Government officials do some really crazy things in the name of law enforcement.
I recently wrote about an armed raid on an animal shelter in order to execute a baby deer.
That was paramilitary overkill (pun intended), though it probably didn’t waste as many tax dollars as the regulatory overkill of the year-long sting operation by the Food and Drug Administration against an Amish farm for the horrible crime of selling unpasteurized milk to consenting adults who prefer unpasteurized milk.
And let’s not forget Robert Norlander, the thuggish, dumpster-diving IRS agent, who sought to ruin the life of an innocent man because…well, for no reason.
Well, we now have something that may be even more absurd.
Radley Balko reports in the Huffington Post about “a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.”
Sounds like the cops must have been up against the mafia. Or a bunch of bank robbers, right?
Not exactly. They raided an organic farm.
…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 cops claimed that they were looking for marijuana. Even if that was the actual goal, why not just send a couple of cops to the door? We’re talking about an organic farm, after all, not a crack house run by the Hell’s Angels.
But let’s at least be thankful the cops seized okra plants. The people of Arlington, Texas, can now walk the streets safely, freed from the danger of vegetables running amok.
So what triggered this raid?
…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.
Oh. My. God. These criminals had improperly stacked wood? And insufficiently mowed grass? No wonder they needed a SWAT team!
If you read Radley’s entire story, it seems clear that the real issue is that neighbors didn’t like the messy conditions of the farm and they pressured the local government to do something about it.
I probably wouldn’t like living next door to somebody who kept a piano in their yard, so I’m sympathetic to their concerns.
And even though I’m libertarian and much prefer that neighborhood standards be determined by private agreements, even I’m not going to get overly agitated by zoning rules about couches in the front yard.
But why deal with this trivial conflict by ordering “aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search”?
Sounds like the local police force has a bloated budget and tries to justify its wasteful practices by concocting needlessly risky operations.
P.S. The government’s harassment of another organic farm was the runaway winner of my contest for the worst example of government thuggery.
P.P.S. As I already mentioned, I don’t think this raid was about marijuana, but I don’t want to miss an opportunity to say that it’s time to end the foolish Drug War. People who abuse drugs may be stupid, but they’re not infringing on my rights. But the War on Drugs had led to all sorts of policies that do infringe on our rights, from disgusting asset forfeiture policies to pointless snooping on our bank accounts.
P.P.S. To close with some humor, check out what Dave Barry had to say about great moments in government.
[…] the NFL, so I haven’t paid much attention to the controversy over players protesting against police misbehavior during the national […]
@smapple
Send your story to DHS, the FBI and DOJ … if it’s true. All of them need a vacation in Colorado. Better not visit again either.
@Vmax
Or die with it.
Give bunch of wannabee soldiers military weapons and people will get hurt. Like every political office, they deserve only that respect that they have earned. The police have earned damned little in my experience; I’d have no problem disarming them and putting them on foot. It would do them good to meet the citizenry they abuse face-to-face, on the peoples’ level.
[…] the way, this isn’t the first time cops have seized okra bushes. Or looked foolish because of an inability to identify marijuana […]
[…] the way, this isn’t the first time cops have seized okra bushes. Or looked foolish because of an inability to identify marijuana […]
[…] raiding an organic nursery and seizing blackberry […]
[…] must dislike organic farms because Texas bureaucrats conducted a paramilitary raid on one of […]
This reminds me of when I lived in Lafayette, Colorado. They had a group there called “code enforcement”. I lived next to a drainage ditch that was full of weeds. Of course those weeds encroached on my yard. It was hard to tell where my yard began thanks to their weeds. One day they came and cut the weeds, and the next day issued a ticket to me for weeds taller than 6 inches. Another time, they gave me a citation for “car parked for purpose of sale” because I had a for sale sign in the window of a Cadillac I had parked on the street (it was my daily driver). So, I moved that car into the driveway (where it was allowed to be parked with a sign) and moved another into its place. Well, I wasn’t paying attention when I parked. So the next day, they gave me a citation for “car parked the wrong direction on a street”. So, I turned that car around, and parked it the other direction. The next day, I saw a police cruiser parked behind that car. I went out to ask him what was the problem and he stated that I had no current inspection sticker on the car. I pointed out that since the car was a 1969 Classic Firebird, it did not require an inspection. He closed his ticket book with a hrrumph and drove off. Later in the year, my dog escaped and they gave me a ticket for “dog at large” though they never were able to catch him. they only knew he was missing because I called and asked… I missed the court date, and they came over wishing to handcuff me and take me to the station for “failure to appear”. I promised to follow them instead. But when we came to the station, they had to “pat me down” as standard procedure before letting me enter. I recall the look on the faces of the people nearby as I assumed the position and was frisked outside the station. FOR DOG AT LARGE! That citation was then thrown out of court, because the judge said I had done everything in my power to retain my dog… I moved.
btw… one of the most infamous incidents of military-style government policing occurred on April 19th 1993 at Waco Texas… it ended with the death of 76 Branch Dravidians… including 22 children under the age of 18…
those who ignore history… are doomed to repeat it…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege
this sort of nonsense is just going to get worse as local law enforcement adopts military tactics and equipment as enforcement tools… it seems part and parcel of the new turnkey totalitarian state the democrats and republicans are constructing… we will miss the days when the police were peace officers… instead of commandos piloting armed drones over head and leading targeted assassination raids to eliminate baby deer… meanwhile… unfunded liabilities prevent even basic law enforcement and emergency services in many of out major cities… dim prospects abound… amid the buzz of unmanned aerial vehicles overhead and the rumble of armored personal carriers in out streets… sad days indeed….
As I said in the past, it is easy to be libertarian when there are truly no externalities – a strong majority of people can do that. So it is easy to grant religious freedom to someone in east Mauritania who wants to worship some obscure God.
But what about those amongst us who do not worship the same aesthetic god, — or, in this case, perhaps don’t fear the same neighborhood blight demons? What about those amongst us who actually force us to catch a glimpse of their couch in their front yard through out tinted automobile windows for a whole five seconds at a time while we commute to work? A little more difficult to be libertarian with them…
When one feels securely and permanently implanted in a certain majority (as in “I cannot foresee ever becoming one of those people who put a couch in their front yard” or “I know I’ll never get the cojones to ever make much money”) then personal interest starts talking, …and libertarianism starts walking…
Dan, cut the cops some slack. Haven’t you seen “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”…?