Police State USALEAWOOD, KS — An innocent family was terrorized by a paramilitary SWAT raid on their home that lasted 2.5 hours; yielding nothing. It took the family 2 years and $25,000 to discover the real reason their house was targeted: discarded tea leaves in their garbage and the purchase of indoor gardening equipment.
‘You’re in the wrong house!’
Robert and Adlynn Harte discovered how easily an innocent family can become the targets of state-sanctioned violence when a SWAT team showed up at their home looking for contraband. The terrifying experience took place at 7:30 a.m. on April 20, 2012.
“It was just like on the cops TV shows,” Mr. Harte told the AP. “It was like ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ ready to storm the compound.”
The Harte home was surrounded by paramilitary police. There was a sudden pounding at the door, which Robert quickly answered. If he had delayed opening the door, a man carrying a battering ram was prepared to breach the front door.
Robert was pushed to the floor and made to clasp his hands behind his head as strange men poured into his home. Rifle-toting, armored troopers stood over him with rifles screaming, “Where are the children in the home?”
The Hartes’ 7-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son had both been sleeping in their bedrooms, and were “shocked and frightened” as they were shuffled into the living room and made to watch as the invaders snooped through their belongings.
“We just kept saying ‘You’re in the wrong house!’” Mrs. Harte told KSHB.
Johnson County Sheriff’s deputies and police canines tore through the family’s living space for 2.5 hours. They took interest with the Hartes’ indoor garden, which was a family project to grow vegetables such as tomatoes, squashes, and melons in the basement.
The Hartes said that the deputies “made rude comments” and implied their son was using marijuana. Yet the deputies left empty handed. A receipt was left, saying “no items taken.”
‘Operation Constant Gardener’
The Hartes had no idea why they had been targeted. They were not involved in any illegal activities and had impeccable records — good enough to pass the rigorous background checks to get clearance with the Department of Defense.
The department would not give them any answers about the raid, only that they were looking for narcotics. No records were provided willingly.
“We were chosen more or less at random for this drug raid and we were like ‘what do you mean we can’t get the records? They raided our house,” Addie explained.
The family was forced to sue the department to get any answers about the incident — a year later. Documents later showed that their hydroponics equipment that had played a role in attracting the attention of SWAT. The police believed they were growing the forbidden cannabis plant inside their home using grow lights and hydroponics.
The couple discovered that the raid even had a name. It had been a part of “Operation Constant Gardener” — a drug sweep conducted by multiple police agencies in the region.
“With little or no other evidence of any illegal activity, law enforcement officers make the assumption that shoppers at the store are potential marijuana growers, even though the stores are most commonly frequented by backyard gardeners who grow organically or start seedlings indoors,” the couple stated in a lawsuit.
Bob Harte displays the indoor garden his family cultivates. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
‘This isn’t a communist country’
It took an additional year and $25,000 to get the rest of the story.
It turned out that the police had first seen Bob Harte at a local hydroponics shop called The Green Circle in August 2011. Harte exited the store with a small bag, prompting police a surveillance effort. For months, cops began snooping through the family’s trash.
The shopkeeper of the hydroponics store, Bennie Palmentere, said he was disturbed that government spies were sorting through his customers’ trash. “This isn’t a communist country,” he said to KSHB.
The 5:00 a.m. garbage searches yielded some plant-like materials which they assumed to be marijuana. Using an unreliable field-testing kit, the plant material created a false-positive for marijuana, and a search warrant was acquired.
“We cannot understand how the low level of police work, which included using an unreliable field test, could have permitted a SWAT-style raid on our home,” the Hartes said in a public statement.
The plant material was never taken to a lab to pursue more definitive results. The warrant was handed out with little effort or evidence on the part of the police.
Bob knew instantly what the “plant-like materials” were: his wife’s discarded tea leaves from her daily hot beverages.
“If this can happen to us and we are educated and have reasonable resources, how does somebody who maybe hasn’t led a perfect life supposed to be free in this country?” said Addie Harte to the AP.
The fact that it took 2 years and $25,000 to get the complete details about how their home was targeted a the source of contention for the family.
“This not what justice in the United States is supposed to be,”Addie Harte said. “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.”
The Hartes’ experience sheds some valuable light on a dilemma that is faced all over the country. Their family is fortunate to have the resources and patience necessary to fight through expensive lawsuits required to provide answers about the investigation in which they were involved. Exposure is the best way to push back on the police state. However, most people would not have the resources to to do the same. The majority of the time, clandestine police raids are allowed to remain shrouded in secrecy.
In other words the gun thugs were looking for drugs so they could seize the
entire house under RICO laws.
So now it is illegal to shop at a legal gardening store, because you MIGHT be growing marijuana. Really?? He was suspicious because he bought a small bag, oh no, he bought something at a gardening store. They went through their trash. Who gave them the right to do that? I hate LEO. They are nothing more than Nazi soldiers working for the Luciferian agenda, under the guise of law. Sick, and they should be hung.
Kansas has the most draconian laws in the nation concerning warrants. Police and prosecutors have been legislatively protected from having to disclose their probable cause for obtaining warrants and summons. As if that weren’t bad enough, the Kansas warrant process includes “other evidence” for probable cause. In other words, police and prosecutors don’t have to document anything valid to obtain a warrant, and the result is more injustice and victimization of innocent people, with absolutely no police and attorney accountability.
This past legislative session, Kansas HB 2555 was introduced which would have struck “other evidence” from the process, required specific documentation of probable cause, and made warrants open to the public. In committee, the bill was opposed by representatives of Kansas County and District Attorneys Association and Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Though the bill was passed in the house by a huge majority (113-10), it didn’t make it to a senate vote: it was quashed by the senate vice president and and senate majority leader, both practicing British Accredited Registry attorneys.
The JustUs club has quite a racket going in Kansas.
Crap. I just made some homemade sweet tea! Should I be worried? 😉
This is so out of control. Cops going through trash. Under surveillance for going to the garden store? WTH!
Deb, you had better hide those tea leaves!!! You don’t want to be raided!! Crazy stuff there or what. Who gave them the right to follow someone who bought a legal product at a legal store so they can grow their own food. The cops are totally out of control. I had better watch it I have a cop that lives 2 houses from me! Maybe he saw me buying seeds and plants!! 🙂
Exactly Missy!
I have some grow lights I’m installing to start my pepper plants, I’d better watch my butt. My neighbors across the street would call swat in a heartbeat. These are the type of people that when the power goes out, they high tail it to a hotel. Haha
Deb,step out in your yard and look north,a little more freedom is closer then you think!
🙂
That is funny!! I got one for you!! Our neighbors never knock on our door, the neighbor across the street (since died of cancer)grew up with my Dad, well one night we decided to turn off all of the lights, etc. and pretend we had no power to see how well we did, with oil lamps, etc. Well Low and behold guess who comes over! Lynn, he was like why is it so dark here? We explained what we were doing and he could not understand us!! God rest his soul, but just no clue!!!!
That’s hilarious Missy! At least he was concerned for you!
When we lose power for days, some of the neighbors come to us to charge their phones, because they don’t have a generator. Go figure! You think they would know better. We lose power due to storms all the time.
That is funny! Every time we have a hurricane coming, people run to the stores buy a generator, leave it in the box, then after the storm, they return them!! 🙂 Just keep it, they will come in handy!! Sheep, they are really a comedy show !!! 🙂
Haha, that explains why we couldn’t get a spare generator last year. 😉
I never could understand how people refuse to prepare to take care of themselves in case of an outage. Keep them is right, you never know when you may need them.
“The shopkeeper of the hydroponics store, Bennie Palmentere, said he was disturbed that government spies were sorting through his customers’ trash. “This isn’t a communist country,” he said to KSHB.”
“This isn’t a communist country,”…
You obviously don’t know the difference, Bennie.