Lew Rockwell – by William Norman Grigg
David and Connie Johnson were asleep when they heard a noise Connie later described as the “walls caving in.” Seconds later their front door was forced open and two armored strangers burst into the two-room apartment the middle-aged couple share with their adult son, Aaron.
Several other assailants were clustered behind the two who had forced open the door. One of them was a female holding a leash that barely restrained a large, snarling dog. One of the intruders pointed as assault rifle at David’s head and threatened to shoot him. Another invader, a female, bellowed, “Put your hands up! This dog will bite you!”
David was seized and shackled. Connie and Aaron were also dragged from their home. Neighbors who were drawn by the commotion poked their heads out and were ordered to go back into their rooms.
At no point in this encounter did the intruders identify themselves as police officers.
Two minutes later, the SWAT team that had terrorized the Johnsons arrested the Johnsons’ neighbor, Bill Gerst, who had been accused by a woman of threatening her. Gerst was forced to crawl on his belly toward the officers in order to be handcuffed.
“What’s going on?” Gerst repeatedly asked, plaintively explaining that there was nobody else in his apartment.
Gerst persisted in trying to find out why the cops had laid siege to his home.
“You shut your mouth!” one of the raiders snapped.
The police later told the Johnsons that they were dealing with a “homicide in progress.” No firearm, and no evidence of any criminal activity, was found during the February 21, 2013 raid.
According to a lawsuit filed by the Johnson family, “The information used to justify the no-warrant raid on Mr. Gerst’s apartment was shaky and legally suspect.” Specifically, it was a hearsay allegation made by someone who knew a woman named Hilda Valle, who is described in the suit as “a petty criminal who had reported to police that she had argued with Mr. Gerst and that he had threatened her with violence.”
At the request of the neighboring Nampa Police Department, which received the tip, a tactical team from the Caldwell Police Department conducted what they call a “welfare check” that was actually a guns-drawn, no-knock, SWAT-style raid. The Caldwell PD claimed knowledge of “the presence of guns at the premises” – which, according to the standard “threat matrix,”supposedly justifies a paramilitary assault.
Although the officers claim they were dealing with a “homicide in progress,” Police audio of the incident documents that the officers didn’t know the specific apartment number – which means that the door-kick on the Johnsons’ home – which could easily have resulted in a homicide — was the product of a whimsical guess.
Gerst is a young black man. The police had his description, but they didn’t have his address. David Johnson is a middle-aged white man. This distinction was so obvious that it wouldn’t have been missed even by the typical police officer within a few seconds of the door breach.
If the police had knocked on the door and announced their presence – as they are required to do, by law, unless there is evidence of imminent danger to an innocent person – they wouldn’t have terrorized an innocent family in a near-midnight raid, nor would they have inflicted significant and expensive damage to the property of an economically marginal household.
Furthermore, if the warrantless, no-knock raid was supposedly justified for “tactical” reasons, by hitting the wrong apartment door the cops surrendered the element of surprise.
In the legal response filed on behalf of its local enforcement caste, the City of Caldwell denies that the unlawful attack on the Johnsons’ home inflicted “damages” to their property, or violated their rights in any way. Because this near-midnight raid was carried out according to established “policies and procedures,” the City insists, the assailants are swaddled in the impenetrable cloak of “qualified immunity.”
A police officer who kicks in an innocent person’s door unannounced is a home invader. The victim has the moral and legal right to use lethal force to protect his home against such criminal aggression – something explicitly recognized in an enlightened measure recently enacted by the State of Indiana.
“Not acceptable,” an emotional David Johnson told the Boise NBC affiliate. “Being put in handcuffs. Kicking our door in. What’s that all about. No. Not acceptable. Not acceptable.”
The Caldwell and Nampa police departments, rather than apologizing to the victims of this atrocity, are impudently insisting that there is no need to alter their policies. They want the local population to believe that it is entirely fitting and proper that police can kick in doors at midnight and terrorize entirely innocent people on the basis of hearsay, as long as they can claim the suspected presence of a firearm nearby.
After all, that’s the reason why the Nampa PD recently acquired an MRAP.
7:47 pm on March 26, 2014Email William Norman Grigg
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/idaho-family-terrorized-by-midnight-paramilitary-raid/
When these “soldiers” (I wont call them cops) can kick in a random door without a warrant and terrorize the Americans that live there, they have turned this country into a war zone. There is no longer any other name to call it. These tactics were the same that we used in Iraq! A tip was given and a door was kicked in. It didn’t matter if it was the wrong door. These soldiers that wear a badge need to be informed that they are now enemy combatants. They are no longer police. Enemy combatants are treated as such.
I hate to use these words, but it is time that war is declared against all enemies of the American People. I am not saying that we should go on the attack, but in a war if the enemy attacks the opposing force, the opposing force fights the attackers until they surrender. There is no other way that this war they have started will end. We need to stop tolerating this act of aggression against American Nationals. It needs to be declared openly that we will not allow these thugs to do this. They murder us, they beat us, they infringe on our right to live as free people.
They have declared war on us and we better get ready to fight. It would be no different if China invaded and started doing the same thing that they are doing.
Yes Bulldog, when any level of so called law enforcement breaks down a door of a suspect that turns out to be the wrong suspect for whatever reason and the suspect is killed/murdered isn`t that the same as capital murder seening as to how the cops are paid to do that and someone was killed because of their negligence. Amd if not liked they were injured and had private property destroyed isn`t that considered felony for hire.
Yes the cops are not nor have they ever been friends of the common/little guy that cannot defend himself. The LEO`s are enemy combatants against the american people and I say the american people because a cop/LEO is not american as they do not stand for what america is about one bit. They are not Of, By, or For the people and havent been so for many many years. The – The LEO/cops as well as any form of the military that supports this martial law here in America – are the enemy and We The People better not forget that.
They are all traitors every last one of them so called law enforcers and those that support them bastards.
Hi Bulldog,
Saving our country and liberties starts by acknowledging exactly what has occurred.
Since the US Fed Gov’t IS an Enemy-Force-In-Occupation,.. calling their foot soldiers “Enemy-Combants” is exactly correct.
This is the begining of the American-Reign-Of-Terror,.. and if we do nothing to stop it at this stage,.. they WILL absolutely progress these methods and techniques,… and the body count of murdered Americans will increase,.. exponentionally.
At what point do we say,…”enough” ?
Bulldog,… we are indeed walking thru, “The valley of the shadow death”.
I never thought I would be quitely mumbling those words to myself, or have that feeling again when I survived my combat tour as the lead breeching element in Desert Storm, which we had zero expectation of surviving (according to our preop intel briefing just before going in…)….
Afterwards,…. once I had gotten home,… I thought all those days were behind me,… I would never again be in such absolute and mortal danger, especially on such a massive scale,… but,.. here we are my friend,… you,.. me,…. every other American,… and death himself,… once again shaking hands, as we sit at the table to draw cards,…. and see if deaths wins,… or do we live another day.
So be it,… lets get this party going.
JD – US Marines – Nobody F#@ks with my country,.. and gets to enjoy it. Time to take out the trash!
Damn right JD.
The Govt.started this game thinking we will all take it laying down and they are useing the military and the LEO`s as a tool to intimidate us all. We cannot let that happen – not for a second.
Like they say, when ya fall asleep at the wheel that there is a accident bound to happen. More americans have got to wake up so as not to let this so called accident keep happen any more.
The govt. and their yes men in the military and thoes cop/LEO types have been and are overstepping their boundaries and they are trespassers the way that I see it and their thieving murderous ways are going to stop one way or another
““a petty criminal who had reported to police that she had argued with Mr. Gerst and that he had threatened her with violence.”
At the request of the neighboring Nampa Police Department, which received the tip, a tactical team from the Caldwell Police Department conducted what they call a “welfare check” that was actually a guns-drawn, no-knock, SWAT-style raid. The Caldwell PD claimed knowledge of “the presence of guns at the premises” – which, according to the standard “threat matrix,”supposedly justifies a paramilitary assault.”
So instead of a simple knock knock asking if everyone is ok or to hear the other person’s side of the story, they decided that because this person owned a gun, they should just burst in and beat the hell out of them and that’s justified?
Unfrigginbelievable!
Totalitarian regeims routinely employ Gestapo tactics. Nothing new.
No wonder the Iraqis and Afghanis love US so much.
How does it feel when it is one of you?
PJ,
I think that you are missing the point. I will not try to justify the reason that we were in Iraq. I know that the war in Iraq was BS and if faced with the same treatment that they got, I would probably have reacted the same way that they did, but we were soldiers, deployed to a combat zone where people were trying to kill us, not police. When police start acting like soldiers, we have a major problem. No one is trying to kill the police because they are deployed to a combat zone. They are police that are acting like they are in combat. When cops can kick in a random door and invade a home, they have crossed the line and become enemies of the American People.
Hi Bulldog,
You are absolutely correct,… as usual.
Your powers of observation are clear and unfettered,… your capacity to understand what it means,… unclouded.
Now if we can just get another 5% of the population to be like that,… problems will start to get addressed in a clear and unmistakable manner!
What people do not realize is,.. the reason those kinds of methods (overseas) were used (un-necassarily I might add..) was three fold:
1) To terrorize the local populace into submission.
2) To announce to the world, the US Corporate Mafia has taken over their country in no uncertain terms.
3) To develop and codifiy the kind of brutal and repressive behaviors they will have the American Gestapo (Militaried Police, DHS, FBI, TSA, etc…) untilize here,… on American soil,.. on Americans.
Yes Bulldog,… it is 100% clear. There is no way out of this, except to exterminate the traitors, commies, and other foot soldiers of this Enemy-Force-In-Occupation,…… with EXTREME PRJUDICE.
JD – US Marines – What this country needs,… is a good enema to clear all the Crap & Traitors out of it.
JD,
1,2 & 3 sound exactly like what they are doing here as well doesn’t it. I hope that they remember that when we did it overseas, we created a monster that never quits, never surrenders and never forgets. They are creating the same monster here.
There will be two types of people created out of their tactics. Some will submit and live in fear, but others will never submit and will ensure that the people conducting this act of war on us never sleep without fear of death.
Agreed
Iraq and af-stan was a test, and skills training ground for what we are soon to be a$$ deep in very soon right here
they were trained to go door to door to do just what they did, a lot of those “soldiers” came back and are now our cops
lock and load
Tom,
You are absolutely correct brother! On the flip side, some of us were trained in the “war” in Iraq and now we are on the side of Liberty. I don’t think they were counting on that one. 🙂
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/payments-to-albuquerque-officers-involved-in-shootings-called-bounty-system.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
And just what gave them the idea guns were present ?