Amongst the many people who had their houses illegally searched and were detained for no reason prior to the RNC (well, check that, detained for the very specific reason of preventing them from using their constitutionally protected rights to free speech), one was longtime local activist and founder of Arise! bookstore.
Why was his house raided and all of its occupants arrested? Because police "intelligence" confirmed that he was receiving shipments of weapons to violently shut down the RNC. The only problem is that the police were completely wrong.
The boxes of weapons in question were nothing but pamphlets about vegetarianism which, while a very backward and dangerous ideology, probably does not necessitate breaking into people's houses with your guns drawn and arresting everyone inside.
But what I really want to know is why the police don't have to answer for such monumental fuck-ups. If I tried to publish a paper with such obviously wrong ideas and was proved to be incorrect in every way possible, I would laughed out of my profession. But if cops operate on obviously faulty intelligence and harass law-abiding citizens, nothing what-so-ever happens to them. In fact, their mayor comes out in support of them saying they showed admirable restraint.
Good work if can get it, I suppose...
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