Tag: SWAT raid

SWAT teams kill another innocent citizen in raid

9:21 am

Another late night raid of a citizen’s home, based on the lies of a drug user, has resulted in the death of that innocent citizen.

The police entered the home without knocking or identifying themselves. Their warrant apparently required them to knock first. The home had been burglered two nights earlier by the drug user, so the homeowner’s were understandably on edge.

This is nothing more than murder. It is also unconstitutional. Every police SWAT team in the nation should be dismantled now. We managed for 200 years without them, and can do so again.

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A SWAT team in Florida decided to test their new military equipment by breaking into someone’s home on Friday.

8:51 am

Fascists: A SWAT team in Florida decided to test their new military equipment by breaking into someone’s home on Friday.

After conducting surveillance and gathering information for a judge to sign a search warrant, LPD called in its SWAT team to execute the warrant at a house on Empress Way in the neighborhood near Kelly Recreation Center, Sgt. Mike Lewis said. “We did not know if anyone was inside and we had information that the persons involved were armed,” Lewis said. “It was a safety issue.”

It was an opportunity for police to see how well their newly acquired Lenco BearCat armored vehicle would perform. City commissioners last year approved the purchase of the 22,000-pound bullet-resistant vehicle to replace a 1967 armored vehicle. The BearCat features new technologies, air-conditioning, cameras and seating for 12 officers instead of six.

On Friday, the SWAT team drove the BearCat down Lakeland streets and onto the front lawn of the house. The officers crouched behind and inside the vehicle, unsure of what was inside the house. The officers used tactical maneuvers to blow out the front windows, leaving curtains lying in the yard, and they gained entry into the attached garage.

From the story, it is very unclear whether they found any incriminating evidence at all. Mostly, it sounds like a bunch of stormtroopers getting a chance to play with their toys at the expense of an innocent private citizen.

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The Washington Times is preparing to take legal action in connection with the raid of a reporter’s home by government officials.

8:20 am

The Washington Times is preparing to take legal action in connection with the raid of a reporter’s home by government officials.

The warrant was narrowly written to limit the raid to a search for weapons owned by the reporter’s husband. Instead, the raiders carefully picked through the reporter’s files and took those pertaining to her stories about the TSA. The man in charge of this search also happened to be a former TSA employee who apparently had a direct interest in those files.

That her private files were seized, says Mrs. Hudson [the reporter], is particularly disturbing because of interactions that she and her husband had during the search of their home, as well as months afterwards, with Coast Guard investigator Miguel Bosch. According to his profile on the networking site LinkedIn, Mr. Bosch worked at the Federal Air Marshal Service from April 2001 through November 2007.

It was Mr. Bosch, Mrs. Hudson says, who asked her during the Aug. 6 search if she was the same Audrey Hudson who had written the air marshal stories. It was also Mr. Bosch, she says, who phoned Mr. Flanagan a month later to say that documents taken during the search had been cleared.

During the call, according Mrs. Hudson, Mr. Bosch said the files had been taken to make sure that they contained only “FOIA-able” information and that he had circulated them to the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees the Federal Air Marshal Service, in order to verify that “it was legitimate” for her to possess such information.

“Essentially, the files that included the identities of numerous government whistleblowers were turned over to the same government agency and officials who they were exposing for wrongdoing,” Mrs. Hudson said.

In other words, Bosch used the search to obtain the files so that the TSA could identify Mrs. Hudson’s sources within the agency. Expect those individuals to be punished in the coming years, for the crime of telling the truth about America’s KGB.

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Using a warrant to search for guns, Homeland security officers and Maryland police confiscated a journalist’s confidential files.

10:01 am

Fascists: Using a warrant to search for guns, Homeland security officers and Maryland police confiscated a journalist’s confidential files.

The reporter had written a series of articles critical of the TSA. It appears that the raid was specifically designed to get her files, which contain identifying information about her sources in the TSA.

“In particular, the files included notes that were used to expose how the Federal Air Marshal Service had lied to Congress about the number of airline flights there were actually protecting against another terrorist attack,” Hudson [the reporter] wrote in a summary about the raid provided to The Daily Caller.

Recalling the experience during an interview this week, Hudson said: “When they called and told me about it, I just about had a heart attack.” She said she asked Bosch [the investigator heading the raid] why they took the files. He responded that they needed to run them by TSA to make sure it was “legitimate” for her to have them. “‘Legitimate’ for me to have my own notes?” she said incredulously on Wednesday.

Asked how many sources she thinks may have been exposed, Hudson said: “A lot. More than one. There were a lot of names in those files. … This guy basically came in here and took my anonymous sources and turned them over — took my whistleblowers — and turned it over to the agency they were blowing the whistle on,” Hudson said. “And these guys still work there.”

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In a negotiated settlement, Arizona police will pay the widow of Jose Guerena, murdered during a SWAT raid, $3.4 million.

1:38 pm

In a negotiated settlement, Arizona police will pay the widow of Jose Guerena, murdered during a SWAT raid, $3.4 million.

The police settled because they knew that if the case had ever reached a jury, they would have lost hands down. I feel for the widow, as she probably had to settle now because she couldn’t wait the years necessary for a full victory in court.

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The police raid the wrong house, kill the family’s dog, handcuff the children and make them sit next to the carcass, ransack the house, and then arrest the father for possession of a handgun found in the illegal search.

10:00 am

We’re here to help you: The police raid the wrong house, kill the family’s dog, handcuff the children and make them sit next to the carcass, ransack the house, and then arrest the father for possession of a handgun found during the illegal search.

Other than that, this raid was a picture-perfect example of good police work.

The family is suing of course. Interestingly, the Obama administration is likely to be on the side of the police.

Since the DEA is named in the suit, the Francos’ legal team will likely find itself going head-to-head with Obama administration lawyers, who argued a similar case earlier this year before the Ninth Circuit. Short recap of the proceedings: The DOJ sought a summary dismissal of a lawsuit filed against seven DEA agents for their rough treatment of a family of four–mother, father, two very young daughters–during a wrong-door raid conducted during the Bush administration. The Ninth Circuit, denied the DOJ’s request for a summary dismissal, and drew a bright line between how adults are treated during raids, and how children are treated during raids.

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