[BartSimpson]

And some of you in the world wonder why some of us in the USA don't trust our government?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml

Excerpt:

$1:

A little over the top?: SWAT team launch dawn raid on family home to collect unpaid student loans
By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 5:30 PM on 8th June 2011

A father was dragged from his home and handcuffed in front of his children by a SWAT team looking for his estranged wife - to collect her unpaid student loans.
A stunned Kenneth Wright had his front door kicked in by the raiding party at 6 am yesterday before being dragged onto his front porch, handcuffed and led to a police car with his three children.

He says he was then detained for six hours while officers looked for his wife - who no longer lives at the house.

Mr Wright was later told by Stockton police that the order to send in the SWAT team came from The U.S. Department of Education who were looking for his estranged wife to collect defaulted loan payments.
Speaking to ABC News 10, a visibly shaken Mr Wright described what happened when he was woken by a banging on his front door.

He said: 'I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers.
Dressed in his boxer shorts, Mr Wright says he rushed downstairs and was about to open the door when it was kicked open.

An officer then grabbed him by the neck before dragging him out onto the front lawn.
His 3, 7, and 11-year-old children were also removed by officers and put in a waiting police car.

'He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there,' Mr Wright said.
'They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatising my kids.'

The Department for Education refused to comment on the incident, saying they would not do so until the case was closed.
They did however confirm that their Office of the Inspector General had issued the search warrant.
The office has its own branch of federal agents that carry out search warrants and investigations.

Mr Wright is now trying to get compensation for the destroyed door.
Speaking to ABC, he demonstrated that although the door had been patched up, the handle no longer worked.

He said: 'They busted down my door for this.
'It wasn't even me.
'All I want is an apology for me and my kids and for them to get me a new door.'
He even had words of advice for anyone thinking of skipping paying their college bills.
He added: 'People who have student loans , pay your bills, take care of your credit.
'If you don't belive me, this could be you one morning 6 o'clock.'

Go to the link for pictures and video.

[BartSimpson]

It should be noted that the victim of this travesty lives in a poor neighborhood of Stockton, California and is black. I have NO doubt whatsoever that this would not have happened in an upscale white neighborhood like, say, Berkeley.

[saturn_656]

$1:

Mr Wright was later told by Stockton police that the order to send in the SWAT team came from The U.S. Department of Education who were looking for his estranged wife to collect defaulted loan payments.

The DoE has the authority to dispatch SWAT teams?

Absurd.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

It should be noted that the victim of this travesty lives in a poor neighborhood of Stockton, California and is black. I have NO doubt whatsoever that this would not have happened in an upscale white neighborhood like, say, Berkeley.

Well, that would explain why the cops treated Mr. Wright like a criminal.
Either that or that SWAT team needs some serious gender identification training.

[Choban]

Wow, talk about over the top.

[BeaverFever]

"This is a post-9/11 world...the law is the law...criminals need to be dealt with harshly...the police are the only experts when it comes to determining the appropriate level of force..." yadda yadda yadda...

This is what happens when a society repeats the above mantra over and over.

$1:

It should be noted that the victim of this travesty lives in a poor neighborhood of Stockton, California and is black. I have NO doubt whatsoever that this would not have happened in an upscale white neighborhood like, say, Berkeley.

No doubt...I'm sure the police went in hard because the racial and economic profile of the neighbourhood and its residents and they thought they had a nice convenient pretext for a drug raid.

[saturn_656]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

"This is a post-9/11 world...the law is the law...criminals need to be dealt with harshly...the police are the only experts when it comes to determining the appropriate level of force..." yadda yadda yadda...

This is what happens when a society repeats the above mantra over and over.

Only one problem. The man wasn't a criminal.

IMO, it never should have happened.

[Thanos]

This is also what happens when every jurisdiction decides that they absolutely need to have their own SWAT team. Thanks to the excessive amounts of money being tossed around in the panic-stricken 1980's and '90's due to the drug war every police force, no matter how small, in the US was able to apply to get financing for SWAT operations from the feds and state governments. Whether some of these jurisdictions actually needed one, instead of having to rely on the co-operation of the state police, was never taken into consideration. Thanks to the current financial crisis and austerity woes regular beat cops and other minor crime/misdemeanor enforcement officers that would normally handle these sorts of call-outs are being eliminated but the precious SWAT teams (which are a "tough-on-crime" politician's wet dream to stand in front of for photo-ops), even if they're total white elephants that serve no purpose at all, are being kept around and end up being used for the most ridiculous purposes.

This happened for two reasons. One, they were black folks in a not-so-good neighbourhood, so it's par for the course that someone's always going to be ready to go in with all guns blazing. Two, the SWAT guys were probably sitting around bored with nothing to do just like the vast majority of these teams usually are at any given moment,. Pretty fucking dumb decision-making all the way up the chain of command on this incident but it wasn't the first time and certainly won't be the last that this sort of thing happens either. Having the authorities think in terms of "overwhelming force/firepower" all the time inevitably will lead to embarassing or tragic results over the most trifling of issues. Having people arrested for defaulting on something as ridiculous as a student loan probably sin't the smartest approach to take either, but in the 30-second sound bite world of "zero tolerance" thinking that most local elected officials in the United States apparently engage in, it's really not surprising that this sort of incident keeps happening.

[BeaverFever]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

Only one problem. The man wasn't a criminal.

IMO, it never should have happened.

My point exactly....but this is what DOES happen when you let the mentality I described dominate your thinking.

[BartSimpson]

In a completely unrelated story, the US Department of Education announced their new logo:

[andyt]

I didn't know they still had debtor's prison in the US.

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

I didn't know they still had debtor's prison in the US.

Not yet. But what we do have is a system of government that is nearing the place where we're going to be a police state.

There's been a number of Congress critters this morning on the news (Democrat and Republican) saying that the recent spike in police abuses underlines the original meaning of the Second Amendment (right to own a gun).

A sitting Federal judge, Lawrence Karlton, was on the radio this morning saying that if the victim of this had resisted the assault on his home and had he killed any police officers and survived then the shootings would have been justified.

Do note that Karlton is a Jimmy Carter appointee and is considered quite liberal.

http://www.caed.uscourts.gov/caed/stati ... ge_516.htm

In this case he's not being liberal about gun rights (not that he ever has been) but I do think he's being rather conservative on 4th Amendment rights.

[andyt]

If they don't have debtor's prison, how can they arrest someone for debts? This would never fly in Canada, the worst they would do is get a collection agency to hound you.

[Thanos]

andyt andyt:

I didn't know they still had debtor's prison in the US.

This idea, and some mutterings about bringing back indentured servitude for defaulters, are still surprisingly popular among certain influential political demographics. The "use a hammer to fix all problems" mindset flows into some rather predictable patterns.

[andyt]

Thanos Thanos:

andyt andyt:

I didn't know they still had debtor's prison in the US.

This idea, and some mutterings about bringing back indentured servitude for defaulters, are still surprisingly popular among certain influential political demographics. The "use a hammer to fix all problems" mindset flows into some rather predictable patterns.

Like the CPC's tough on crime stance?