Poll: Police State USA: Boston Area Raids

[Adamantium93]

Closing down the entire city to search for one unarmed, sleep deprived and exhausted teenager.

Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahahahahahahaha! Oh, that's a funny bit of truth twisting there.

The kid has already allegedly blown up two bombs and planned to blow up others. He and his brother stole a car at gunpoint and when the cops saw them, the two suspects started tossing homemade explosives at them and entered into a fire fight in which a cop was injured and his brother killed.

It turns out that he was unarmed, but the cops have no way of knowing that and they aren't going to think that the guy who perpetrated those crimes listed above has suddenly become harmless.

When you're after someone who has proven willing and able to cause massive harm to innocents, you don't stop and assume he's going to be unarmed and cooperative. You assume hostility until you can verify that he is not dangerous.



As to the topic, I would let police search my home but I don't think they should be able to search anywhere they want without a warrant.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

"An Orwellian nightmare"
Huh, I wasn't aware we were discussing North Korea.

North Korea is obviously the most extreme example, but the way things are going in the US these days, it's far from being a land of the free. It's been that way for the past decade or so.

Besides if you think scaremongering is exclusive to the U.S government, you must really not be that well traveled.

I don't.

I mean look at the islamaphobia that's gripping most of Europe, especially France.

There is no such think as islamophobia. People aren't afraid of Muslims. They are criticizing Muslim extremism. And every time someone says something critical of their religion, they emerge to spout their lies about islamophobia. They are hypersensitive about anything that has to do with their religion. Just think about their reaction to "draw Mohammad day". Would normal, civilized people give a crap about that? Would normal people demand the beheading of those who insult Islam? I guess that strategy "say it enough times and people will start believing it" worked It obviously worked on you.

 

[Pebkio]

No.

This is just a line for me. I don't care about the context, I will not be a reactionary to fear. I hate when people make big decisions out of fear. If that makes me more suspicious, fine, go get a damn warrant. In the meantime, I do not surrender any of my personal freedoms just because something scary happened.

And also:

We are supposed to be civilized people and shouldn't become barbarians just because someone else did first.

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

That is pretty terrifying.

Besides, it isn't as if they rugby tackled a brazilian student to the floor and shot him in the head 5 times because he was running for a train.

In fairness that's pretty much why we don't want our police to be armed. They're perfectly capable of killing innocent people with sticks anyway.

What would I do? Let them come in. I'm not going to argue about shit when there's a gun in my face being held by somebody I'm just going to assume is an idiot. Not saying police are all idiots, it's just some obviously are like with any group of people. After all is said and done I'll kick up a hell of a fuss. Consent at gunpoint is not fucking consent.

Now keep in mind this is America we are talking about. The rate of gun ownership is ludicrously high, and you are expecting police to go after a man with a gun using only police batons? Besides, there was absolutely no evidence of police forcing themselves into the houses of people who declined to be searched.

 

[Fappy]

After watching the video I just realized something. What about the people who had indoor cats? I would be terrified one of those assholes would leave a door open or something and let them out :/

We'll considering how often police seem to like killing family pets during raids, i'd consider myself fortunate if my cat was simply let out. Many police seem to consider it within their rights to kill any dogs that might be on the premises during a raid, even if the owners have them on a leash or are holding onto them. They get away with this all the time.

I know if that happened to me, i would be dead shortly after. So for me, raid=death. You may claim that my priorities are a bit off, but i put a lot of personal value in my pets. I would feel obligated to do as much harm to my pets killer as i can manage regardless of consequence. If my death made the next cop think twice about needlessly killing some kids pet as a sadistic power play, i would consider it worth the sacrifice.

How often does that really happen though? I know it's a TV trope, but I can't say I have ever seen a news report where this has actually happened.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

A search grid that the majority of us Bostonians completely supported.

All of you people shitting on our cops need to shut the fuck up and think for a second. Our city was ATTACKED. We wanted them CAUGHT. We succeeded.

No, I repeat, NO innocents were hurt by the police.

You know, I'm going to take a moment on this. Five days after 9/11, I woke up to something that sounded like an explosion. I quickly looked out my window and I saw nothing but grey. My heart beat, my jaw dropped, and I thought 'Oh God, this is it. I'm going to die at 21'.

Later I found out it was a jet and it was just a cloudy day. I remember the police presence everywhere. I remember people being on high alert and looking at packages or bags or whatever. I remember the announcements of what you should do. If you see something, say something. I remember life just being changed forever.

And I knew the cause of it. It wasn't even the first terrorist attack on the towers, but it was the most damaging. There was no way the police could handle it all themselves. Silently, we all knew we were deputized. We couldn't just sit behind our walls and think the cops will handle it. We knew we had our part. No one wanted to do it, but we wanted to make sure shit didn't happen again.

On a last note and a tangent, as I eluded to in my last post, I went to school in Montreal in 2004-2006. I had a girlfriend at that time who had a friend who invited us over to her house for Chirstmas. She was... Romanian I think, and Her entire family was there. And there was this one family member who was my age who kept staring at me. I come to find out that the family members were told who we were in Romanian, and I was very interesting because I was American.

Said Boy did not like that Bush was re-elected.

He used that time to quiz me to answer for all over America. I told him that I didn't like Bush and I actually went to Buffalo to vote against him, and he said something I'll never forget: "Ah, finally. An American who thinks like me!" Like the world would be better if we all thought like him. But he loosen up and we talked more and I even started to like him.

Until he asked about 9/11. I do remember the CBC doing a lot of the anniversary that year, and he was bothered by it. So much so that he wanted four months to question the first American he could about it. Why was it a big deal? Why are Americans still so concerned about it? Why can't they just move on?

I didn't yell. I didn't really do anything but answer his question. But I wanted to punch him dead in the face. But my answer was this;

We were violated. Man, Woman, People, Groups, Creeds... whatever. We all have a basic need of security. A place to feel like you are safe in. Even in New York, you know there's places you go and you get hurt by x,y,and x, and there are places you go that you'll be perfectly safe in. You know who to avoid, you know what to do.

But when you have a foriegn, unknown power penetrate your defenses, completely blindsiding you, you don't know where to turn. It's one of the most frightening feelings there is. It's a rape. America was violated horribly during that time and we were not prepared for it, even if we had domestic terrorism. You would never ask a rape victim to just 'get over it'. You either live the situation or you sit on the sidelines, be quiet, and wait until the subject changes to something you know about.

 

[Terminate421]

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.

Have a relative with the exact reaction as you. She tells me it was less nerve-racking to know the police were actually doing something instead of just sitting there with their thumbs up their asses or shooting at civilians because they "might be suspicious"

Also she loved the cop who bought those guys milk.

I love how all the foreigners here see this as the worst possible thing that could happen and can't put two in two together that this guy may have had ANYTHING and we really didn't want him causing another innocent.

 

[Milanezi]

it's a public threat, all privacy goes to ground, that's what I believe in, even when the law says otherwise...

I think that sentiment right there is more corrosive to freedom than any act of terrorism can ever be. Terrorists can't destroy our freedom unless we help them, and that attitude is what's going to make it happen.

I see your line of thinking here, but I sustain my point. I am NOT, however, saying that every single threat is to be treated as such. I'll use for example the Brazilian Constitution, in case of war (WAR) many of the privacies goes to waste, including mail privacy, also death penalty goes into play (which is non-existent otherwise).
But i can't blame your point of view, it makes total sense. You're playing freedom (or whatever is closest to it since we never have real freedom), I'm playing for safety, which doesn't come as a surprise as I usually turn out to be the one raising a toast to strong dictatorial leadership rather than democracy in SOME countries (read Brazil, not USA as far as I know the north-american people as a whole are well instructed enough in politics not to deviate the attention to the prettiest butt instead of what matters, in terms of politics, if get my meaning).

 

[The Apple BOOM]

It's come to my attention that many of the people on this thread don't want to hear otherwise. If that's so, why post in the first place? I have been insulted twice on this forum and don't intend on coming back to R&P or related topics anytime soon.

If you post in a topic, be ready to hear dissenting opinions, and check your childish impulses at the door.

 

[Atmos Duality]

And that's how terrorism wins.
It's not the overt violence, death and destruction caused by crazies.
It's the response that it provokes, like an extreme form of trolling.

I'm used to hearing sirens when I visit my friends out in their neck of Chicago.
(I'm also curiously used to hearing automatic weapons fire)
But I haven't seen the police cordon off the area and go in like the Marshalls.

 

[Lionsfan]

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.

Calling the US an "Orwellian Nightmare" is an insult to the people who are actually living under totalitarian. I mean if you think the US is as bad as North Korea, or sometimes China, or some of the Middle Eastern/sub-Saharan African countries....well I don't know what else to say besides just laughing hysterically.

Second, about the unarmed, sleep deprived, exhausted teenager bit. Can you say "hindsight vision is 20/20?" At the time, nobody knew he was a teenager, and unarmed. All they knew was that earlier that night, he had tried to rob a 7/11, shot a police officer, engaged in a shootout with other officers, and used more bombs. They were right to take a lot of precautions. Shutting down the city was probably a little overboard, I'm sure a lot of Iraqi's and Israeli's were laughing at us, but that was also citizens shutting down their business' etc.

Third, I don't know if you know this or not, since you apparently don't live here anymore, but the American Government does not control the media. All private baby! So there's another thing you're completely wrong about.

I'm not saying the police were in the right here, I understand why they did what they did, but it's not right.

Finally, what the "Land of opportunity" have to do with anything? What does someone's economic hopes have to do with the 4th Amendment and Police Activity. Nothing. Just more hyperbole in an already hyperbolic post

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

"An Orwellian nightmare"
Huh, I wasn't aware we were discussing North Korea.

North Korea is obviously the most extreme example, but the way things are going in the US these days, it's far from being a land of the free. It's been that way for the past decade or so.

And in the decades of the Cold War you could have your livelihood ruined by someone accusing you of being a communist, it was illegal for mixed race marriage, and minorities were not afforded any significant legal protection. National Guard used live ammunition to fire on protesters, there was a draft, and more propaganda than you can shake a fist at.

And people called that the golden years.

Besides if you think scaremongering is exclusive to the U.S government, you must really not be that well traveled.

I don't.

I mean look at the islamaphobia that's gripping most of Europe, especially France.

There is no such think as islamophobia. People aren't afraid of Muslims. They are criticizing Muslim extremism. And every time someone says something critical of their religion, they emerge to spout their lies about islamophobia. They are hypersensitive about anything that has to do with their religion. Just think about their reaction to "draw Mohammad day". Would normal, civilized people give a crap about that? Would normal people demand the beheading of those who insult Islam? I guess that strategy "say it enough times and people will start believing it" worked It obviously worked on you.[/quote]
Uh what?

No seriously Islamaphobia is defined as a prejudice, irrational fear of, and hatred against Muslims. I mean hell, do us both a favor and research the rising trend of "vigilantes" violently targeting Muslims in Britain. Or the multiple laws repressing the right of Muslim women who willingly abide by tradition? Do you really think all Muslims act these way? Is it fair to glomp those who do not call for beheading in the same boat as those who do? It's like calling all christians racist lynchers because of the KKK.

 

[Aramis Night]

After watching the video I just realized something. What about the people who had indoor cats? I would be terrified one of those assholes would leave a door open or something and let them out :/

We'll considering how often police seem to like killing family pets during raids, i'd consider myself fortunate if my cat was simply let out. Many police seem to consider it within their rights to kill any dogs that might be on the premises during a raid, even if the owners have them on a leash or are holding onto them. They get away with this all the time.

I know if that happened to me, i would be dead shortly after. So for me, raid=death. You may claim that my priorities are a bit off, but i put a lot of personal value in my pets. I would feel obligated to do as much harm to my pets killer as i can manage regardless of consequence. If my death made the next cop think twice about needlessly killing some kids pet as a sadistic power play, i would consider it worth the sacrifice.

How often does that really happen though? I know it's a TV trope, but I can't say I have ever seen a news report where this has actually happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdip3ypW6Kk
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26079096/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/police-raid-md-mayors-home-kill-his-dogs/#.UXrN-7WG0rY
http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2010/jun/21/police_kill_grandmothers_dog_bot
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/police_raid_wrong_house_kill_couples_dog/
http://www.naturalnews.com/036698_police_raid_family_dog_victims.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/19/police-kill-chicago-mans-_n_931279.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/cop-shoots-dog-puppycide_n_1446841.html

An excerpt from the last link in case you don't get that far:
" But Paxton isn't the first dog owner whose pet has been shot to death by police. A search of news articles from the past year shows more than 100 separate incidents."

You should definitely check out the last link. It frames the issue rather well. The first link will probably offend you to your core assuming you have a soul.

 

[Risingblade]

Maybe some better evidence than a youtube video is needed?

Anyways yes I would let the police raid my house without a warrant, what the hell is in my house that needs to be raided?

 

[idarkphoenixi]

Maybe it could have been handled better but this is really an exception. Two bombs had blown up and for all anybody knew there could have been a dozen more. This was seen as possibly the next 9/11 at the time.

It's better to go a little overboard than just do nothing in the face of a very genuine threat, which this was.

If someone WAS hiding him willingly and they could just say no to a search, then it kind of makes the whole thing a little pointless. Peoples lives got disrupted temporarily in the hope that the lives of others could be saved.

Doesn't mean I'm all for warrantless wiretapping/raids for anything but this was what I'd call an exception to that standard.

 

[Trueflame]

I'd let the police in if I was the one that called them for some reason, but otherwise they'd better have a warrant, and I'm not saying a word to them without the presence of a lawyer either.

As for the Boston fiasco, I don't understand what the point of any of those raids were. Just searching door by door for the suspect? That's looking for a needle in a haystack, there's a reason things like that aren't done when searching for other criminals. And then there's the fact that such things really aren't done for other criminals, just for this one guy because he committed a "terrorist" act. Are terrorist acts somehow intrinsically worse than other things, just by virtue of having that label? They had his photo, they had circulated it, everyone was on high alert, they could have easily found him (as indeed they did), there was no need to pull this nonsense.

The reason I'm so adamantly furious about this is because it legitimizes such behavior. Even if they ask for permission of the residents first, it still serves to legitimize such behavior, and then the next time someone sets off a bomb or does something similar, they'll be able to do this sort of thing more easily, and then the next thing you know the Patriot Act 2.0 comes out specifying that this sort of behavior is acceptable and legal. Snip it in the bud, I say. This shouldn't be acceptable under any circumstances, not even if it was Osama Bin Laden hiding out in someone's basement. Sacrificing freedom is no way to catch criminals or terrorists, because it hands them the victory.

 

[Fappy]

After watching the video I just realized something. What about the people who had indoor cats? I would be terrified one of those assholes would leave a door open or something and let them out :/

We'll considering how often police seem to like killing family pets during raids, i'd consider myself fortunate if my cat was simply let out. Many police seem to consider it within their rights to kill any dogs that might be on the premises during a raid, even if the owners have them on a leash or are holding onto them. They get away with this all the time.

I know if that happened to me, i would be dead shortly after. So for me, raid=death. You may claim that my priorities are a bit off, but i put a lot of personal value in my pets. I would feel obligated to do as much harm to my pets killer as i can manage regardless of consequence. If my death made the next cop think twice about needlessly killing some kids pet as a sadistic power play, i would consider it worth the sacrifice.

How often does that really happen though? I know it's a TV trope, but I can't say I have ever seen a news report where this has actually happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdip3ypW6Kk
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26079096/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/police-raid-md-mayors-home-kill-his-dogs/#.UXrN-7WG0rY
http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2010/jun/21/police_kill_grandmothers_dog_bot
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/police_raid_wrong_house_kill_couples_dog/
http://www.naturalnews.com/036698_police_raid_family_dog_victims.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/19/police-kill-chicago-mans-_n_931279.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/cop-shoots-dog-puppycide_n_1446841.html

An excerpt from the last link in case you don't get that far:
" But Paxton isn't the first dog owner whose pet has been shot to death by police. A search of news articles from the past year shows more than 100 separate incidents."

You should definitely check out the last link. It frames the issue rather well. The first link will probably offend you to your core assuming you have a soul.

Jeez, that's some heavy stuff. I'm really glad the first video didn't actually show the dog... that would not have been a nice thing to see

 

[barbzilla]

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.

Not saying you're wrong, but the mass media's scaremongering is at least partially independent of government scaremongering.

Take a look at campaign funds and tell me that. I know there are some clean news sources, but the Media is a big portion of what is wrong in this country.

OT: I think its crazy, but if the citizens don't care enough to know their rights, then it is their fault for letting their rights be trampled.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

This is a 4th amendment violation without a public declaration of martial law, in which the military would be knocking down your door, not knocking.
No warrant, no search. Barge in, you violate my civil rights and leave me a lawsuit. And the "in good faith" doesn't apply there.

 

[barbzilla]

Maybe some better evidence than a youtube video is needed?

Anyways yes I would let the police raid my house without a warrant, what the hell is in my house that needs to be raided?

You know that when the police conduct a search they throw crap about and turn over furniture, it is not the police's responsibility to replace the items the way they were found. I used to submit to searches too, then I had an officer unload my entire moving van because he thought I might have drugs. I did not have drugs so I allowed it. He then proceeded to completely unload the van (a 2 hour process) and said "You are free to go". Leaving me alone to pack my van back up, a 4 hour process. So because I didn't know my rights (or practise them) I was subjected to a 6 hour delay. This is why you don't let police raid your house without a warrant.