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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGOOD VIDEO: Texas Police Hit Organic Farm With Massive SWAT Raid
What a bunch of LIARS they have in Texas. Code violations required SWAT Team raid? Sounds like after-the-fact justification for an unfounded action. You don't send in SWAT when all you have is hearsay rumors!!!
Texas Police Hit Organic Farm With Massive SWAT Raid
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/texas-swat-team-conducts-_n_3764951.html
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. ..............
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
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From the link in the OP:
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.
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I remember living in a place where I could get unpasteurized milk at a local farm
Best milk I ever tasted!
I'm still alive.
CC
ps: how long y'all gonna put up with this shit?
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)hedgehog
(36,286 posts)the neighbors are other farms, an auto scrap yard and what look to be auto auction houses - I'm really sure these folks were running down property values!