceable cash. And since you apparently are unaware, money launderers usually have a lots of men with guns guarding these ill gotten gains. Some of the guys are not very nice.

So there are approx. 60,000 SWAT raids per year and once a week they hit the wrong place. So approx. 52 out of 60,000 or 0.0866%. That's pretty low. We can still do better, but some SWAT teams are new and still trying to get their skill level where it needs to be. Fortunately these people have legal recourse if the LEO's are found to be culpable. Sometimes SWAT is going off of intel so damning that the Judge signs off on the warrant no problem, but it turns out the intel was bad. Still, that apparently is happening less than 0.09% of the time.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

Sorry Sentry18...

But this is not the week to compare bears to cops ...

And dang ... where did that go and what happened... 

Poof... :eyebulge:


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

Sentry18 said:


> What you seriously doubt, but yet remains true, seems to be fairly extensive.
> 
> You probably assumed I was talking about someone who actually cleaned dirty currency. Like a $5 bill that got mud on it. Not the case. I was talking about people who turn large sums of cash into smaller sums of "clean" untraceable cash. And since you apparently are unaware, money launderers usually have a lots of men with guns guarding these ill gotten gains. Some of the guys are not very nice.
> 
> So there are approx. 60,000 SWAT raids per year and once a week they hit the wrong place. So approx. 52 out of 60,000 or 0.0866%. That's pretty low. We can still do better, but some SWAT teams are new and still trying to get their skill level where it needs to be. Fortunately these people have legal recourse if the LEO's are found to be culpable. Sometimes SWAT is going off of intel so damning that the Judge signs off on the warrant no problem, but it turns out the intel was bad. Still, that apparently is happening less than 0.09% of the time.


I know exactly what money laundering is. As I said, it is not even a crime in many countries. It is only a crime in the US because the authorities have usedit to charge people where they have been unable to prove an underlying crime or as a tack on charge.

60000 SWAT raids per year is an absurd level of attacks on private homes. There is not that much criminal activity that requires that level of violence against private citizens. How many people are killed or wounded? How much legal recourse do you have when you are dead? What happens when a SWAT team murders an innocent person? Do they go to jail? They should!


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## biobacon (Aug 20, 2012)

60,000 divided by 50 states equals 1,200 per state divide that by an average of 60 counties and that's 20 per county per year, or about 1 every 2 and a half weeks. (less in Alaska more or New York). Not sure which side that supports but thought I would throw it out there but I know a lot of those are warents and stand off type situations. Are they more likely to kill someone? You betcha but more often then not that's what they are called on to do. I for one would rather a local sheriff department be sent in then some federal unit that has no give a crap about where they are going this week. Just my thought.


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

Geek999 said:


> I know exactly what money laundering is. As I said, it is not even a crime in many countries. It is only a crime in the US because the authorities have usedit to charge people where they have been unable to prove an underlying crime or as a tack on charge.
> 
> 60000 SWAT raids per year is an absurd level of attacks on private homes. There is not that much criminal activity that requires that level of violence against private citizens. How many people are killed or wounded? How much legal recourse do you have when you are dead? What happens when a SWAT team murders an innocent person? Do they go to jail? They should!


You make it sound like these are baseless assaults on innocent people for kicks and giggles. They are not.

The vast majority of SWAT and ERT entries are (and Sentry, please correct me if I am wrong) for the execution of warrants.

I have made tactical entries into buildings with SWAT and ERT units (I am neither, but with another specialty unit). I can assure you that these are not conducted arbitrarily.

Of course these officers are held accountable for their actions. The reason that the general public does not hear about these SWAT actions is that they go off smoothly and there is no reason they should make the news. The reason WHY they go so smoothly is that these are highly trained, experienced, and specialized officers. Wouldn't you agree that it is worth it to have a small number of specialized officers who are capable of acting with surgical precision, preserving all of the lives in question, than to toss an inexperienced and jumpy rookie cop into a situation for which he is probably not prepared?


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

biobacon said:


> 60,000 divided by 50 states equals 1,200 per state divide that by an average of 60 counties and that's 20 per county per year, or about 1 every 2 and a half weeks. (less in Alaska more or New York). Not sure which side that supports but thought I would throw it out there but I know a lot of those are warents and stand off type situations. Are they more likely to kill someone? You betcha but more often then not that's what they are called on to do. I for one would rather a local sheriff department be sent in then some federal unit that has no give a crap about where they are going this week. Just my thought.


In some of the bigger cities, SWAT units may get called out two or three times per day, up to as many as five or six. You are exactly correct in that it would average out.

It is unusual that a federal unit would be called in, but even if they were, it would be a unit based out of a local field office. So, it would still be local boys, just local boys who get their paycheck from somebody else.


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

Turtle said:


> You make it sound like these are baseless assaults on innocent people for kicks and giggles. They are not.
> 
> The vast majority of SWAT and ERT entries are (and Sentry, please correct me if I am wrong) for the execution of warrants.
> 
> ...


What happened to presumption of innocence? How many SWAT entries have resulted in murder charges against the officers? I know the number of innocent people killed isn't zero, but I have never heard of a murder or manslaughter charge against a SWAT member.

When an innocent person defends his home against a home invasion and gets killed by a SWAT team at the wrong house, what is the recourse?

These things are simply hit squads under color of law. They can not be excused by asserting that they are usually correct in the house they hit.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Geek999 said:


> What they have actually accomplished is that no one on the receiving end of that raid will ever trust any cop again, no matter what the ultimate resolution is.


And all of their friends.... and relatives..... and most in the organic community.... and about a million or so people who read that article that are as pissed as I am .....



Geek999 said:


> Every time you have a SWAT raid that isn't (enter VALID crime here) you ensure that the people on the receiving end will hate all cops forever. This is just plain stupid tactics.


Stupid.... and IRRESPONSIBLE!!!! ... and a blatant ABUSE OF POWER!



Sentry18 said:


> That's so true. Every meth cooker, pedophile, drug dealer, human trafficker, wife beater, armed robber, hardcore burglar, ...blah blah blah spin this story to try to make cops that screw up look good blah blah blah .... bad guys hate cops. And probably will forever.


:ranton:
Why is is so hard for you to step back, thinks this over for a minute, and just *ADMIT* that these idiots make a serious F^&* Up?

*Is there ANY justification AT ALL for this raid? *

What info was used to decide to make this raid in the first place?

*Was that info validated first?*

Don't police do ANY detective work AT ALL anymore to see if a complaint is even REMOTELY valid or possible before busting down doors and holding people at gunpoint?? 

It makes me sick that you don't think about what is right and what is just... well, I am sure you do most of the time... but this is not one of those times. Spin it off onto "real bad guys" with your reply. These organic gardeners don't sound like "real bad guys". The FACT that no pot was found proves someone did really crappy police/detective work.

I am asking some damn good questions here. 
You have to realize that this scenario screams "Gestapo" far, far more than it states "good police work". In fact, it doesn't resemble "good police work" *AT ALL!!!* I would like to see that search warrant. What ever happened to people's constitutional rights against seizures and searches? is every police department in the country now receiving institutions to call out swap teams to raid people on UNVERIFIED claims?
:rantoff:


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Sentry18 said:


> So there are approx. 60,000 SWAT raids per year and once a week they hit the wrong place. So approx. 52 out of 60,000 or 0.0866%. That's pretty low.....


Sure it's low.... *but that's still too high.* 
It's also flawed reasoning.... You may just as well have said: "out of 60,000 police investigations, only 52 innocent people got killed, or 0.0866%. That's pretty low"

Now, it doesn't sound so low.



Sentry18 said:


> We can still do better, but it turns out the intel was bad. Still, that apparently is happening less than 0.09% of the time.


Yes, I agree, it was bad. I'd like to see that address on "StreetView"

I'll bet the plants are all out in the open - - because real pot growers are so audacious, they would never think about growing an illegal plant behind a friggin' privacy fence :brickwall: :brickwall:

I may not be a pot grower, but if I were I for sure wouldn't be doing it out in the open! Jus' Sayin'

I am thinking one or two cruisers could have driven by and just taken a look, for Pete's sake. If the neighbor can see it, so can a cop. I have had first hand experience with a police officer coming to my door and asking politely if he could have a look in my neighbor's back yard looking for a stolen trailer behind their house. I said "Go right ahead". I'll bet the same could have been done here, and avoided all this mess.



Turtle said:


> You make it sound like these are baseless assaults on innocent people for kicks and giggles. They are not.


The key word here is "baseless". They felt they had a good reason for the raid, but it was "baseless" because of the intel they got was flawed. HORRIBLY flawed.

I'll go so far as to say this: The SWAT team members themselves I hold *relatively* blameless, they have a job to do and were told to do it. The idiot who told them to do the raid is the moron who needs to get fired.



> The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises," the statement acknowledged.


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Linctex, you do make a good point about lack of proper investigation of the complaint prior to the raid. More could have and should have been done to investigate the allegations before sending in a swat team. I'm sure the swat team would agree as they probably don't like having their time wasted on tomatilla plants. Whoever made the false complaint should face charges and the higher up that took the neighbors word for it without proper due diligence should certainly be reprimanded at the very least to prevent a repeat.


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## RevWC (Mar 28, 2011)

http://abcnews.go.com/US/tucson-swat-team-defends-shooting-iraq-marine-veteran/story?id=13640112

Ex-Marine Shot 60 Times by SWAT Team in Tucson, Ariz.,

SWAT team defends shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, although it declines to say whether it found any drugs in the house and has had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first.

And the Pima County sheriff, whose team conducted the raid, scolded the media for "questioning the legality" of the shooting.

Jose Guerena, 26, died the morning of May 5. He was asleep in his Tucson home after working a night shift at the Asarco copper mine when his wife, Vanessa, saw the armed SWAT team outside her youngest son's bedroom window.

"She saw a man pointing at her with a gun," said Reyna Ortiz, 29, a relative who is caring for Vanessa and her children. Ortiz said Vanessa Guerena yelled, "Don't shoot! I have a baby!"

Vanessa Guerena thought the gunman might be part of a home invasion -- especially because two members of her sister-in-law's family, Cynthia and Manny Orozco, were killed last year in their Tucson home, her lawyer, Chris Scileppi, said. She shouted for her husband in the next room, and he woke up and told his wife to hide in the closet with the child, Joel, 4.

Guerena grabbed his assault rifle and was pointing it at the SWAT team, which was trying to serve a narcotics search warrant as part of a multi-house drug crackdown, when the team broke down the door. At first the Pima County Sheriff's Office said that Guerena fired first, but on Wednesday officials backtracked and said he had not. "The safety was on and he could not fire," according to the sheriff's statement.

Tucson SWAT Team Shot Iraq War Vet 60 Times

SWAT team members fired 71 times and hit Guerena 60 times, police said.

In a frantic 911 call, Vanessa Guerena begged for medical help for her husband. "He's on the floor!" she said, crying, to the 911 operator. "Can you please hurry up?"

Asked if law enforcement was inside or outside the house, she told the operator, according to a transcript of the call, that they were inside. "They were ... going to shoot me. And I put my kid in front of me."

A report by ABC News affiliate KGUN found that more than an hour had passed before the SWAT team let the paramedics work on Guerena. By then he was dead.

A spokesman for Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said he could not discuss whether any drugs had been found at the home or make any other comment. "We're waiting for the investigation to be complete," he said.

In a statement, the sheriff's office criticized the media, saying that while questions will inevitably be raised, "It is unacceptable and irresponsible to couch those questions with implications of secrecy and a coverup, not to mention questioning the legality of actions that could not have been taken without the approval of an impartial judge."

Mike Storie, a lawyer for the SWAT team, said at a press conference Thursday that weapons and body armor were found in the home as well as a photo of Jesus Malverde, who Storie called a "patron saint drug runner," according to KGUN.

Storie defended the long delay in allowing paramedics to enter the home, saying of the SWAT team, "They still don't know how many shooters are inside, how many guns are inside and they still have to assume that they will be ambushed if they walk in this house."

But Scileppi, Vanessa Guerena's lawyer, said officers were "circling their wagons."


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## ContinualHarvest (Feb 19, 2012)

Sounds like both of these victims of excessive force, and poor judgement, need to lawyer up well and sue the pants off of these jack-booted fascist thugs.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

> Why is is so hard for you to step back, thinks this over for a minute, and just ADMIT that these idiots make a serious F^&* Up?


It's not about stepping back, it's about not becoming so overemotional that reason and sound judgment take a backseat to outrage. If people are going to formulate angry opinions based on the liberal media and personal bias, then I am going to remain level headed and try and provide a reasonable counter argument based on actual first hand experience in how and why SWAT operation succeed and how and why they fail. I suppose I could just sheeple up and blindly agree with whatever the media tries to feed me, but that's just not who I am. Now you may consider the Huffington Post to be the holy grail of public information, I do not. You may consider a raid on an organic farm (with a lawful warrant) where no one was killed or even injured a heinous act against humanity, I do not. Especially since no details have been released as to the evidence the police had that was used to obtain the warrant and why that did not find those items at the farm. Believe it drug dealers will often move their product if they suspect the cops are on to them. And sometimes witnesses lie and even provide solid prima facie evidence. And sometimes the Huffington post sensationalized stories to get people worked up. But no, it has to be some idiot cop who f'ed up because they kill innocent people every day and trample on everyone's rights and perform 60,000 swat raids on day on innocent flower gardeners and... and... they turn into dinosaurs and ravage Tokyo. Seriously.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

Sentry18 said:


> That's so true. Every meth cooker, pedophile, drug dealer, human trafficker, wife beater, armed robber, hardcore burglar, domestic terrorist and money launderer I ever raided when I was on SWAT hate cops. And probably will forever. And (seriously) in my experience most non-axe murdering criminals hate cops even before they get raided (I know, hard to believe). Axe murderers just expect us and seem relieved, thankful even.


Along with every innocent person who has their money confiscated or every law abiding citizen who was recording the police and gets arrested, beat up, or has their dog killed. How about every law abiding citizen who hears about the abuse coming from the police and not trusting them?


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

Turtle said:


> The outcome cannot dictate the preparation. They were equipped for a situation expecting to execute a felony warrant to people who could be drug dealers. They were prepared for what they expected to find.
> 
> If the warrant was for suspected presence of bomb-making materials, would they have been unreasonable in bringing a bomb squad along?


Yes, it's the old "they could be drug dealers" or "we had to send in 1,000 cops and 100 tanks for the safety of the officers." I don't believe either one. I don't even believe that the police got a real call about cultivated marijuana. And no, not everyone who cultivates marijuana is a member or employee of the drug cartels. It's just an excuse to show and use excessive force.

Again, these public raids are a psy op. They're meant to outrage us, intimate us, and get us used to tyranny. Eventually everybody suffers outrage exhaustion and nobody cares anymore.


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## Reblazed (Nov 11, 2010)

BillS said:


> Eventually everybody suffers outrage exhaustion and nobody cares anymore.


Keeping this in mind ..... cops are part of that EVERYBODY. Gonna be rough when the outrage (against them) exhaustion hits them.

just my opinion

.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

tsrwivey said:


> I doubt it was a "farm" within the city limits of Arlington, a city with a population of nearly 400,000 & that stretching of the truth causes me to question the rest of what the author said. The SWAT team was there because of the reported marajuana. When illegal drugs are involved, the likelihood of other illegal activity & the threat to the officers goes up. Showing up with lots of manpower decreases the odds that someone will get hurt, I'm all for it. Want to grow marajuana? Move to where it's legal to do so. Don't want to mow your yard regularly or have a couch & piano in your yard? Move where you can do that. This sounds like a case where the "farmers" pi$$ed off the wrong neighbor who knew how to get something done. Neighbor seems like my kind of people!


Its got to where I don't really care anymore, but we had some move in on our road that looked like a yard in the worst part of a third world nation.

Our property values dropped like rocks. $40,000 in less than 3 mo.s. Looked like a circus clown car when they unloaded out of that small camper '10x6. Make do animal shelters of every kind of material they could drag in right in front.

A Realtor was taking pictures and she was chased down by the fool with a machetti. People come here and want to live like they did in third world, why not just stay there? WELFARE the more kids the more money.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

> Along with every innocent person who has their money confiscated or every law abiding citizen who was recording the police and gets arrested, beat up, or has their dog killed


I just checked with Appleton PD. For some reason they were not out today beating up citizens or killing dogs. The Metro cops weren't either. What is this world coming too when you just can't get the cops to live up to the hype. Sort of like how if one prepper is a nut bag then they all must be. You have to agree with that right BillS? It seems to the basis of all your arguments.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

Sentry18 said:


> I just checked with Appleton PD. For some reason they were not out today beating up citizens or killing dogs. The Metro cops weren't either. What is this world coming too when you just can't get the cops to live up to the hype. Sort of like how if one prepper is a nut bag then they all must be. You have to agree with that right BillS? It seems to the basis of all your arguments.


I can't get through to you. Nobody else can. You refuse to listen. The news is filled with cases of police brutality. Did you hear that? The news is filled with stories of police brutality. You refuse to take any of it seriously. You refuse to be considerate and stick to what's being discussed. You always have to twist what's being said and make the argument different than what it was. I sincerely hope you don't treat your family members this way. You claim to be a Christian. I see no evidence for that in you whatsoever. You don't even care enough about the people here to have an honest conversation about their genuine concerns. Why are you even here?


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

It's funny how judgemental and accusatory you are under the banner of being a Christian who decides who measures up and who doesn't. I can't seem to find the Book of BillS in my bible. 

But you're right. I tend not to be convinced by rhetoric and unverified statements of personal opinion. And again, if you believe that the news media is a reliable and trustworthy source of data that you can base your entire belief system on; then more power to you. I on the other hand tend to be distrusting of the news media and prefer to base my beliefs on facts and information from trustworthy sources. I guess that's just the cop in me. The Christian in me knows that there is no reason to be filled with fear or worry (aka concerns) because I place all my trust in the One worthy of my faith.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

Isn't The Huffington Post the news source Obama recommends? Half truths & insufficient supporting information is bad even if you agree with the point they're trying to make. The truth will stand on it's own without any slick tricks or embellishments. Doctoring up the truth is like mixing fresh meat & rotten meat, it just ruins the whole thing. I don't deny the existence of over zealous, bullying LEOs, nor have I seen anyone else here deny their existence. But I do think the first article is malarkey.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

tsrwivey said:


> But I do think the first article is malarkey.


It depends on how you look at it. Think ol hippies with a garden... They work their small farm by hand, have native grass left to grow. (for wildlife but the city don't care for it.) They work to grow their own food to look after themselves and others. (what ... no check from Uncle Sam ~ shocking )

I read a post from the owner of TGE (The Garden of Eden) today and it rather hit home. They have a garden that looks rather unruly but it is within the harmony with nature. (You will not find the first bug spray in the TGE.)

So some folks with the perfect yard don't care for the "Nature look" and all "The Free Love  the folks give out. Like "OMG" teaching folks how to compost for a great garden. And they are "ol hippies" so they must have pot in there somewhere... maybe under the blackberries... 

The owner spoke of the 10 hours that they had gun pointed at them ... They did ask questions of the team but got little answers.

So if you are now different (organic) you are on a list ... a different list but a list none the same.

Could the same not be said for folks "off the grid"? Will we be hearing next of folks off the grid have a raid done on their place. (Oh wait ... that has been done... my bad)

And in the end ... no pot was found and the folks at TGE have a mess to clean up...

Happy Gardens!!!:flower:


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

No even a little bit like this thread, but maybe how the raid should have went.

A rookie in South Carolina, found pot growing in a Lady garden & pulled it up to take back to the station.
Where is was found to be "Okra".
The county call the agr people to see how much okra pods the plants could produce in a best year growth & what the highest price on the market was at that time & cut the lady a check for the full amount.
No word on how much time the rookie got, but you know he has a LOL mark on his record & may even be DEA now.
True story.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Sentry, I understand the points you make. Here is why people are pissed:

1) They took plants (multiple varieties!) that are not _"weed"_. That can only be explained away as stupidity (well - ignorance, really) and outright incompetence.

2) Their intel was bad. Who is to blame? 
Well, the PD or course! Who else is responsible for verifying the correctness of the Intel? Not the neighbors who complained, that's for sure. Maybe to them, Okra _does_ looks like weed - from 100 yards away, I don't know. And maybe they don't either. BUT - the PD should have enough sense and decency to try to VERIFY (meaning, pull head out of butts and actually go find out for sure) _BEFORE_ holding someone at gunpoint for 10 hours. Sheessh. You know as well as *I* do there are *better* ways of verifying a "complaint" without conducting a raid!!!

3) OK, maybe they screwed up - and maybe they didn't, because the plants were pulled before the PD got there. WHO CARES?!?!? That point is moot, there WAS NO WEED THERE when the SWAT got there!!! What happened to innocent until proven guilty? I'll play devil's advocate - maybe they REALLY WERE pot growers but had enough time to "clean up" before the raid. You know as well as I do in this criminal justice system that if there is no evidence, then they are still to be presumed innocent (right or wrong as that may be).

4) Who is going to apologize? The SWAT team? Highly unlikely. *THAT* is what pisses people off. SWAT muscles their way into a garden, holding the owners at gunpoint while they pull up tomatoes and blackberries, then goes gallivanting back to the PD thinking they did a damn fine job, patting each other on the back as they go. It doesn't matter to them that they didn't find any weed, Hell - it was a damn good raid! Good exercise!! "Did you see the looks on their faces when we bursted in! Hell yeah, we are BOSS!" OK, so I am sensationalizing that a lot, but you know that's the topic of discussion at the dept. They will let "someone higher than my pay grade" make an apology (if ever) or accept the blame for their actions.

Inn summary - the SWAT found no weed. They had NO BUSINESS pulling up plants that were NOT weed (how do explain that?!?!?!) and they certainly don't need to hold someone at gunpoint. "Innocent until proven guilty" means you STILL HAVE TO SHOW SOME RESPECT. You can do that perfectly well by cuffing the occupants (they are now restrained) and locating them to a safe area.

Sorry, I am assuming again the article is correct. However, You really need to look at this situation "from the other side of the badge". I feel as though you are purposefully avoiding discussing the areas where you know full well that bad mistakes were made, only to selectively choose the battles you can argue for successfully.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

I understand your points as well, but I don't understand why people are letting themselves get pissed with so much limited information and so many unknowns. My wife tells me that I am as emotionally stable as a Vulcan (as in Star Trek). So perhaps it just takes a whole lot more for me to get all worked up over something. Especially when we have so little to go on. All of these threads are high in emotion and low on information. So we debate possibilities and what ifs and one time at band camps...


1) I have no idea why they took the plants that were not weed. Perhaps the cop did not pay attention in his drug interdiction class at the academy. Perhaps the plant was pretty. No one knows. Does seem stupid to take a plant you are not familiar with. I would not conduct a raid on a suspected grow operation without taking a well versed horticulturist with me. And yes, we have a well versed horticulturist that we use when we fly around in Blackhawks looking for weed. And yes, we do that. 

2) And how can one verify intel that seems solid without conducting a raid? Perhaps you are for the use of drones? I am not sure if the average member here is very well versed in dealing with illicit and illegal drug manufacturers and how difficult it is to infiltrate them. Do you know who is responsible for making sure the evidence meets the burden of probable cause? The Judge who signed the warrant. You can rest assured it was more than just a complaint from a neighbor that convinced that robe laden pen wielder. Some judges want video evidence and a sample plant before they will sign. But Judges know it's their butt on the line if the warrant returns nothing so they tend to error on the side of caution (believe it or not). 

3) The presumption of innocence is for the prosecution of alleged offenders. If I watch a man shoot his wife in the head and take him into custody, he has a presumption of innocence when he goes to trial. But since I watched him do it first hand and without question, he will not be given a presumption of innocence from me. Nor will a Judge release him on bail based on his presumption of innocence. The Judge presiding over the trial and the Jury will however provide him with that presumption.

If you come into my office and tell me that you witnessed your neighbors harvesting marijuana plants and you seem to be a knowledgeable and credible witness with no known bias, then I will assign the case to a team of investigators. Now they find out that a different neighbor reported the same thing a few months back and that the alleged weed farmers have two convictions for marijuana distribution and one for aggravated assault. The investigators request a fly over in a speed enforcement plane who snaps some pics and sure enough there are marijuana plants concealed within other plants. The horticulturist confirms it and a warrant is written up. The SWAT team is assigned to serve the warrant and they quickly secure the farm. But all of the marijuana plants have been harvested and are gone. Nothing but trace evidence remains. That does not mean the farmers were not criminals, it does not mean that they were not growing marijuana, that does not mean they were not criminals; it means that fortune shined on them and they were able to stay one step ahead of the police. But that's just an example, we don't know for sure what happened in this case. 

4) If this was a farmer who truly was innocent and the post-raid investigation proves that, then he should receive an apology. If it turns out he was most likely a criminal but the evidence is not strong enough for a conviction, then I don't think he does. And having been on SWAT, no one gets all excited and high-five's each other after a raid. They secure the scene and provide support while investigators dig around. Then we go back, clean up and go back to work. 


I get that you think that I am unwilling to see "both sides" of the issue, but I don't see things as one side or the other. I want to detach myself from it all together and work through the facts filling in the blanks the best I can and countering the nonsense. I may very well already be the ******* cop who "argues" on every anti-LEO thread. But I have no personal vested interest in any of this. I just cannot stand by and read people skewing reality when it comes to LEO's as I can when it comes to the military, conservatives, Christians, gun owners, preppers, patriots or people who enjoy the delicious and refreshing beverage that is Coca Cola.


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

If the cops coming in with a SWAT team to raid a garden, and upon discovering no marijuana (ignoring that its absurd that marijuana is illegal), go ahead and take some other plants that are not not illegal, if thats not enough to get upset about... Well all this goes on my long list of reasons to get off grid. I just have too many disagreements with how the system functions...


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

Sentry18 said:


> But I have no personal vested interest in any of this. I just cannot stand by and read people skewing reality when it comes to LEO's as I can when it comes to the military, conservatives, Christians, gun owners, preppers, patriots or people who enjoy the delicious and refreshing beverage that is Coca Cola.


Interesting and very telling. 

While you have no vested interest in it, many of us do. If for no other reason than to know one rights. (or lack off)


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

Do you not know your rights? How to waive or invoke them? I can certainly help with that. 

I have no "personal vested interest" in the raid of an organic farm in Texas by an agency I do not work for under circumstances I do not know. I don't live a life of fear or worry and I do not personalize things.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Sentry18 said:


> I don't live a life of fear or worry and I do not personalize things.


I guess it's different for you. 
You may not have been a victim of "wrong house/address syndrome" like some of us have.

Or being pulled over for a burned out (one, of two possible) license plate light (a totally bull$*it excuse to "have a look"),

Or, being asked to step out of a vehicle and place your hands on the car for taking a nap in a 24hr truck stop parking lot (because no one else is sleeping there?!?!?),

or any number of other "legal" *harassment* others here have had to endure.......

Don't think I am not the only one who can chime in. Sorry, I realize I got personal here 
:rantoff:


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

Sentry18 said:


> Do you not know your rights? How to waive or invoke them? I can certainly help with that.
> 
> I have no "personal vested interest" in the raid of an organic farm in Texas by an agency I do not work for under circumstances I do not know. I don't live a life of fear or worry and I do not personalize things.


Ok, this could be enlightening. Suppose I get pulled over for a tail light out (i dont speed, i wear my seat belt, ive not had a ticket in a decade), I give the cop my papers, and he claims to smell pot. What are my options? If i refuse a search, what happens? Can i just assert that i dont have any, and be on my way?


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

FatTire said:


> ... Can I just assert that I don't have any, and be on my way?


HIGHLY unlikely. 
Especially in Columbia Falls, I spent the night in jail there for having expired license plate tags.

No Shi*t.


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

Sentry18 said:


> I understand your points as well, but I don't understand why people are letting themselves get pissed with so much limited information and so many unknowns. My wife tells me that I am as emotionally stable as a Vulcan (as in Star Trek). So perhaps it just takes a whole lot more for me to get all worked up over something. Especially when we have so little to go on. All of these threads are high in emotion and low on information. So we debate possibilities and what ifs and one time at band camps...
> 
> 1) I have no idea why they took the plants that were not weed. Perhaps the cop did not pay attention in his drug interdiction class at the academy. Perhaps the plant was pretty. No one knows. Does seem stupid to take a plant you are not familiar with. I would not conduct a raid on a suspected grow operation without taking a well versed horticulturist with me. And yes, we have a well versed horticulturist that we use when we fly around in Blackhawks looking for weed. And yes, we do that.
> 
> ...


Innocent people have been killed in SWAT raids. Apologies? I never heard of one. What should be happening is the team should be facing manslaughter and home invasion charges. Has that ever happened?

A police badge is NOT a license to kill.


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

LincTex said:


> HIGHLY unlikely.
> Especially in Columbia Falls, I spent the night in jail there for having expired license plate tags.
> 
> No Shi*t.


Haa! well C.Falls can be kinna rough 

Would be nice to know though how to assert ones rights without the cop getting upset about it.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

FatTire said:


> Haa! well C.Falls can be kinna rough


Kind Of?!?!?!? 
I thought it was WAAAY over the top!  :brickwall: :rant:


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

> Ok, this could be enlightening. Suppose I get pulled over for a tail light out (i dont speed, i wear my seat belt, ive not had a ticket in a decade), I give the cop my papers, and he claims to smell pot. What are my options? If i refuse a search, what happens? Can i just assert that i dont have any, and be on my way?


The officer alleges that he smells marijuana, that would be plain-smell doctrine. He first needs to determine if the smell is from your vehicle or your person. Plain smell would give the officer reasonable suspicion but not probable cause. Plain smell is also not a strong argument in court without the corroboration of another LEO or other evidence/witness. With plain smell the officer can ask for consent to search or conduct a plain view search. Plain view allows him to look inside your vehicle from every window and angle without actually opening anything or going inside. If he see physical evidence that corroborates the plain smell doctrine he may have probable cause to arrest and subsequently could conduct a limited search incident to arrest. If not (or in lieu of plain view) the officer should request a K9. If you refuse consent to search and his suspicions are strong he can detain you for a reasonable period of time to get a K9 on scene. If the time surpasses reasonable (which varies from one jurisdiction to another, for us it is 1 hour) the officer would have to release you, but could retain the property (in this case your vehicle and again that varies from one state to another). If the K9 alerts that would surpass the plain smell doctrine and provide probable cause but not necessarily exigent circumstances. A warrant may still be required. If the warrant is for your vehicle then you may very well be released but not the car. If the warrant is for your person and the car you may be detained. But if before a warrant was requested nothing is seen via plain view and the K9 does not alert you and your vehicle should be released.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

> Would be nice to know though how to assert ones rights without the cop getting upset about it.


That's easy. It happens ALL the time. Provide the officer with the same polite and courteous mannerism that you expect from him. We have people refuse searches and other consent requests ALL the time without anyone walking away all pissed off. We also have people go ape shit over the mere request and end up in jail for disorderly conduct.

I have dealt with some extraordinarily well versed people who were as calm and reasonable as could be as they asserted their rights, those people drove off with the most minimal intrusion into their day as possible. I have also dealt with some extraordinarily emotional people who somehow thought they had a firm grasp of the law but clearly did not. They usually let their anger surpass their understanding of the law and their rights and often times end up in detention over it. The last such person was stopped for speeding and decided that it was a violation of his constitutional rights to have to present his driver's license and insurance. He proceeded to scream and yell at the officer and then decided he was going to "citizen's arrest" the officer for false detention. He ended up in jail.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

LincTex said:


> HIGHLY unlikely.
> Especially in Columbia Falls, I spent the night in jail there for having expired license plate tags.
> 
> No Shi*t.


Columbia Falls ... Now there's a good place to get a lot of dumb cop stories. My son was cruising around there one night when a cop began following him. He pulled some moves (didn't break any laws) and got behind the cop and followed him around a few blocks. The cop pulled him over for "curfew violation" and asked for his DL, vehicle registration and proof of insurance. My son produced his papers as requested and told the officer he was 18 and not under any curfew. The cops (there were two by then) got all ruffled and told him to go home. He told them again that he was over 18 and would drive where and when he wanted to and they'd better not harass him or he'd call his father. I'm nobody special but the cops left him alone. It's much easier to harass an 18 yo than to deal with a father who's been around the block a few times and would be in a very grumpy mood at 1:00 am. He cruised the town (what there is!) another half-hour just to show that he could then came home. I heard about it the next morning and I called the PD to have a few words with the chief. I then called the mayor. They said they'd "counsel" the officers involved.

CF has a difficult time keeping good cops because the pay sucks compared to other departments.


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## PipLogan (Apr 25, 2011)

He proceeded to scream and yell at the officer and then decided he was going to "citizen's arrest" the officer for false detention. He ended up in jail.[/QUOTE]
Lol seems legit


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## RevWC (Mar 28, 2011)

More Swat Teams for Nothing!

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/artic...-chicken-cry-foul-over-heavy-handed-epa-raids

Gold miners near Chicken cry foul over 'heavy-handed' EPA raidsSean Doogan|September 3, 2013 Share on emailEmail Print Text Size -A +A 
When agents with the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force surged out of the wilderness around the remote community of Chicken wearing body armor and jackets emblazoned with POLICE in big, bold letters, local placer miners didn't quite know what to think.

Related: New EPA head gets earful of Pebble Mine chatter in Southwest Alaska meetings
National Park Service trial turns Wild(e)
Did it really take eight armed men and a squad-size display of paramilitary force to check for dirty water? Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated.

Others wonder if the actions of the agents put everyone at risk. When your family business involves collecting gold far from nowhere, unusual behavior can be taken as a sign someone might be trying to stage a robbery. How is a remote placer miner to know the people in the jackets saying POLICE really are police?

Miners suggest it might have been better all around if officials had just shown up at the door -- as they used to do -- and said they wanted to check the water.

Lots of Federal land in Alaska
Alaska's vast Interior, which sprawls to the Canadian border, has been the site of federal-local distrust in the past. It was near this area, 130 miles northwest of Chicken, that National Park Service rangers pointed shotguns at, then tackled and arrested a septuagenarian, for not stopping his boat in midstream of the Yukon River in the fall of 2010. Jim Wilde, 70 years old at the time, had been ordered to prepare to be boarded for a safety inspection.

Wilde didn't much like that demand. He swore at park rangers and then headed for shore and a meeting on terra firma. Wilde was arrested and taken to the jail in Fairbanks, more than 100 miles away. He was later tried and found guilty by a federal magistrate for failing to comply with a lawful order from federal agents.

The state of Alaska, as a whole, can be a place of deeply-rooted mistrust between locals and the agents who try to enforce federal rules.

Alaska has more federally owned and managed land than any other U.S. state. More than 65 percent of its land is under some sort of federal control. A multitude of federal parks, preserves and wilderness areas are patrolled by agents from more than a dozen U.S. agencies. Many of the people in rural parts of the state, which are either under federal control or border federally-managed areas, have more contact with federal officers than they do with representatives from the state.

Surprised by armed group of officers
Miners from the Chicken area -- a gold mining town of just 17 full-time residents and dozens of seasonal miners off the Taylor Highway, between Tok and the Canadian border -- said that during the third week of August they were surprised by groups of four to eight armed officers, who swarmed onto their mining claims with little or no warning.

The officers were armed and wearing body armor. They were part of the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force and were there to check for violations of section 404 of the Clean Water Act, according to several miners who were contacted by the group. Section 404 governs water discharges into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans.

The task force's methods are now being questioned by the miners as well as the Alaska congressional delegation.

"Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor, with jackets that say POLICE emblazoned on them, and all packing side arms," said C.R. "Dick" Hammond, a Chicken gold miner who got a visit from the task force.

"How would you have felt?" Hammond asked. "You would be wondering, 'My God, what have I done now?'"

Hammond and other Chicken area miners aren't alone in wondering what they have done now. Both Alaska U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich have inquired into the task force's actions. Congressman Don Young is also looking into it. They have been having a difficult time getting straight answers from the EPA.

Rampant drug and human trafficking?
The EPA has refused to publicly explain why it used armed officers as part of what it called a "multi-jurisdictional" investigation of possible Clean Water Act violations in the area.

A conference call was held last week to address the investigation. On the line were members of the Alaska Congressional delegation, their staff, state officers, and the EPA. According to one Senate staffer, the federal agency said it decided to send in the task force armed and wearing body armor because of information it received from the Alaska State Troopers about "rampant drug and human trafficking going on in the area."

The miners contacted by the task force were working in the area of the Fortymile National Wild and Scenic River. The federal designation, made in 1980 as part of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, protects 32 miles between Chicken and Eagle, Alaska. It is a remote area, close to the Canadian border and the town of Boundary. The nearest city of any real size is Fairbanks, 140 miles to the northwest. It was unknown to everyone in the area that there is a rampant problem with drug and human traffickers.

This also came as news to the Alaska State Troopers, whom the EPA said supplied the information about drugs and human trafficking, and at least one U.S. senator.

"Their explanation -- that there are concerns within the area of rampant drug trafficking and human trafficking going on -- sounds wholly concocted to me," said Murkowski, R-Alaska.

"The Alaska State Troopers did not advise the EPA that there was dangerous drug activity. We do not have evidence to suggest that is occurring," said Trooper spokesperson Megan Peters.

The Alaska Department of Law said it knew of the task force's investigation but that it did not advise the group about any ongoing problems or dangers in the Fortymile River area.

'Heavy-handed, heavy-armor approach'
"This seems to have been a heavy-handed, and heavy-armor approach," said Murkowski. "Why was it so confrontational? The EPA really didn't have any good answers for this."

According to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, one of its compliance officers went along with the task force, but only to look for potential state violations at the mine sites.

The DEC officer was armed.

The task force is made up of members of the EPA, the FBI, Coast Guard, Department of Defense, the Alaska Department of Public Safety and the DEC. The chief investigator, Matt Goers, said he could not discuss the details of the recent Fortymile River investigations. So far, no charges, state or federal, have resulted from the group's work last month.

Miners in the area are not waiting for the results of the investigation. They have met in Chicken and are demanding a Sept. 14 meeting with the EPA, the state, and the members of the Alaska federal delegation to discuss the task force's tactics.

"Compliance exams are a normal thing for miners. Usually (Bureau of Land Management) or DEC points out a problem and you correct it. This (the task force's action) was way over the top and uncalled for. It was a massive show of intimidation," said David Likins, a gold miner in the Fortymile Mining District.

Most of the mines in the area are small, family-run placer operations. They are like the mines seen on on the Reality TV show "Gold Rush: Alaska." They search for gold by digging up ground and running it through a sluice box, using water to wash away the rocks and leave the valuable gold behind.

The water they use must be allowed to settle in ponds before it's discharged back into streams or creeks, so that mud and rocks don't pollute clean, nearby waterways. Water turned turbid (cloudy or muddy) can kill fish.

Likins said the task force may have found one possible clean water violation at a mine near Boundary, very close to the Canadian border.

Likins said he believes the aggressive actions of the task force made their investigation much more dangerous for everyone, including the miners and the agents.

"If it were my mine, and I was sitting on some gold, and people came storming out of the woods, I would probably meet them on the porch, with my shotgun," he said.


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

And once again, there is nothing wrong with any of that. 

I am armed and wearing armor every day. I have "POLICE" in large letters across my back. My patrol vehicle has a semi-auto 12ga and a full-auto M6. Does this make every response that I make "tactical"? No. 

Given the nature of their business, I can understand that they would be cautious about armed people approaching. However, I have never heard of police impersonators pretending to be inspectors to approach miners.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Turtle said:


> And once again, there is nothing wrong with any of that.


No, there is something wrong - VERY wrong.

This is the key sentence.:



RevWC said:


> Miners suggest it might have been better all around *if officials had just shown up at the door -- as they used to do* -- and said they wanted to check the water.


What would have been wrong with doing that? 
Their "new" tactics is like hunting squirrels with a .50 BMG


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

What about miners these days? Using explosives to expose rock? Ground penetrating radar to reveal deposits? Battery operated flashlights? This is ridiculous! Who do they think they are? We need to stop this militarization of the mining industry. What was wrong with the good old days when they had a pick and torches? The American people are being desensitized to the terror that these destruction-obsessed terrorists are capable of inflicting upon us. 

Those poor officers were just walking through the woods, doing their jobs, when suddenly they came upon a horde of savages armed with medieval devices of destruction, bent upon destroying the landscape around them.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Turtle said:


> What about miners these days? Using explosives to expose rock? Ground penetrating radar to reveal deposits? Battery operated flashlights? This is ridiculous! Who do they think they are? We need to stop this militarization of the mining industry. What was wrong with the good old days when they had a pick and torches? The American people are being desensitized to the terror that these destruction-obsessed terrorists are capable of inflicting upon us.
> 
> Those poor officers were just walking through the woods, doing their jobs, when suddenly they came upon a horde of savages armed with medieval devices of destruction, bent upon destroying the landscape around them.


What? :scratch


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

When did the EPA become police?


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Turtle said:


> What was wrong with the good old days ?


Great.

Please have all SWAT teams disbanded: 
they aren't necessary now and *never were.*

Have all LEO's turn in their body armor; 
seriously, what a ridiculous concept to begin with!!!!

There was _NOTHING WRONG_ with the ol' S&W .38 Special. 
It was an effective LEO pistol then, and it is just as effective today.

How about trying to work with some real debatable topics. You sound a lot like a democrat.

I also take note that no portion of my previous comment was refuted effectively.


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

LincTex said:


> Great.
> 
> Please have all SWAT teams disbanded:
> they aren't necessary now and never were.
> ...


Okay, I can only assume that you are joking, much as I was when I wrote about the "militarization of miners".

Body armor saves lives. I personally know people who are alive today because of it. None of us like wearing it, it isn't for looks, I assure you. We wear it because when your life is on the line, you will take every precaution you can to be sure that you will be able to home to your family at the end if the shift.

SWAT teams are highly effective. Their use saves lives on both side of the fight. How, you wonder? Because they are trained to make entry and subdue expectedly violent suspects before they have a chance to resist, thus negating the need to use deadly force. Also, they contain the fight so that the chance of gunfire impacting bystanders is minimized. They, like all police officers, act to the best of their ability to protect the public. They are only getting MORE necessary.

You are correct that there is nothing wrong with a S&W .38 Special. It was a fine match for another revolver, in its day. The same could be said for a '40s Ford sedan... However, it's day has also passed. No matter what problem you are facing, you use the right to tool for the job, correct? Would you use a bronze hatchet to cut down a 60' oak? It worked fine in its day, and sure, still works today... But why would you, when modern chainsaws are available? You could probably use a rope bridge to get across most canyons, but why, when a more suitable and safer option is available? You match the tool to the task. When odds are good that a criminal is illegally armed with a semi-auto pistol, I would at least like to have the same odds of success as him.

I fail to see how my use of hyperbole to draw attention to the ridiculous nature of the claims in any way makes me sound "like a democrat." I wasn't aware that most of them possessed a sense of humor.

I didn't bother addressing your other post, as there was nothing contained therein worth refuting. You expressed an opinion which differs from my own and used a comparative analogy which was, at best, silly, and at worst, ignorant.


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

And, once again, we come to a point where the anti-police elements have spouted the same lines and the elements in law enforcement have trotted out the same defenses. Perhaps we should all simply save time and effort by adding to our signature lines whether or not we support law enforcement? The same arguments begin to get tiresome. 

Those of us with first-hand knowledge of the subject matter repeatedly set the record straight. However, we cannot reason with minds that are closed and refuse to accept any view but that which they already hold. 

I know that some clever individual will selectively quote that previous sentence, attempting to throw it back in my face with something along the lines of, "Aha! But you always defend cops no matter what!" Not so. Sentry, myself, and others in law enforcement have previously acknowledged instances where police have been in the wrong. However, given our perspectives, training, and experiences, we are often able to address misconceptions or misunderstood actions. You'll notice, also that we very often do not excuse behaviors which may be negative, but simply offer another perspective to consider. If a cop is genuinely being disrespectful or unlawful, we will be the first to disapprove of his actions. 

I will be so bold as to say that all of us on this site, every single one of us, is here to learn, share, discuss, and teach when able. Perhaps, instead of promoting an "us versus them" mentality, we might all attempt to be respectful and simply accept that others have different experiences and perspectives than our own? When people share personal experiences of being treated poorly by cops, I don't think I have ever seen a cop on this forum respond with, "You're a dirty liar! Cops are all saints!" All we (and I will be so bold as to speak for all of my brothers and sisters in law enforcement on this site) ask that others consider that there may be legitimate alternatives to their own previously held beliefs.


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

For many of us the use of military tactics by police is a highly visible example of the breakdown of liberty and loss of freedom in our modern society. It contributes to the dissolution of trust in government. If we don't start to turn things around at the ballot box we are going to wake up one day and find our basic rights are no more.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

For many of us the use of proven-effective tactics used by police is a highly visible example of the moral breakdown of American society and rampant mental illness that plagues it. There have always been people willing to kill LEO's, but we are dealing with more mentally ill and mentally deficient people than ever before and have to respond accordingly. We are also dealing with criminals who know and understand police tactics, have body armor, have video surveillance, have better guns and have tactical skills of their own. Playing Sheriff Andy from Mayberry is just going to result in you never reaching retirement. This so-called militarization of police is just our improving our offense so we don't _always_ have to play defense. Like I tell my officer's in training; everything we do and how we do it was a lesson learned from a fellow LEO laying down his life. Yes cops make mistakes, unfortunately we are not enhanced robocops and still have to rely on being human. But our successes far outweigh our failures; which is impressive considering the amount of bureaucracy placed on us, poor working conditions, limited budgets, an inconsistent judicial system and constant political interference.

But I agree with Geek999 that it is the ballot box we need to be concerned with. And most LEO's I know are conservatives who believe strongly in civil liberties and vote accordingly. I don't vote as a cop. I vote as a Christian family man who supports the Constitution.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

There is a distinct issue of distrust of law enforcement among many in the populace. That too comes from experience. Many of us know of instances when cops were given "get out of jail free" passes by their "brothers and sisters" while a "civilian" would have gotten a citation or jail time. There are dozens of other instances that have been brought up as well and I'm not going to rehash those.

For us on the "outside" it's a lot like the views Muslims. They keep saying that it's only a small minority who are the terrorists and radicals yet we see no great uprising by the "good" Muslims against the "bad" Muslims so the rest of us wonder just how sincere the "good" Muslims are.

You and other LEO's on the forum defending indefensible actions often sound like a woman who has an abusive spouse yet she keeps making excuses for him. "You just don't understand him" He has a lot of stress to deal with." "He's such a good man most of the time." "He's always so remorseful when he sobers up." Blah, blah, blah ...

We have many reasons to be suspicious of cops and some of them are BS tactics they employ. We travel by train and on one stop in Montana several Border Patrol Agents boarded the train. They spread out among the passengers and, sternly glaring into each one's eyes in turn, asked gruffly "are you an American Citizen." Do you have any idea how tempting it was to ask them how we were supposed to prove we were if they didn't believe us? They won't accept a driver's license or state ID card as proof of citizenship (because they are not) so are we supposed to carry a passport or birth certificate when travelling in our own country?! They looked like incompetent a$$hole idiots because they were!!!!! It was nothing but an attempt to get people used to gestapo tactics. It was an abuse of power with an overwhelming display of force designed to intimidate the populace.

These endless SWAT wannabe raids are stupid. Pulling a couple of women over and feeling them up in front of the headlights on a squad car on a busy road?!?!?!? Why did it take a YouTube video to get this brought to light? There were a whole bucket load of cops standing around and NO ONE OBJECTED?!?!? It takes a multi-agency task force to check a mining site for EPS violations?!?!?! For years I've wondered why the blacks felt singled out and persecuted by the cops and now I understand. Congratulations! You've now got me in their corner due to the BS stops for a cracked windshield, a license plate light being out and similar excuses by cops for pulling _me_ over just so they can take a look inside my vehicle since I must obviously appear to be a drug dealer or other type of thug. In the meantime I hear them brag about letting their "brothers" slide and laughing about the times they violated the law.

Y'all keep making up excuses for idiot cops and their gestapo tactics. You need people like us (the liberals aren't going to do it), to back you up but you keep alienating us as well. So ... just keep promoting the "us _vs_. them" mentality until it becomes a reality.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

> Y'all keep making up excuses for idiot cops and their gestapo tactics.


No LEO here has made excuses (read Turtle's post again) but you cannot or will not see that. We have tried to explain why an LEO might have done what he did or why he didn't do what you feel he/she should have. Filling the void of ignorance of police procedure with tangible information is not an excuse, it's an explanation. But since we don't get emotional and join the witch hunt you have decided that we condone any and all police action, right or wrong, and make excuses to cover for our fellow LEO's. You also lump all LEO's into one massive group and judge us all by the action of very few. Your border patrol example was wrought with conjecture and insults. How do you know what was in the minds of the border patrol agents? How do you know what their agenda is? Do you know any of them personally? Was their "glaring" really that intimidating? It's pretty clear to me that the "us versus them" mentality is VERY strong on your side of the discussion without any need for us to promote it.


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

Well at least our LEO's are against firing an RPG into a lake resulting in the deaths of children. Its good to have boundaries, i guess...


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

Sentry18 said:


> For many of us the use of proven-effective tactics used by police is a highly visible example of the moral breakdown of American society and rampant mental illness that plagues it. There have always been people willing to kill LEO's, but we are dealing with more mentally ill and mentally deficient people than ever before and have to respond accordingly. We are also dealing with criminals who know and understand police tactics, have body armor, have video surveillance, have better guns and have tactical skills of their own. Playing Sheriff Andy from Mayberry is just going to result in you never reaching retirement. This so-called militarization of police is just our improving our offense so we don't _always_ have to play defense. Like I tell my officer's in training; everything we do and how we do it was a lesson learned from a fellow LEO laying down his life. Yes cops make mistakes, unfortunately we are not enhanced robocops and still have to rely on being human. But our successes far outweigh our failures; which is impressive considering the amount of bureaucracy placed on us, poor working conditions, limited budgets, an inconsistent judicial system and constant political interference.
> 
> But I agree with Geek999 that it is the ballot box we need to be concerned with. And most LEO's I know are conservatives who believe strongly in civil liberties and vote accordingly. I don't vote as a cop. I vote as a Christian family man who supports the Constitution.


While we are on opposite sides of the issue of whether SWAT teams are overused, I agree that the approach to mental illness over the past 40 years or so has put all of us in much more frequent contact with the mentally ill.

Somehow I don't think SWAT teams are the answer to mental illness.

The fact is very few LEOs get killed in the line of duty. I believe the number is about 35 per year nationally. Construction is much more dangerous. I wish I had a number of innocent people killed by cops annually as I suspect it exceeds that number. I know innocent people have been killed in SWAT raids. I believe the appropriate tactics would lower the risk for organic farmers, the mentally ill and innocent bystanders.

I would have a lot more concern about the safety of LEOs if I thought they cared about the safety of others, but it is clear that the safety of civilians isn't a concern to most LEOs. I've even had LEOs tell me to my face that my safety is "not their job".


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## TheLazyL (Jun 5, 2012)

Sentry18 said:


> ... border patrol example was wrought with conjecture and insults....


Last month I was driving a rental from Tombstone Arizona to Tuscon. It was about 3 AM in the morning and my rental was the only car on the road. I saw Border Patrol check point ahead and a sign "ALL VEHICLES MUST STOP".

Now I don't know who drove the rental before me. Rental had sat in front of my motel for several days. Practical for someone(s) to place something in the rental before I got it or during. I made up my mind not consent to a search without a warrant.

One Officer manning a booth about the size of a large telephone booth. I figure the Officer is bored and will likely waste my time trying to perform a fine tooth search followed by a extended question and answer session resulting in me missing my flight.

I rolled down the Driver's window as the Officer exited from the booth and before I could come to a completed stop he said, "Have a good day" and waved me thru.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

Geek999 said:


> While we are on opposite sides of the issue of whether SWAT teams are overused, I agree that the approach to mental illness over the past 40 years or so has put all of us in much more frequent contact with the mentally ill.
> 
> Somehow I don't think SWAT teams are the answer to mental illness.
> 
> ...


Mental illness is definitely an issue not being properly addressed in this country and needs to be. The current system of placating and ignoring is not working. Some agencies do not do mission specific training on persons with diminished capacity and some do. But the trend is to do so with expediency.

The problem is that sometimes the mentally ill call 911 and then shoot the officer in the head from a second story bedroom window as he walks up to the front door. Then he barricades himself into that bedroom with body armor and LOTS of guns and ammo. Then it absolutely becomes a matter for SWAT. I know because I was on that SWAT call and the LEO who died was a friend of mine. That LEO by the way considered the safety of the public his highest calling. I have buried 4 LEO friends since I became a cop. I have been stabbed once, cut with a broken beer bottle, punched, kicked, bitten and shot at several times. Once by a man who intended to walk into a basketball game and kill as many people as he could. I interrupted him (traffic stop) and he put two 12ga rounds through the windshield of my cruiser before I resolved the incident through force. The tactics we are taught, train on and practice have saved my life more than once. As has my body armor and my other "militarized" equipment. Just because I am still here does not make my job less dangerous. My scars and 3 hospital stays prove how concerned I am with the safety of those people I have sworn to protect and my willingness to potentially sacrifice myself for them. And I am not the only one. Rest assured that every LEO on this forum and almost every LEO I know feels the same way. 4 of my former compatriots proved it with their lives and I will see more buried before I retire.


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## ras1219como (Jan 15, 2013)

Geek999 sorry to tell you but you are wrong. The national average for law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty has been over 100 per year for quite some time. So far in 2013, sixty six law enforcement officers have been killed. In fact in an effort to reduce law enforcement deaths the Below 100 initiative was started in an attempt to lower the yearly line of duty deaths below 100. 

You can visit below100.com and odmp.org for more information on this.


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

I think we can agree that mental illness needs to be addressed and in the situation you describe the system failed long before the SWAT team was called. I certainly have no objections to LEOs wearing body armor or defending themselves or others when confronted with a violent situation.

I am glad you express some concern for the safety of the public. What I don't hear from local LEOs is any sense of concern for the safety of anyone but themselves. We had a case of an active shooter in NYC a couple years ago where 9 LEOs managed to shoot 11 innocent bystanders along with the shooter. The police killed more people than the shooter. Has anything changed to prevent a recurrence? Nope, none of the LEOs were injured so the protocols worked.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

Real LEO's need those Ballistic vests and weapons.

The EPA should be disbanded . It is no longer necessary !


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

ras1219como said:


> Geek999 sorry to tell you but you are wrong. The national average for law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty has been over 100 per year for quite some time. So far in 2013, sixty six law enforcement officers have been killed. In fact in an effort to reduce law enforcement deaths the Below 100 initiative was started in an attempt to lower the yearly line of duty deaths below 100.
> 
> You can visit below100.com and odmp.org for more information on this.


I could be wrong on the number as I am working from memory of something I read awhile ago. Even at over 100 that makes it safer than construction work.

You wouldn't happen to have a figure on how many innocent bystanders are killed by police would you? Is any effort being made to reduce that number? Are the lives of innocent bystanders shot by police less valuable than the police themselves?


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

As I have said before, law enforcement is very different from one part of the country to another. If an officer shot an innocent bystander here (even while trying to stop a madman) there would be hell to pay and his career would likely come to an end in it's present form. I however cannot recall a single time in my career when an innocent bystander was killed in my region. I do remember a man being shot in the leg when an bullet traveled through the wall of an apartment building and hit him. The officer was suspended and the case investigated. The officer shot a man 4 times who had pulled out a revolver and fired one round at the officer. The officer fired 2 double taps (as he was trained to do). The man was hit 2 times in the chest and once in the arm. The 4th bullet traveled through the wall and hit the innocent man. He was offered a settlement (which he accepted) and the officer returned to duty after a month at a desk, clearance by a shrink and completing a 40 hour firearms re-certification. 

But officers laying down their lives versus officer's killing innocent people are two VERY unrelated topics. The former is about the dangers of law enforcement and the need for better training, equipment, political support, etc. The latter is about training, selection, internal affairs and holding those persons accountability if they are found criminally liable or negligent in their actions. And here, they would be held accountable. Can't say for your region, but I am sure they were in one way or another. Whether it was made public or not. 

The only cops I know who are so hardened as to not care about the public they serve are bitter from years of thankless service and damned if you do / damned if you don't community outrage and BS complaints. And even then their supervisor should recognize this and respond accordingly. I have known two such officers, after a few attempts at remediation both were reassigned to low-level security posts until they reached retirement. .


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## Seasoned-prepper (Aug 27, 2013)

Interesting article here...http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/why-have-police-in-america-turned-into-such-ruthless-thugs

Nothing against anyone here... I believe this country is being conditioned... I also believe there are some law enforcement that are fine people... Just like in any place of business there are also some bad... I think the real problems with society are the lack of communication skills... Too many people just dial up the cops instead of politely confronting their neighbors... "Excuse me neighbor, that piano in your front yard is kind of an eye sore, could I help you load it up and haul it away?" Now while I don't know if the neighbors tried that approach, I'd bet they did not... They simply called and complained... It's much easier to dial the phone then walk over and talk... Plus... I might miss my show on TV... lol Give me a neighbor that will run over and give me a hand when I'm struggling to load something on my truck... I don't care if he has a half dozen rusty cars in his front yard... It's his yard... I'm not figuring on moving and selling my house so property value means squat... Just my opinion...


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

Sentry18 said:


> As I have said before, law enforcement is very different from one part of the country to another. If an officer shot an innocent bystander here (even while trying to stop a madman) there would be hell to pay and his career would likely come to an end in it's present form. I however cannot recall a single time in my career when an innocent bystander was killed in my region. I do remember a man being shot in the leg when an bullet traveled through the wall of an apartment building and hit him. The officer was suspended and the case investigated. The officer shot a man 4 times who had pulled out a revolver and fired one round at the officer. The officer fired 2 double taps (as he was trained to do). The man was hit 2 times in the chest and once in the arm. The 4th bullet traveled through the wall and hit the innocent man. He was offered a settlement (which he accepted) and the officer returned to duty after a month at a desk, clearance by a shrink and completing a 40 hour firearms re-certification.
> 
> But officers laying down their lives versus officer's killing innocent people are two VERY unrelated topics. The former is about the dangers of law enforcement and the need for better training, equipment, political support, etc. The latter is about training, selection, internal affairs and holding those persons accountability if they are found criminally liable or negligent in their actions. And here, they would be held accountable. Can't say for your region, but I am sure they were in one way or another. Whether it was made public or not.
> 
> The only cops I know who are so hardened as to not care about the public they serve are bitter from years of thankless service and damned if you do / damned if you don't community outrage and BS complaints. And even then their supervisor should recognize this and respond accordingly. I have known two such officers, after a few attempts at remediation both were reassigned to low-level security posts until they reached retirement. .


Maybe the issue is differing parts of the country as you suggest. There was a joke I heard years ago about the Philadelphia Police. Question: "What's the difference between the police and the street gangs?" Answer: "No difference, either group will beat you up and take your money."

That pretty much sums things up for the whole northeast.


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## ras1219como (Jan 15, 2013)

Geek999 said:


> I could be wrong on the number as I am working from memory of something I read awhile ago. Even at over 100 that makes it safer than construction work.
> 
> You wouldn't happen to have a figure on how many innocent bystanders are killed by police would you? Is any effort being made to reduce that number? Are the lives of innocent bystanders shot by police less valuable than the police themselves?


It's not that you could be wrong, you are wrong and thats why I have provided you with updated information. You are correct in the fact that more construction workers die per year with the highest cause being from a fall. While the risk of accidental death may be much higher for a construction worker the risk of being killed/murdered in a violent encounter is much higher for the LEO.

At this time I do not have any figures on innocents. I will try to find those statistics for you.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

Seasoned-prepper said:


> Interesting article here...http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/why-have-police-in-america-turned-into-such-ruthless-thugs They simply called and complained... It's much easier to dial the phone then walk over and talk... Plus... I might miss my show on TV... lol Give me a neighbor that will run over and give me a hand when I'm struggling to load something on my truck... I don't care if he has a half dozen rusty cars in his front yard... It's his yard... I'm not figuring on moving and selling my house so property value means squat... Just my opinion...


For most Americans, their home is their biggest asset. Your home value may not mean much to you since you aren't interested in selling but what about your heirs? Most, if not all, of what the average American will leave their kids to inherit is tied up in the home. Now Dumpy Dan's dozen rusty cars will cause your children to get a good bit less of the money YOU worked your whole life for. His laziness will steal the money you worked for from you & your children.


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

ras1219como said:


> It's not that you could be wrong, you are wrong and thats why I have provided you with updated information. You are correct in the fact that more construction workers die per year with the highest cause being from a fall. While the risk of accidental death may be much higher for a construction worker the risk of being killed/murdered in a violent encounter is much higher for the LEO.
> 
> At this time I do not have any figures on innocents. I will try to find those statistics for you.


Using your numbers I stand by my point. LEO work is much safer than a lot of other jobs that are perceived as less hazardous. The idea that LEOs are a bunch of brave "heros" running huge risks is a fiction used to justify SWAT tactics and other nonsense.

I'd like to know if the numbers of innocents killed are rising or falling, whether anyone is taking any action to reduce those deaths, and whether prosecutions have taken place. If there are few prosecutions vs. deaths, then we can safely assume that the numbers are under-reported and the reality is that coverups are typical.

Does it strike any LEOs here as odd that the term "swat" is now a verb? The fact that "swatting" takes place is an obvious indication that these raids are far too easy to initiate. Instead of figuring out how to reduce the number of "swatting" incidents all we hear from LEOs is "We had a credible report of X", which is the justification to just move on and ignore the fact that they've just acted like the Keystone Cops with fancy gear. LEOs would rather keep going with SWAT nonsense than recognize they are being played for fools.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Congrats on being the lead agencies on ensuring that bad cops are dealt with. It's still kind of like the Muslim thing ... too little work to ensure that other cops aren't a danger and not enough protesting when one of your own is found at fault.

The excuses (what you call "other options") go beyond "seeking the truth." They truly do sound like an abused spouse making up things to cover for her violent husband. You should try to listen from an "outsiders" perspective.

The use of SWAT tactics are way over the line. The Randy Weaver siege began with a bunch of Federal Marshals sneaking around private property while dressed up like Ninjas and armed to the teeth. A boy and his dog and the boy's mother died as a result. Then we have Waco Texas with gas-em-and-burn-em Reno in charge. BATF agents come in like Storm Troopers and get their Arses shot to bits then the FBI takes over the siege to finish the job. Then key pieces of evidence (for the defense) just happens to disappear before the trial. And of course the children and their mothers they were so valiantly trying to save (lots of sarcasm here!) end up burned to death in the fire. The storm trooper stuff slowed down for a few years after the Federal building in OK City was blown up in retaliation but its on the rise again. Evidently the current generation of cops are back to the jack-booted thugs/storm trooper tactics. All that breeds is rebellion. It needs to be reigned in and the so-called "good cops" best get a handle on the bad ones and stop blindly following their lead. It only takes one bad incident to poison it for the rest of you.

The train gestapo was way over the line. To be fair though, Hitler would be proud of it so I guess some types of people would see it as okay. After all, the people really should be more respectful of cops and less inclined to hide behind the Constitution and BOR. It is important for a totalitarian regime to take away the means to resist then to instill fear of the government to take away their will to resist.

Cops need to police their own ranks. I still find it incredulous that a whole bucket full of cops were accessories in feeling up those women in public AND NOT A SINGLE ONE STOPPED IT!!!! They should have all been fired.

And when the cops have enough time on their hands to pull people over for cracked windshields or inoperative license plate lights (fishing expeditions) then there are too many cops. (Especially when they could/should be going after DUI's and others who are a threat to society.) I've had several friends and their children killed by drunk drivers but not a one was ever harmed because someone had a cracked windshield or inoperative license plate light. :gaah:

And please, don't label me as a cop hater. I'm not. I am, however tired of idiots wearing a badge and packing a gun with a car load of military weapons who have no respect for the Constitution and BOR and/or think they are exempt from the laws they are supposed to enforce and/or waste my tax money chasing down "law violators" with cracked windshields or inoperative tag lights WHILE I'M ATTENDING THE FUNERALS OF MY FRIENDS WHO'VE BEEN KILLED BY DRUNK DRIVERS, or I'm locking everything up to keep it safe from drug abusers.

Then there are a bucket full of cops enjoying the show as two women are felt up because one cop supposedly smelled marijuana????

Talk about majoring in the minors.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

tsrwivey said:


> For most Americans, their home is their biggest asset. Your home value may not mean much to you since you aren't interested in selling but what about your heirs? Most, if not all, of what the average American will leave their kids to inherit is tied up in the home. Now Dumpy Dan's dozen rusty cars will cause your children to get a good bit less of the money YOU worked your whole life for. His laziness will steal the money you worked for from you & your children.


I understand the sentiment tsrwivey, I really do, the amount of money our family has tied up in real estate for various reasons most people would probably find excessive. It has historically been used as a retirement plan in our family and many others. However, for many of us it is simply a matter of principle, of the golden rule, etc, I don't want anyone to control what I do on my land so I have the obligation to not try to assert control over theirs, particularly through force or state coercion. 
The argument that a persons right to use their property as they prefer can be infringed in order to insure the value of others has been used to support many other unfair policies. Western Canadian wheat farmers were forced to sell wheat through a system that was intended to maximize profits (it didn't work of course) under the presumption that without it some farmers would sell into a falling market and decrease the value of other farmer's grain.

There are endless far worse examples of how it can be taken to extremes but just staying with house value, the argument has been used in some cases to tell people what kind of house or structure they can build on their property in the first place, whether or not they can have a garden and if so how large and where it can be, how many people can occupy it, whether they can rent or sell it as they please, even what colour they can paint their house. So if a person who really OWNS a piece of property has very little say in how that property is used and in fact their neighbors can tell them what is or is not allowed you have made a complete mockery of property rights and instead have socialism. Socialism/Fascism uses these exact principles in these exact ways to control people for what is perceived to be the common good.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

We have a couple of junk vehicles near the road just to keep the wrong kind of people from moving into our neighborhood. (As high as they're going for scrap now we'd be financially ahead to take them to the recycling center.) A neighbor has several parked along the road for the same reason. It's worked several times that we know of when people looked at property in the area then left because of the junk that they saw. Around here we value independence and a "live and let live" attitude. 

As far as our kids' inheritance ... let them make their own money like we did. If they can't handle their money they won't be able to handle what we leave them either and it would hurt even worse to see them squander what we worked so hard to get.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

cowboyhermit said:


> The argument that a persons right to use their property as they prefer can be infringed in order to insure the value of others has been used to support many other unfair policies. Western Canadian wheat farmers were forced to sell wheat through a system that was intended to maximize profits (it didn't work of course) under the presumption that without it some farmers would sell into a falling market and decrease the value of other farmer's grain.
> 
> There are endless far worse examples of how it can be taken to extremes but just staying with house value, the argument has been used in some cases to tell people what kind of house or structure they can build on their property in the first place, whether or not they can have a garden and if so how large and where it can be, how many people can occupy it, whether they can rent or sell it as they please, even what colour they can paint their house. So if a person who really OWNS a piece of property has very little say in how that property is used and in fact their neighbors can tell them what is or is not allowed you have made a complete mockery of property rights and instead have socialism. Socialism/Fascism uses these exact principles in these exact ways to control people for what is perceived to be the common good.


I totally agree, & that's why I choose to live outside city limits in an area where no such rules exist.  I wouldn't own a piece of property inside a Homeowners Association if it was given to me. However, in the instances where one does live inside city limits or elsewhere with rules about what you can & can't do with your property, as was apparently the case in the OP, you choose to abide by those rules, & benefit from the protections provided by them, when you choose to purchase the property. I'll agree these HOA's often get ridiculous in their rules & are often low hanging fruit for wanna-be dictators to run amuck. Put again, we each have a choice. Don't like the rules, don't live there.

I do believe, however, we all have somewhat of a moral obligation to maintain our property both to be good stewarts of what we have been blessed with & to promote peace & goodwill among our neighbors. We have a trashy neighbor a mile down the road & the people next to him can't even sell their property because no one wants to live next to that. They have a constant battle with rats, mice, roaches, & snakes because of the neighbors nastiness. Vagrants & dope heads were utilizing the house they let rot that was close to the neighbors while they lived in a trailer a couple acres away. I feel sorry for them. The trashy folks even let their pit bulls run loose & endanger their neighbors kids on their own property. (I took care of that for them with a shotgun.) Many times I've thought about throwing a lighted match out the window as I drove by. 

It's the blatant disregard for others that fuels the rules & regulations. Do you have a right to be so nasty that you make your neighbors property worthless? Do you have a right to endanger the health & safety of your neighbor by what you do on your property? Where do your rights end & your neighbors rights begin? What about the neighbors right to enjoy his property?


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I am the first to admit private property rights are complicated but as far as appearances, there can be no unbiased arbiter of what is too unpleasant and therefore no standard should not be imposed. If you walk down the street wearing clothes I consider awful am I therefore allowed to arrest you for infringing my right to sit on my porch and "enjoy" my property. My neighbors don't have the right to "enjoy" MY property so if they don't like the way it looks then they need not look at it.

If we are talking about legitimate and direct danger to others (that are not trespassing) then that is a different matter entirely and a completely different argument. People have to be accountable for actual damages or harm caused by their actions or negligence.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Some of this is about who was there first. In my "growing up" town there was a subdivision that opened up near a meat packing plant. Every Wednesday they burned hides and the smell was horrendous. The people in the subdivision tried to shut down the packing plant because the smell ruined their quality of life and devalued their property! The packing plant had been there ten years before the subdivision and the judge told them that they should have exerted some responsibility before buying the property and bought elsewhere.

We once had a new neighbor who complained about our rooster crowing. We told him get over it. We were there first and so was the rooster. The country agreed with us. We never made a fuss about him lighting up his smelly cigarettes when the wind was toward us.

I've got dozens of other examples of new people trying to change everyone around them. They need to suck it up or go back where they used to live if it was so great.

The only time I'd interfere with the property rights of others is if it posed a danger to my/our health.


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## RevWC (Mar 28, 2011)

SNAFU

http://autos.aol.com/article/police...d=maing-grid7|main5|dl5|sec1_lnk3&pLid=370709

"Police Across USA Charged With Traffic Ticket Quotas To Meet Budgets
Georgia, Alabama, New York and Michigan police all facing quota investigations
Posted: Sep 06, 2013

If the Atlanta police department wants to make sure their future pay raises come in, they had better write more tickets and make sure they show up in court to defend them, says a report from Channel 2 Action News in the Georgia capitol.

The TV news team obtained an email sent from the police union chief Ken Allen to his members in the Atlanta Police Department explaining that future raises will be funded through ticket revenue based on the most recent city budget.

It may be the first time a major city overtly spelled out the connection between traffic ticket revenue and police salary and raises, and it raises questions that the southern city is instituting an official quota system.

"The mayor has designated traffic court/ticket revenue for future pay increases ... (This is) the first time ever that a revenue stream has been designated to salaries," Allen told officers in the email, according to Channel 2. "Future pay increases are in our hands. We need only enforce traffic violations as we are now, but increase our attendance in court to prevent cases being dismissed."

A representative for the mayor's office told Channel 2 that the city is simply trying to improve how the police department engages in traffic court, "especially regarding operations and the collections process." But, the spokesman told Channel 2, "There is no push to increase revenues through the writing of additional tickets."

An Atlanta Police Department representative told Channel 2 the department has not issued any official directive for officers to write more tickets, nor informed them that ticket writing is directly tied to their compensation.

But it appears to be semantics. If police know their raises are tied to ticket revenue, they will not only be inclined to do a better job of showing up and defending the tickets they write in traffic court, they are also incentivized to write more tickets.

As city's cope with tightening budgets, "unofficial" ticket writing quotas have been uncovered in the last year, with line officers, many of whom object to the practice, caught in the middle.

In Bethel Heights, Ark., last month, Officer Timothy Brasuell recorded his police chief pushing him to manufacture reasons to make more traffic stops and get his ticket numbers up. Brasuell, reported NBC TV affiliate KNWA, played the recording for the county prosecutor and mayor who dismissed the officer's concerns "as an internal matter."

In Staten Island, NY, three police officers were charged in 2012 with writing phony tickets to meet unofficial quotas they claimed were forced on them by superiors. Officer Paul Pizzuto, who was dismissed and lost his pension, made the claim that bosses threatened to transfer him if he didn't keep up a quota of 150 tickets per month. Pizzuto was caught submitting bogus summonses of people he had previously ticketed, and even people who were dead.

In Auburn, Ala., earlier this year, a police officer was fired for allegedly going against a ticket quota policy dictated by superiors to raise extra revenue for the city. Officer Justin Hanners charged that his commanding officer told him and his fellow officers they had to write at least 100 tickets per month, according to The Opelika-Auburn News. Cops who wrote the most tickets, Hanners charged in court papers, were rewarded with gift certificates for steak dinners and other goodies. Those who fell short, he charged, were threatened with job loss or mandatory over-time on holidays and other undesirable days.

In Novi, Mich., Officer Michael Corbett, a 25-year veteran of the police force, is suing the department, charging he was forced into early retirement for pushing back on a policy of ticket quotas for cops, according to The Oakland Press.

Police officers in East Orange, N.J., have complained to a city council member that they are being harassed by superiors to fill ticket quotas. Councilwoman Alicia Holman earlier this year called for an investigation into what she says is the harassment of citizens and the intimidation of officers. "Our officers are being threatened, disciplined, or brought up on charges for neglect of duty," she said in April, according to NJ.com. An investigation is ongoing.

Civil liberty experts are siding with cops going against their department practices or unofficial policies as traffic tickets are meant to be a deterrent to illegal behavior, not a designated source of revenue for city or police budgets.

Arkansas police officer Brasuell told KNWA, "The message that he [his police chief] was giving me was do whatever it takes to get the tickets even if you have to make somebody do something wrong."

"Every time I hear it, I get nauseous."


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

What the?!?!?

http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/01/court-oks-barring-smart-people-from-beco

*Court OKs Barring Smart People From Becoming Cops (Really)*
Nick Gillespie|May. 1, 2013 10:33 am

Reader Ryan McCormick sends this amazing story from ABC News. Robert Jordan wanted to be a cop and he applied for a job as such in New London, Connecticut.

His problem? He scored too high on the IQ proxy test and was thus excluded from consideration.

Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

Most Cops Just Above Normal 
The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.

Jordan sued for discrimination but to no avail. Here's what a federal court ruled:

_ The U.S. District Court found that New London had "shown a rational basis for the policy." In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover._

Too smart for police work, "Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836#.UYEkw7XU-Sq
*
Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops*
NEW LONDON, Conn., Sept. 8, 2000

A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court's decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

"This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class," Jordan said today from his Waterford home. "I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else."

He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.

Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

Most Cops Just Above Normal 
*The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.*

Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.

But the U.S. District Court found that New London had "shown a rational basis for the policy." In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.

Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

> The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.


Sweet. Proof that cops are smarter than the average person. I always knew it was true, I just liked seeing it posted here.

We hired a guy once with a PHD and an IQ off the charts. Worst cops we ever had. Over thought everything, could not follow simple orders without a thorough debate / discussion and could not accept feedback (performance reviews were like a supreme court hearing). His conviction rate was even worse than his arrest rate. Lasted about 2 years before he got the boot for unsatisfactory performance. IQ does not always correlate to ability.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Sentry18 said:


> ... IQ does not always correlate to ability.


Quoted for truth!


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## libprepper (Aug 8, 2013)

People with guns and arrest power with limited critical thinking skills and a propensity to blind obedience has always worked out well in the past.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

libprepper said:


> People with guns and arrest power with limited critical thinking skills and a propensity to blind obedience has always worked out well in the past.


Some of stupidest people I've known have high IQ's. IQ is only one aspect of a person's effectiveness and there are measures in place in most agencies to weed out the morons.


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## Reblazed (Nov 11, 2010)

mosquitomountainman said:


> ... and there are measures in place in most agencies to weed out the morons.


Are there any on this site ? .... If so they're not working

just my opinion
.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

Reblazed said:


> Are there any on this site ? .... If so they're not working
> 
> just my opinion
> .


I have to agree .............


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I agree with Reblazed sentiment but I do think this place does a good job of dealing with problems, then again I'm still here :dunno:


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## VoorTrekker (Oct 7, 2012)

tsrwivey said:


> For most Americans, their home is their biggest asset. Your home value may not mean much to you since you aren't interested in selling but what about your heirs? Most, if not all, of what the average American will leave their kids to inherit is tied up in the home. Now Dumpy Dan's dozen rusty cars will cause your children to get a good bit less of the money YOU worked your whole life for. His laziness will steal the money you worked for from you & your children.


So "community standards" trumps *property rights*? 
All of heirs were going to get a pittance anyway when one of them gets a lawyer to force liquidation of all assets so greedy heir can get the Hawaiian vacation/Carribean cruise, (insert extravagance here...) the heirs get a few thousand and the lawyer gets the rest.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

libprepper said:


> People with guns and arrest power with limited critical thinking skills and a propensity to blind obedience has always worked out well in the past.


You just described all of your liberal politicians. Sure the guns belong to their body guards, the arrest powers to the LEA's they oversee, but limited critical thinking and blind obedience? That screams Obama and pals.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Sentry18 said:


> Proof that cops are smarter than the average person. I always knew it was true, I just liked seeing it posted here.


I will never disagree with that. The ones I have met were generally above average intelligence, with a few average guys here and there - but seldom. I thought it unusual that an applicant was told he isn't being considered because he scored too high.

Top be honest, since we don't know the rest if the story, maybe he just wasn't "cop material" (a good gut feeling during the interview) and the test score was the easiest way to tell him they weren't interested in hiring him.



Sentry18 said:


> IQ does not always correlate to ability.


Very true on multiple levels....


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