So police in the city of Ankeny, Iowa are on the hunt for a couple of people suspected of credit card fraud. Their solution? Conduct a SWAT raid on an older woman’s Iowa home with a team of at least eight militarized, storm-trooper wannabe cops. In a raid that appears more suitable for a compound in Abbottabad than a neighborhood in the corn belt, you’d at least think they were certain they had the right home? Wrong.
The police didn’t find the suspects they were looking for, and instead went ahead and arrested two other people in completely unrelated charges to justify their ridiculous behavior. If not for the fact the family had security cameras installed (which the police made every attempt to dismantle), we would have no evidence of this wildly inappropriate behavior. You seriously have to wonder what is wrong with these people. Are they still being taught their mission is to “Protect and Serve” or has this been change to “Probe and SWAT.” One seriously has to wonder.
This video is brought to our attention by Radley Balko, author of Rise of the Warrior Cop, and now a writer for the Washington Post. I have highlighted Mr. Balko’s excellent work in the past, most recently last summer in my article: There are Over 50,000 SWAT Team Raids Annually in America, which you should definitely go back and read.
In his article for the Washington Post, Radley writes:
Watch this video, taken from a police raid in Des Moines, Iowa. Send it to some people. When critics (like me) warn about the dangers of police militarization, this is what we’re talking about. You’ll see the raid team, dressed in battle-dress uniforms, helmets and face-covering balaclava hoods take down the family’s door with a battering ram. You’ll see them storm the home with ballistics shields, guns at the ready. More troubling still, you’ll see not one but two officers attempt to prevent the family from having an independent record of the raid, one by destroying a surveillance camera, another by blocking another camera’s lens.
Now here’s the video. Brace yourself, this is extraordinarily disturbing and pathetic behavior:
Radley continues:
From the images in the video, you’d think they were looking for an escaped murderer or a house full of hit men. No, none of that. They were looking for a few people suspected of credit card fraud. None of the people they were looking for were inside of the house, nor was any of the stolen property they were looking for. They did arrest two houseguests of the family on what the news report says were unrelated charges, one for a probation violation and one for possession of illegal drugs.
I’ve reported on jurisdictions where all felony search warrants are now served with a SWAT team. At least one federal appeals court has now ruled that under the Fourth Amendment, there’s nothing unreasonable about using a SWAT team to perform regulatory inspections.
Think about this for a second. Think it can’t happen to you? A civilized society of free men and women does not accept such thuggish behavior from the police.
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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“Protect & Serve”? LOL! Welcome to the new America. The criminal incompetent police did absolutely no stake out on this property. If they had, they would know the people they were looking for were NOT there. All they did was process paperwork and go to war on a USA citizens house with no real intel at all. Yeah, that’s a good use of your taxes.
Someone should call Homeland Suppression on these terrorists masquerading as a swat team. The local sheriff should arrest these criminals for vandalism – They ripped out video cameras which were the property of the homeowners. They didn’t even knock. This country is getting more pathetic by the day.
Who needs foreign terrorists? The USA is digging a big hole and jumping in it on their own. No help required. One day these criminals will walk right into a setup and none of them are going to walk back out. That will change the game. Then swat teams will think twice about going in like it’s the Iraq war.
If the swat team is going to break into a place they should have exact, real, verified intel before they go out. This is insanity. But what else could you ever expect from a crazy system run by insane criminal sociopath bureaucrats with no accountability? What’s more insane is that you, the sheeple, sanction this by paying and accepting it. The USA is one big mental institution.
Next post I’ll tell you how I really feel. LOL.
Michael, You are under the tired and very mistaken belief that police are suppose to “protect and serve”. The US Supreme Court has ruled several times over the last 20 years… They have no obligation to protect and serve..It’s time people start facing reality, that police and govts have no obligations to the people.
“Protect & Serve” are the exact words the homeowner used in the interview. Obviously, the thugs outfitted in battle gear are used to enforce and terrorize. The sheeple will eventually get it.
nice find, Michael !
The real sad part is there are plenty of statists who still defend these scumbags under their pathetic “law and order” banner. Or if not that, they call for these toothless “civilian review boards” which are packed full of nothing but government boot lickers.
Those meatheads still think they are in iraq or afganistan, and i can guarantee you everyone of them has done several tours.
what else can you do with them when they come home other than use the skills they have on the domestic population?
good luck america, you are going to need it,
This is Barry’s America. Storm troopers for everyone who doesn’t comply. Welcome to Amerika.
Why do the news reporters feel they need to explain the family’s security cameras?
Police stink, slither and hang between their legs. They’re animals without a conscience!
This is what happens when free military weaponry meets adolescents disguised as adults, supervised by fatheads who think more force is all that’s needed for a better society.
I have a feeling the esprit d’corps you see in these types of videos will evaporate when the American people start shooting back at these gangsters with badges…and that is EXACTLY what they are.
The reporter ask “why did they have all those cameras?”, simple answer because of thugs like the police.