http://www.salon.com/…

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff’s department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than “fire code violations,” and early this morning, the Sheriff’s department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house.

Over at FDL, Lindsay Beyerstein spoke with the property owner whose house — the fourth one we now know of — was being raided while the raid was in progress, and Lindsay has details here (”About an hour and a half ago 20 to 30 heavily armed police officers surrounded the house. One of my roommates said ‘I want to see a warrant’ and she was immediately detained”). Meanwhile, Indy Media of Twin Cities — an association of independent journalists in the area — just told me that several of their journalists have been detained while trying to cover these raids. Their site, with ongoing updates, is here. The Uptake also has several reports of the various raids, including video of the raid at the property whose owner Bernstein spoke with as the raid occurred. That video includes an interview with a lawyer from the National Lawyer’s Guild who was detained and put in handcufffs, explaining that the surrounded house is one where various journalists are staying. Additionally, a photojournalist with Democracy Now was detained at that house as well. So, both journalists and lawyers — in addition to protesters — have been detained and arrested even though not a single violent or criminal act has occurred.

They seem to be stepping it up from 2004. Preempting the entire thing, attepting to intimedate them. This could be an ugly week. Anyone wonder how it is these thugs know where these protesters live? Want to bet that they spy on them? Likely the groups had to register with the city… and that information is being used against them.

http://www.antiwar.com/…

Mr. Speaker, I regret that due to the unexpected last-minute appearance of this measure on the legislative calendar this week, a prior commitment has prevented me from voting on the FISA amendments. I have strongly opposed every previous FISA overhaul attempt and I certainly would have voted against this one as well.

The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens’ communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable.

In addition to gutting the fourth amendment, this measure will deprive Americans who have had their rights violated by telecommunication companies involved in the Administration’s illegal wiretapping program the right to seek redress in the courts for the wrongs committed against them. Worse, this measure provides for retroactive immunity, whereby individuals or organizations that broke the law as it existed are granted immunity for prior illegal actions once the law has been changed. Ex post facto laws have long been considered anathema in free societies under rule of law. Our Founding Fathers recognized this, including in Article I section 9 of the Constitution that “No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” How is this FISA bill not a variation of ex post facto? That alone should give pause to supporters of this measure.

Mr. Speaker, we should understand that decimating the protections that our Constitution provides us against the government is far more dangerous to the future of this country than whatever external threats may exist. We can protect this country without violating the Constitution and I urge my colleagues to reconsider their support for this measure.

He missed the vote because he was speaking at the Montana state GOP convention.

http://reason.com/…

• On January 7, 2008 a paramilitary police unit in North Little Rock, Arkansas conducted a drug raid on Tracy Ingle’s home. Ingle says he had fallen asleep for several hours, and was asleep when the raid happened. He awoke when the police took a battering ram to his door. Another team of officers approached form the outside of the house, and shattered the window to his bedroom.
• When he awoke, Ingle says he thought his home was being invaded by armed robbers. He reached for a broken gun, a pretty clear indication that he had no intention of killing anyone, but rather was trying to scare away the intruders. When he grabbed the gun, an officer inside the house fired his weapon. The bullet hit Ingle just above the knee, shattered his thigh bone, and nearly severed his lower leg. When the outside officers heard the shot, they opened up on Ingle, hitting him four more times. According to Ingle’s sister, one bullet still rests just above Ingle’s heart, and can’t be removed.
• Ingle was taken to the hospital, and spent a week-and-a-half in intensive care. He was then removed from intensive care-still in his hospital pajamas-and taken to the North Little Rock police department, where he was questioned for five hours. He was not told he was suspected of a crime, and his family wasn’t allowed to speak with him. After the interrogation, he was arrested and transferred to the county jail.
• Ingle spent the next four days in jail. He says he was never given his pain medication or his antibiotics. Though hospital nurses told him to change his bandages and clean his wounds every 4-6 hours, Ingle told the Arkansas Times that jail officials changed them only twice in four days. Ingle’s wounds became infected during the time he was in jail.
• Police found no illegal drugs in Ingle’s home. They did find a scale, which Ingle’s sister tells me was an extra she was given when she worked at a medical testing facility. She used it in her jewelry-making hobby. They also found a bunch of small plastic bags. Again, Ingle’s sister says these were part of her business. “I was leaving the country for a while, and I stored a lot of my stuff at his house,” she told me. “The scale and bags were mine, and are both common things to have for anyone who makes jewelry.” Police also found the broken gun and a broken police scanner.
• From those items, the police charged Ingle with running a drug enterprise. They also charged him with assault, for pointing his broken gun at the police officers who had just barged into his home. The judge set Ingle’s bail at $250,000, explaining that it had to be set high because Ingle had engaged in a shootout with police-never mind that Ingle didn’t fire a shot. Ingle was able to sell his car to pay a bail bondsman. But with no car, his injuries render him basically immobile. He had to walk two miles on crutches and an infected leg to his hearing last week.
• The police obtained a no-knock warrant for Ingle’s home about three weeks prior to the raid. The warrant itself (pdf) reads like boilerplate, with no specific references to Ingle (other than his address), or why he specifically posed a risk to police safety, or of disposing of drugs before coming to answer the door. It mentions no controlled buys. It doesn’t even mention an informant. In fact, someone scratched out “crack cocaine” and hand-wrote in “methamphetamine” on the type-written warrant, suggesting a cut, plug, and paste job. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must show case-specific evidence of exigent circumstances in order to be issued a no-knock warrant. The mere fact that it’s a drug case isn’t enough. The warrant for Ingle’s home contains no such specific information. Many times, information specific to the investigation is contained in the affidavit the investigating officer files for the search warrant, not in the warrant itself. Forrester says she has called the North Little Rock Police Department more than 20 times in an effort to obtain a copy of the affidavits. She says they at first refused to return her phone calls. When she was finally able to speak with a lieutenant, he became angry when she told him she had contacted the media. She then says he told her to “dream on” when she asked for copies of the affidavits.
• According to Forrester, Ingle’s neighbor had a direct line of sight into the bedroom, and saw the entire raid. His account initially matched Ingle’s. But that changed. “We have a witness, a next door neighbor that saw the entire incident,” Forrester told me. “He came forward on his own to give a statement to the family. Police never questioned him until a month or so after the shooting, at my insistence. They kept this neighbor in his home, and questioned him for at least four hours, refusing to let the man’s wife come home, of for other people to see him. When the police finished intimidating the man, they told him specifically that ‘he did not see what he thought he saw.’ The neighbor is now afraid to talk to the media.” I have not yet been able to speak with the neighbor.
• Ingle’s family was able to put up $1,000 to retain an attorney, but can’t afford the extra $6,000 the attorney has asked to represent Ingle. Ingle is therefore still looking for representation. He has no health insurance, and no money to pay for medication, or to continue treatment of his injuries.
• Last week, after the Arkansas Times article appeared, the judge in the case issued a gag order, preventing Ingle and any future attorney he may have from talking to the media about what happened to him. This is puzzling. Before today there had been exactly two articles about this case-not exactly a media circus. It’s hard to understand why a gag order was necessary. It’s only real purpose is to prevent more people from learning about what’s increasingly looking like a railroading. And it’s only effect is to lend more support to the possibility that it is, in fact, a cover-up and railroading.
• May 6th the gag order was lifted.

Nothing here is all that new and therefore unfortunately not surprising. Thankfully his gun was not operational as he may have killed an officer and therefore would have definitely been killed as a result. The odd part of this is that he survived. What is particularly disgusting that they continue to press charges with absolutely no evidence. Sickening.

http://memphisetc.blogspot.com/

Operation Thug Huntin’

…or “How I spent my Saturday night”

Over 50 law enforcement agencies came together this weekend for Operation Sudden Impact (they said my name for it wasn’t PC enough). In any case, a whole boatload of the Po-Po got together and ran gang interdictions, traffic saturations, drug sweeps, fugitive searches, and some other things I can’t tell you about for a 24 hour period.

It was fun. More about it here.

On the serious side, we now know the mid-south agencies can work together and bring a LOT of police presence and firepower down on a given area if we ever need to do it in a hurry.

Here is a list of agencies involved courtesy of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Web site:

Follow the link to see the huge list of agencies. Check out the comments:

Thank you for the work you do! I’m a Memphis native, relative of former MPD officers, and worked in law enforcement myself. I really enjoy reading your blog. My entire family still lives in Memphis and I go home as often as I can. It’s sad to see what’s become of my hometown. You guys are to be commended for the hard work you put in. Love your commentary!!!

Scary.

FBI raids, Arabs whine, liberal media listens…

There are a couple of stories this weekend on two separate Memphis TV stations (WREG and WHBQ) about some FBI raids on local businesses last week. Both stories center on the poor Arabs who are being harassed by the big, bad Feds. The TV reporters seem really ticked off the FBI didn’t bother to call the TV stations personally and let them know all the facts of the case and exactly when the raids were going to take place…how DARE law enforcement do something without telling the TV news departments?This would be funny except for the fact that the public buys this biased crap.

The stations ran different angles on the same basic story, but the common thread was that the FBI is harassing Arab-owned businessmen and employees. So, in the interest of balance (not to mention those fact thingies), Memphis, ETC would like to share some general facts about middle eastern businesses, terrorism, and the reality of it all.

I wasn’t in on these raids, but we’ve done some in the past. The FBI is always armed with a search warrant, which makes the raids totally legal. Most federal judges won’t sign a search warrant without some really compelling evidence that something criminal is afoot. Apparently that was the case here as well.

To the citizens with their heads buried in the sand, let me state another fact. Terrorists and those who support them are living right here in the Mid-South. They are 99% middle eastern. You may try to spin that, or ignore that fact, but that IS a fact. They are using our laws and our society’s political correctness to skirt the law and fund operations that directly threaten the security of the United States. You may not like that fact, but again, it IS a fact.

Yes, it looks like the FBI did raid Arab owned businesses. Well, last I heard, there were no Canadian, Native Americans, or any other ethnic group besides the Arabs trying to explode a nuclear device in our country. Plus, it’s a funny thing about police work…you follow the evidence in anti-terrorism ops and it just seems to lead to middle eastern folks. Gee, I wonder why?

One of the stories also made mention of the fact that there were some odd items seized in the raid, such as ball caps and jewelry. Well, that may be odd to some Cub reporter who doesn’t care about getting both sides of the story, but that was the bit of information that made the light go off in my head.

I believe the FBI is on to some Arabs running these little corner grocery stores you see that offer all sorts of things besides groceries…you know, CD’s, DVD’s, clothing, jewelry. I’ll bet you my stock in Halliburton this particular case is about counterfeiting and media piracy. Plus, I’d further bet that the FBI thinks funds from these illegal sales are being funneled back to whatever county these jerks are from to fund terrorist operations.

Here’s how it works: Mohammad opens a little store usually in the poorer sections of town. Oh, by the way, your governments lets these folks do this and not pay taxes for 7 years to encourage new small businesses…but guess what? Mohammad has a huge family over here, and at the end of seven years he just sells the business to his brother. Gee, another 7 years of tax-free operations, courtesy of the U.S government. Mohammad sells DVD’s and CD’s cheaper than Wal-Mart, because Mohammad has a $10,000 DVD duplicator in his back room where he is duplicating these movies and CD’s. He sells in the black communities and poorer sections of town because he knows no one will report it because they don’t care. Mohammad is also in the market for stolen cell phones which he can wipe and sell overseas. Since Mohammad pays no taxes, he can afford to send a large amount of his profits back to Yemen, Iran, or wherever…where the money is funneled to the same organizations trying to kill out sons , daughters, moms and dads in Iraq. But in this case this week, the FBI seems to have gotten wind of the operations, and the big bad Feds busted in and took Mohammad’s computers and duplicating equipment, his business records, and some of his counterfeit stuff for evidence. So, Mohammad goes crying to the liberal media which happily gives him a stage for his predictable “They are profiling me” whine, and the liberals just drink that stuff up like it was a Starbuck’s latte’.

I am constantly amazed at the willing suspension of disbelief a lot of Americas have about terrorists operating in American, right now, in YOUR neighborhood. Chances are you’ve bought stuff from them. Even more amazing is that the news media takes a passing glance (maybe) at these stories when actual terrorist are caught…like the University of Memphis Arab student who just happened to have a pilot’s uniform, airport layout diagrams, and books on how to fly planes and act like a pilot (plus all his Muslim jihadist propaganda) in his car.

Wake up, people….

Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right. Is this guy going to go justifying what Mao, Stalin, Hitler, etc. did because it was all “legal.” And what was the results from those raids? Where any of them convicted on anything related to terrorism or even the dubious “sponsor of terrorism?” Where are these Arabs who are bringing in nukes? What’s the delivery mechanism? Prove to me that this isn’t bigoted propaganda used to bring about a police state?

http://www.dailymail.com/…

Two officers who raided an innocent family’s house on a bad tip were shot at and returned fire, but no one was injured, a police spokesman said.

Vang Khang said Monday that he grabbed his hunting gun to protect himself, his wife and his six children when they heard someone burst through the back door early Sunday. He fired three shots, hitting two members of the SWAT team, but they were unhurt because of their bulletproof vests and helmets.

Officers returned fire, but nobody in the house was injured. Police released Khang after taking his statement.

All six of the children, ages 3 to 15, were home at the time.

Lt. Amelia Huffman said the officers went to the house listed on the search warrant, but it turned out the source was wrong.

These people are really damn lucky their kid noticed the intruders were cops. I’m guessing the SWAT heard the kid too otherwise I would have expected the SWAT members to mow down those behind the bedroom door. This is another example of collateral damage in the war on drugs. It’s completely uncalled for. These cops made no attempt to confirm their source and will probably not be held accountable. Sadly if they had killed someone they also would most likely had not been held accountable.