Poll: Police State USA: Boston Area Raids

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MysticSlayer

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Apr 14, 2013
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Nielas said:
Dirty Hipsters said:
xDarc said:
and later it would be admitted he was unarmed
I really don't see what that has to do with anything. Police wouldn't have known that he was unarmed at the time, and it was a pretty fair assumption on their part that he would be armed considering he'd just detonated 2 bombs.
More importantly, the manhunt started when they shot and killed a police officer. Assuming that the man was unarmed would be suicidally stupid.
And to top it all off, they had just been in a firefight with him and his brother the night before. It's really easy to pass judgment after the fact, but we can really only judge them based on the information they had at the time, and at the time, they had every reason to be worried that he was armed and dangerous.

As for how I'd respond, I wouldn't make a fuss. Given the situation, I wouldn't even bother to ask what they were there for. If they forced me to go somewhere, I'd likely ask if I would be let back in later that day so I know if I should start looking for a hotel to stay in that night. If it weren't a time of crises I might ask why they were there and what they were doing, but in this case it might give me more peace of mind.

I'm not saying this because I like having my Constitutional rights trampled on. I'm just saying that, based on my personality, I wouldn't resist or argue. Not to mention, I generally look at the situation rather than holding to some universally applicable ideal that we should never go against even in the most extreme of situations, and given the situation--a loose terrorist who is likely armed and had already killed a cop, the high likelihood that they have a very limited time window, and the sheer scale in which they had to operate--I'd likely view it as extreme enough to warrant some extra flexibility. Maybe you disagree, but I don't see myself thinking or acting any different at the time this was going on.
 

Marik2

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Nov 10, 2009
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Don't have a problem with it, but the cops really need to be better organized and not treat the civilians like they did something wrong.

Like give them some damn time to put on shoes and put the people outside in a safe place

small things like that
 

Vegosiux

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May 18, 2011
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Riddle me this:

How many "genuine American patriots" that live far enough away from Boston, would start accusing the authorities of not trying hard enough to catch the terrorists otherwise?

My guess is "A whole damn lot".
 

Thaluikhain

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Jan 16, 2010
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Product Placement said:
Finally, the idea of charging the guy with using weapons of mass destruction (which I've always associated with Nuclear weaponry or of similar scale) is also a bit odd in my books.
Actually, no. The phrase is used by politicians and the media to mean something really nasty (usually CBRN), but apparently it's also a phrase used in US law that includes fairly small bombs. That definition just doesn't hit the headlines so much.

OTOH, they really should not be using the same terminology to refer to two completely different things like that.
 

RoBi3.0

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Mar 29, 2009
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The right to say no to the cops searching your house is in the constitution. (If they don't have a warrant,) If you aren't aware of that I have trouble feeling that you were wronged in anyway.
 

TheDrunkNinja

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Jun 12, 2009
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In this case, yeah I would.

If you know the full story, those brothers were on a rampage. After the bombing, the full list of events as I understand it included the two brothers robbing a convenience store at gun point, pulling over and shooting a campus security officer for no reason, getting in gun fights with the police involving lower-grade explosives, the older brother getting shot at which point the younger one drives over his corpse to get away, and then finally being found by in a grounded boat by the owner. The guy had no idea he was there. This is straight out of a movie plot it's so surreal.

Boston was on complete lockdown trying to find these desperate madmen. If the police were at your door, you knew why they were there. If the cops had reasonable suspicion that one of the bombers was on your property somewhere, then why in the hell would you want them waiting and coming back the next day with a legal warrant, all the while the bomber might be hiding in your goddamn home with you?! A warrant would be useless, and you might be fucking dead for spending the night with a crazed man hiding in the basement.

If you're thinking that some cops were using the opportunity to raid houses in relation to other cases, that's highly doubtful. The hundreds of cops that were in Boston during lockdown were a part of an entire search grid. These weren't cops just bopping around on their own patrolling whatever street they felt like. The search they performed was completely procedural and didn't allow opportunities to go off and raid some home that had relation to some other case being worked on. This wasn't a police state. It was a search grid that was eventually disbanded when the search was complete.
 

Bug MuIdoon

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Mar 28, 2013
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Unfortunately, "No", in the eyes of the law, usually means "I'm guilty."

I can only see it bringing further complications in a situation like this, but no I would not let them enter.
 

BeerTent

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May 8, 2011
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This is why I'd never go to the US. It looked like the raid was a little sloppy too. Case in point as someone pointed out, "Mr. Urban Commando" outside there needlessly pointing his gun up at the house. You have proper discipline, or you don't have a firearm. End of Story.

No warrant, no entry. I'm all for cooperating, but there's such a thing as violating my rights.
 

RicoADF

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Jun 2, 2009
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Product Placement said:
The fact that an entire capital of Massachusetts was shut down, for a short while, while searching for this guy, always struck me as bit excessive. This door-to-door tactic of forcing every resident out of their house, at gunpoint, strikes me as rather excessive. Finally, the idea of charging the guy with using weapons of mass destruction (which I've always associated with Nuclear weaponry or of similar scale) is also a bit odd in my books.

But then again, I don't understand the evil behind the intent to blow up a downtown full of people so I'm not gonna pretend to know the best way to deal with situations like these. Right now, all I can say that I'm simply glad I don't live there. I wouldn't have appreciated this kind of treatment from people who are supposed to be protecting me, not treating my like a suspect in my own home.
Your correct, a WMD (weapon of mass destruction) are basically Nukes, Biological and Chemical weapons. Killing 3 people (while tragic) with a few simple bombs, isn't using WMD's. It's really not a good sign of the US's morale status when that's called so easily.
 

itsthesheppy

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Mar 28, 2012
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Geo Da Sponge said:
You should shoot them with your guns.

I hear that's a really good way to make freedom happen.
Preach it, brother! Dey can terk mah gernz wern derka derr!

Listen, gents. The guy they were chasing was suspected to have been involved in the cold-blooded murder of a police officer. For blowing up innocent people with a bomb. They'd just gotten done shooting at cops, throwing bombs at them, and was now on the loose.

As far as they knew, the guy could be carrying anything. More bombs. Poisons. Automatic weapons.

You know what the police would rather have? Wankers like you armchair lawyers sitting around on internet forums going on about 'police states', instead of having to answer for why the guy they couldn't find managed to get away and plant another bomb. Maybe this one at a pre-school. Or Time's Square like they admitted they intended.

If the dude had busted into your house and had you all huddled in the bathroom at gunpoint, I can imagine you'd welcome the sound of the police kicking down your door without asking. It's be music to your ears. I don't think you'd be scolding them for not having a warrant as they ushered you guys to first aid.

Geez, people. Perspective.
 

Lucky Godzilla

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Oct 31, 2012
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Adam Jensen said:
No I would not. And the fact that this thing is totally OK now in America makes me so glad that I left that shithole. Land of opportunity my ass. More like an Orwellian nightmare. Closing down the entire city to search for one unarmed, sleep deprived and exhausted teenager. Scaremongering is also a form of terrorism if you ask me. And that's what the American government with it's mass media did to it's own people after the Boston incident. It's despicable.
"An Orwellian nightmare"
Huh, I wasn't aware we were discussing North Korea. Besides if you think scaremongering is exclusive to the U.S government, you must really not be that well traveled. I mean look at the islamaphobia that's gripping most of Europe, especially France.
 

Halvhir

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Oct 25, 2009
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As someone who actually LIVES in the Greater Boston area... we are almost universally appreciative of the way the Boston Police Department and other various first responders handled this event.

Allow me to remind you all that this was taking place not FOUR DAYS after the bomb blasts at the marathon, which left three dead and over 170 wounded, many of whom lost limbs, and was being watched LIVE ON TELEVISION across the state. They found additional explosive devices that didn't go off, one of which was directly underneath the grandstands where hundreds of spectators were sitting near the finish line. As tragic as the casualty list is, it could easily have been much, much worse.

Add to this the murder of an officer at MIT, a carjacking, throwing MORE explosives out of the car window while being chased, an extended shootout and the very real concern of a suicide vest, there was every reason to try and lock down the immediate area to make sure he didn't sneak away, grab another hostage or hurt more people. And then when you have hundreds of cops and agents roaming the streets after being on edge for four days straight, immediately following a prolonged gunfight, you think it's unreasonable for them to want to start checking private property?

They asked for permission to search houses. Not everyone said yes, and in those cases they just left; I haven't seen a single report of them barging into homes uninvited. Instead, I see there's a photo of a cop bringing GALLONS OF MILK back to one house with a toddler, because they were out and couldn't leave to get it themselves. That guy is AWESOME.

Yeah, I'm sure there are cases where cops were too aggressive or pushed harder than they should have. Perfection ain't something we got here; if you know somewhere that's selling it, please let us know. But they broke no laws, and made goddamn sure that they did everything they could to prevent more casualties. I'm proud of them, the city is proud of them, and every single person in the press and in person I've seen, read or talked to has appreciated how it was handled.
 

Ashadowpie

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Feb 3, 2012
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i have nothing to hide of course but when a cop raids your house, shit gets broken and thrown everywhere, and if its a false alarm, they dont pay for the damages of clean up afterwards. stupid assholes.

the bad thing about saying No means that you're suspicious now and that just makes it worse for you so there seriously isnt a Win Win situation.

if only the cops wouldnt trash your house, then i'd happily invite them to snoop into my home to look if it meant it would catch the bad guy. but then again, my house is completely innocent, i dont do anything illegal besides download music on my computer, but i live in Canada and no one gives a shit about that. im so lucky
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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Fappy said:
They had already cornered the guy and it was clear he wasn't going to do anything else short of run away.
I'm glad this was clear to you, but it wasn't to a lot of the people in Massachusetts.

I'm just north of the border. I have friends and family in the area, and I followed this so closely in part because they were scared out of their fucking minds. The cops didn't know what he was capable of at that point, which is why they came down so hard in the first place.

Does that justify searching every home in the town? No. I'm just saying, let's not act like they knew he was a pussycat at this point.

Product Placement said:
Finally, the idea of charging the guy with using weapons of mass destruction (which I've always associated with Nuclear weaponry or of similar scale) is also a bit odd in my books.
The concept of a wmd is not a new one and has long been used to describe things much smaller than a nuclear device. The legal requirement is ridiculously small and probably the only reason you haven't heard of such a thing is that we haven't seen this sort of attack succeed much since wmd became an empty buzzword.

Is it overkill here? Yeah, probably. But still.

Geo Da Sponge said:
You should shoot them with your guns.

I hear that's a really good way to make freedom happen.
Amen, brother! This is what happens when a liberal commie state like Massachusetts bans all the guns!

Vegosiux said:
Riddle me this:

How many "genuine American patriots" that live far enough away from Boston, would start accusing the authorities of not trying hard enough to catch the terrorists otherwise?

My guess is "A whole damn lot".
Considering it took the same patirots less than an hour to accuse Obama (yes, Obama) of being all talk and no action? Yeah, a whole damn lot.

Actually, one of the things that's KILLING me right now is watching the same people on TV complaining about a police state suggesting we torture the guy and otherwise violate his civil liberties.

Bug MuIdoon said:
Unfortunately, "No", in the eyes of the law, usually means "I'm guilty."

I can only see it bringing further complications in a situation like this, but no I would not let them enter.
They very likely would get a warrant for it in that case, and yeah. Make your life harder in the process.

RicoADF said:
Your correct
Legally, his knot correct

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction#Criminal_.28civilian.29

sorry.
 

Fappy

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Jan 4, 2010
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Zachary Amaranth said:
No, you're right. I honestly wasn't quite sure how to phrase the bit you quoted and it came out a bit exaggerated. I understand the police had to exercise caution as they should never underestimate what these kinds of people are capable of, but like you said, it still doesn't justify what they ended up doing.
 

fezgod

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Dec 7, 2012
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Halvhir said:
As someone who actually LIVES in the Greater Boston area... we are almost universally appreciative of the way the Boston Police Department and other various first responders handled this event.
This is really the only opinion that should matter right now: somebody that was in the middle of the situation and was actually experiencing the emotions that were going on at the time. Its easy, as an outsider, to sit back and make judgments on a situation when its just shown on our televisions
 

The Apple BOOM

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Nov 16, 2012
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Sure things aren't perfect here, but "I'm never coming to America now," and "an Orwellian nightmare" are so ridiculous as to be insulting.

One thing I've noticed is that no one here has direct evidence that police did anything unconstitutional. I've heard a lot of rumors, but never any substantiated evidence. And if there is evidence, I hope the police who committed such crimes against the public and the constitution are prosecuted.