[bdjackass318]

! Really?! Are we now living in a police state?



A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.

Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft. Worth NBC station that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said.

Local authorities had cited the Garden of Eden in recent weeks for code violations, including "grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house, and generally unclean premises," Smith's statement said. She said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began, and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified. According to ABC affiliate WFAA, resident Quinn Eaker was the only person arrested -- for outstanding traffic violations.

The city of Arlington said in a statement that the code citations were issued to the farm following complaints by neighbors, who were "concerned that the conditions" at the farm "interfere with the useful enjoyment of their properties and are detrimental to property values and community appearance." The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises," the statement acknowledged.

The raid on the Garden of Eden farm appears to be the latest example of police departments using SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics to enforce less serious crimes. A Fox television affiliate reported this week, for example, that police in St. Louis County, Mo., brought out the SWAT team to serve an administrative warrant. The report went on to explain that all felony warrants are served with a SWAT team, regardless whether the crime being alleged involves violence.

In recent years, SWAT teams have been called out to perform regulatory alcohol inspections at a bar in Manassas Park, Va.; to raid bars for suspected underage drinking in New Haven, Conn.; to perform license inspections at barbershops in Orlando, Fla.; and to raid a gay bar in Atlanta where police suspected customers and employees were having public sex. A federal investigation later found that Atlanta police had made up the allegations of public sex.

Other raids have been conducted on food co-ops and Amish farms suspected of selling unpasteurized milk products. The federal government has for years been conducting raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized them, even though the businesses operate openly and are unlikely to pose any threat to the safety of federal enforcers.

[Megamel29]

Wtf? This is ridiculous. They were held at gunpoint for blackberry bushes and missing siding??

[kellyhound]

what a waste of tax dollars

[ices]

This was an abuse of power by the "civil servants".

Notice the servant part? They've made inroads to remove the term servant so they're now called the civil authority.

Welcome to your overlords peons.

[ZAPPO]

Obama's POLICE STATE in action...next they'll raid child care institutions for dirty diapers that are left hanging on toddlers that they can't catch by hand...

[Kanda444]

welcome to america... the war on drugs is where your tax money goes.

[Zambini]

They should have dropped off some meth instead so they could clean that place up...

[Darkest Angel]

Ok tall grass obstruction of view, whatever. What harm could the blueberries possibly do??

[Blewvane]

Good to hear, and i hope the cops tazered some of the bastards as well. Who the fuck do they think they are living happy and free? Organic farming is just another term for communism, communism is terrorism and you have spend hundreds of billions trying to eradicate that shit.
Fucking blueberry bushes should have been torched on site and i am sure that okra plants are illegal so they should be punched in the nuts. Tall grass is where terrorists hide so they should be charged with providing support to the enemy as well, not to mention inpropper stacking of firewood....don't even think of that shit.

Welcome to your police state, would you like fries with that?

[Sharon]

"No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises,"

Oh.

They're just bored busy-bodies