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What Happens When Innocence is No Longer a Defense? SWAT Happens
It all started when dad, planning to help his son with a science fair project, bought a few items at a hydroponics store. The next suspicious act was that his wife liked tea. The result: A SWAT team kicked down their door and held them and their two children for hours while ransacking their home. SWAT left, nothing was found or seized, and it cost the family over $25,000 just to learn why this ever happened. They were presumed very guilty. Welcome to our police state, were even being innocent of a crime is no defense.
Legal Purchase = Criminal Suspicion
Eight months before the raid, a Missouri State Trooper watched Bob Hartes make a few purchases in a hydroponics store. Though the store is legal, and many people use its products for legal purposes to grow houseplants or start seedlings indoors, the products can also be used to grow marijuana (or any other plant.) Bob Hartes, in fact, planned on growing tomatoes and squash with his son. The trooper recorded Hartes’ license plate and vehicle information as suspicious.
Seven months after that (the reason is unknown), the information was sent to Kansas law enforcement, who ran the plate number and identified Hartes address. He was immediately tagged as suspected drug grower, and an investigation kicked off.
Wet, Discarded Marijuana?Investigators first visited the Harte’s home surreptitiously one morning at 5 am, going through the trash and finding wet plant material. Despite there being no real reason why someone involved in the drug business would throw wet weed out in the garbage, police believed it was evidence of a crime. They thus returned to the scene, and, finding more wet plant material, allegedly performed a field test which indicated the substance was marijuana. The cops made a third visit, found more wet plant material, which again supposedly tested positive.
Field tests can be unreliable; in experiments using the cop-popular NarcoPouch KN Reagent kit, 33 of 42 substances, including vanilla, anise, chicory, and peppermint, tested positive for cannabis. In Kansas the cops never sent any of the samples to the crime lab for formal confirmation. Instead, plans were made and the SWAT-led raid was executed. No drugs were found in the house, of course, because there never were drugs in the house. The police were uninterested in being told about the science fair project and brewing tea with loose leaves. The cops simply departed, after tearing apart the Hartes’ home and terrorizing them and their children. No apologies, apparently as far as the police were concerned, were necessary.
AftermathThe Hartes found themselves ostracized by their neighbors as “criminals,” and took to showing around the search warrant stating “nothing removed from the house” to try and convince them of their innocence. When those attempts failed, the family sought the police records behind the unnecessary search.
It was only in response to the Hartes inquiries that the police sent the first samples of the wet plant material gathered from the Hartes’ trash to the lab for a formal test. Results: it was tea, not marijuana, just as the innocent family had maintained from the beginning.
The problem was that Kansas law enforcement, likely to hide their own mistakes, refused to release the lab results– evidence of their innocence– to the Hartes. The family was forced to sue the police, at a personal cost of $25,000, to finally gain access to what had erroneously sent SWAT crashing through their door one morning.
“This not what justice in the United States is supposed to be. You shouldn’t have to have $25,000, even $5,000. You shouldn’t have to have that kind of money to find out why people came raiding your house like some sort of police state,” Harte said.
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bloodypitchfork said...
1note to self.. send file to
http://www.policestateusa.com/
At least they weren’t beat close to death..over and over and over..like this poor boy….
http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/robert-leone/
Notwithstanding holding back my vomit, all I know, is these criminals acting under the color of law deserve an Eric Frein response…cause they’ll NEVER see the inside of a prison. Furthermore, what is it going to take to stop these revulsive psychopaths wearing a badge? At this point… I believe Eric Frein knows the ONLY answer.
Now..pardon me while I vomit.
11/1/14 1:45 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
2PS..read all the stories on that PoliceState page and tell me the PoliceState doesn’t exist, like some people try to claim on other comment sites.
This whole thing needs to be brought to the forefront of awareness in Murka. Otherwise.. you know where this is going..right? Right. To your house one day.
11/1/14 1:48 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
3ps..the author of that sickening article, is an ex-police officer.. where by his last paragraph said this…
quote”Mr. Leone will soon have his day in federal court. Out of sheer coincidence, the federal judge that was assigned to hear his case is the very federal judge I wrote about in my book about judicial corruption in Pennsylvania. I have no confidence this judge will act appropriately.”unquote
Indeed. Pennsylvania. The entire system is corrupt. And guess who Eric Frein shot? You got it. Any questions?
http://www.theluzernecountyrailroad.com/police-brutality.php
His last words were mine…
quote” “How do we fix all of this”?”unquote
I submit..with the 2nd Amendment. Cause it’s beyond fixing. And not just in Pennsylvania. It’s everywhere. I further submit, you’re gonna see more Eric Freins.
11/1/14 2:12 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
4last ps… I believe this statement says it all..
“Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!”
After all..the collectivist bastards behind a badge in Connecticut are preparing to start the second civil war…
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/11/there-will-be-raids-gentlemen-prepare.html
11/1/14 2:35 PM | Comment Link
Avery said...
5wtf does “police state” mean? a state with police in it?
11/1/14 3:55 PM | Comment Link
wemeantwell said...
6A “police state” is one where the police serve needs other than to protect and serve the people, where the actions of the police exist outside of justice. So, if the cops break up Occupy demonstrations while allowing events that support the goals of the wealthy, that’s an example. When the police surveill and arrest people who are legitimately exercising their First Amendment rights, that’s a police state. When the cops break into homes, gun down people on the streets, beat people up, disportionately target minorities, plant evidence and the like, that is a police state. When the cops act against the law, and thus the people, the cops are the State. Clear enough?
11/1/14 4:01 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
7Police State: When a SWAT team kicks down your fucking door when it has no fucking idea what it is behind that door that could be so dangerous, then holding your children for hours while ransacking your fucking home and maybe kill your fucking dog. You know…FUCKING morons.
11/1/14 5:47 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
8The family maintains that in those eight months that deputies failed to conduct any surveillance, interview neighbors, conduct thermal imaging, check electrical records or look at their clean criminal history before conducting the raid. The family says Denning’s desire to get publicity for making raids and arrests caused the sloppy investigative work.
“The raids were not a legitimate law enforcement operation, but rather were part of a publicity binge intended to place the sheriff and the department in a positive light,” the lawsuit says.
11/1/14 10:20 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
9The mere fact that marijuana has already been legalized in various states is living testimony to the stone age mentality of those states who deny it’s citizens to possess it legally. In reality..it’s just an excuse for using the so called “war on drugs” to justify insidious SWAT raids on innocent people..notwithstanding most raids are perpetrated WITHOUT a warrant.
Avery said…
quote”wtf does “police state” mean? a state with police in it?”
ummm, speaking of morons..get a grip pal. If you don’t understand the meaning of “police state”, you aren’t old enough to remember the real Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. But I’m feeling generous today..try this on for size dimwit….
http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/swat-throws-grenade-in-playpen/
Notwithstanding the degenerate sub-human scum that perpetrated this assault in AMERIKA…here is the living definition of “police state”…
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/us/georgia-toddler-stun-grenade-no-indictment/
Now..COMPRENDE?
11/2/14 12:09 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
10Hey avery…ever heard of youtube? If not…let me give you a fucking clue…here’s PoliceState 101…
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=police+brutality
Now, if that doesn’t activate that sole neuron between you ears..you’re in trouble.
11/2/14 12:15 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
11sheeeezusHfuckingcrist…
living proof of the DUMBEST FUCKING COUNTRY ON THE PLANET.
bartender..my usual..a bottle of TWO ROLLING EYES
and a shot of DOUBLE FACE PALM.
11/2/14 12:17 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
12Did the Kansas Keystone cops do any records check?
“Robert and Adlynn Harte, both former CIA analysts, were subjected to a volatile, paramilitary-style police raid on their home.”
11/2/14 12:26 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
13Perhaps the DFCOTP will take a liking to “chippy”..then there won’t be any need for SWAT..
http://chippietherfid.com/
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Funniest thing I’ve seen in years. Coming to a neighborhood school near you soon!!! I wouldn’t put it past James Comey to ask Congress to mandate it for all newborns…in secret of course. After all, he just asked Congress to authorize the FBI to hack into any domestic computer they want to. Fucking totalitarianism asshole.
11/2/14 1:17 PM | Comment Link
sufferin' succotash said...
14There’s nothing that supporters of a police state would like better than some people going all Eric Fein on the police. It’s the excuse they’re waiting for. There’s really no alternative to working within the law to improve the situation. And that means granting fewer discretionary powers to police and prosecutors willing to do whatever it takes to get convictions.
11/15/14 1:49 PM | Comment Link