Are we a police state yet?

[Th1onein]

March 5, 2013

Two SWAT Teams shut down a neighborhood in Colorado for four hours to search for a man suspected of stealing a bicycle and merchandise from Wal-Mart. Two SWAT teams were deployed and an entire neighborhood in Ft. Collins, Colorado was shut down for four hours to search for a man suspected of stealing a bicycle and a grocery cart full of merchandise from Wal-Mart.

http://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/swat-teams-wal-mart

[Fumesucker]

1. Clearly an existential threat to the American way of life n/t

[Gravitycollapse]

2. No, we are not. This is just a story about a poorly managed police force in CO.

Get back to me when the federal government starts coordinating systematic SWAT team raids of neighborhoods across the United States. Then, then you might have something.

[Newest Reality]

32. Forgive me,

but that seems like a message that would come to late and probably not at all.

Vigilance? That's what I hear is the best policy when it comes to preventing a police state.

It seems that more investigation to the militarization and behavior of police would be prudent and useful at this stage of capitalism's run.

[Th1onein]

41. By then, it will be too late.

We are headed in that direction, though, no doubt.

[Live and Learn]

42. +1 nt

[midnight]

3. Wal-Mart is pretty powerful if alleged stolen merchandise can command the tax payers to foot the

bill for this...

[uppityperson]

46. " Police say the suspect has a criminal history, including use of a weapon."

The OP article was linked to this longer one, missed that bit...

http://www.9news.com/news/article/316981/188/Police-close-off-east-Fort-Collins-neighborhood-to-serve-warrant

[midnight]

61. I just find that this amount of police presence pricey... Especially when we can't feed

or house millions of children in this country. We need a Andy Griffith approach.

[bike man]

58. Honeycombe8's response #17 sheds much light on this. Might reduce the outrage level a bit.

[Doremus]

65. Our local police force, which was narrowly saved from draconian personnel cuts by a tax levy,

apparently has all necessary resources to answer upward of a dozen calls a day from the local WalMart to arrest their shoplifters.

I asked a councilman whether the city is billing them for their disproportionately large use of dept. resources and his response was that that's what the PD is for.

Yet when a taxpayer in the city falls ill and the rescue squad takes them to the hospital, the city wastes no time in sending the patient their $200 invoice.

[MellowYellow]

4. It was clear to many of us that what happened in Boston was setting a dangerous precidence.

Having police demand to search my home at gunpoint, or detaining me by shutting down my neighborhood is absolutely living in a police state. Don't they do something similar in prisons?


This isn't nesessary to keep us safe. I felt more safe before people cheered these types of actions.

City of Philadelphia tells citizens to be prepared for spontaneous 3-day "shelter in place"

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/04/24/city-of-philadelphia-advises-residents-on-what-to-do-if-ordered-to-shelter-in-place


Child killing prompts order for "shelter-in-place"

[link:http://www.modbee.com/2013/04/27/2690155/9-year-old-killed-in-valley-springs.html|

[Bluenorthwest]

12. The events in the OP occured prior to Boston, thus Boston was not a precedent to CO

That is clear from the nature of time and the meaning of words.

[mick063]

5. Thanks to the wonderful influence of

The Department of Homeland Security.

Take those anti terrorist drills you practiced and apply them to bicycle thieves.

The Gestapo has nothing on our federalized police forces.

[Bragi]

6. Yes. The Boston lockdown confirmed it

Americans have traded their rights for the promise/hope of security.

[graham4anything]

9. If one is dead, they lose their 1st amendment right.Anarchy is never the answer.

and a gun/bullet in the hand of a private citizen never saved anyone.

don't forget-walmart in Colorado sells guns and bullets.

[Newest Reality]

35. I know how you meant the term,

but it has been common to use anarchy as a replacement term for chaos, and that obscures the underlying meaning and message of anarchy as a political view.

There is more than one definition of the word, and common nomenclature has conveniently claimed anarchy as a threat or breakdown, when that is only considered a potential means to achieve anarchy in response to authoritarian governments, for instance.

Anarchism is an interesting subject, as taboo as it might seem, (but then, so is Karl Marx).

For instance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy


Immanuel Kant on anarchy

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant treated "Anarchy" in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View as consisting of "Law and Freedom without Force". Thus, for Kant, anarchy falls short of being a true civil state because the law is only an "empty recommendation" if force is not included to make this law efficacious. For there to be such a state, force must be included while law and freedom are maintained, a state which Kant calls republic.[50][51]

As summary Kant named four kinds of government:

A. Law and freedom without force (anarchy).
B. Law and force without freedom (despotism).
C. Force without freedom and law (barbarism).
D. Force with freedom and law (republic).

[supernaut]

7. When people tell me that the US invaded Iraq

for oil, or natural resources of some sort I just look at them and roll my eyes around in my head. We invaded Iraq for two reasons. One, to establish greater long term military presence in the region for future conflicts. Two, to give the current generation of military-aged males the experience and conditioning needed to operate in the US.

If you think we don't live in a police state yet, you aren't paying attention. Most of those infantrymen come back and get jobs in "law enforcement" as it is called today. They look at you just like they looked at the average Iraqi. A small minority of them would have no qualms if ordered to search your home or your person illegally, put a bag over your head, zip-tie you, retinal scan you and send you to wherever. You also have a federal government salivating, waiting for an opportunity to test out all the fancy new telecom infrastructure that's been put into place over the past few years.

[lunatica]

30. I hope you've built yourself a survival shelter and have it well stocked with weapons

I'd hate to be you when the police state reads your post.

[graham4anything]

8. NO. We need MORE security & less anarchy.Remember the hoard shoppers crushing a securityman

People are vultures.
Remember the Thanksgiving crushing of a security guard by a rabid mob looking for large tvs on sale.
For a few dollars savings they crushed this hero to death and continued shopping.

We need better security, not less.

And the sky is not falling.


Someone posted an article yesterday showing that in reality, only 6.6% of a police force is a problem, meaning 93.4% are not.

One doesn't throw out a bathroom just because there is a spider in the water in the tub.

[Earth_First]

11. You are comparing holiday retail mall security with the militarization of local law enforcement?

[TheMadMonk]

15. This one? Where you were repeatedly hosed over that 6.6%.

Where it was repeatedly pointed out that a 6.6% per annum complaint rate was pretty damned abysmal.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022757041

Do a bit of statistical combination with the other statistics on that chart and you get numbers that are beyond horrifying.

At least half of all cops admit to witnessing a serious felony commited by another officer and done nothing.

[Newest Reality]

36. I do wish you would use another term if you mean

chaos when you say anarchy.

It truly is misleading and the bias may not be your own.

[graham4anything]

39. I would rather have Control than Kaos. Mel Brooks got it right back then.

This is 2013 and not protests from another era.
The criminals/haters/thrillkillers/media/rules have changed.

To not play by the rules in 2013 brings about consequences, especially when someone on "our" side says something that is taken the wrong way from "their side" and viceversa.

Ron and Rand Paul and David Duke for example. The NRA/gun people for example.

While maybe there is a purist in the bunch, at the end of the day, nothing any of them say is on "my" side. And NO the broken clock is correct twice a day does not apply here.

Not as long as they want to use the chaos to promote a violent agenda(like the killing of Dr. Tiller and other political coup'd'etats and political or just crazy mass killings or sole asssasssinations.

In the end, those people are taking the law into their own hands, therefore it is anarchy, wanting no rules over any rules and vigilantism and chaos.

Anarchy as a political tool, much like pure communism and pure socialism don't exist.
Never has. Sure those names have been used, but it never existed in a real form.
(Because all the countries called that indeed had a leader who was above it all).

And the Ron Paul's out there use any disent to further their own goal.

I would rather take a policeman enforcing the law over a Zimmerman 100% of the time.
Nobody hired him, nobody voted him in office and I myself don't want his help.

Zimmerman was the police state.
Yes, there are bad cops, but most are not.
Yes, there is a blue wall of silence in NYC.
Yes, there is bad training.
Yes, there are bad things.
BUT-those things can be stopped by proper training and jailing or firing the bad ones.
Zimmerman on the other hand can't be stopped as there are millions of them out there without any control whatsoever.

And in 2013, nerves are frayed.
After all, we can't assemble anywhere at all because of these things.
(and of course the gun people will say fraidycats however, they sleep with guns/bullets to use.)

[KG]

10. yes.

codified by PATRIOT and NDAA.

[forestpath]

13. No. We've been one for awhile now. Police serve as the 1%'s army.

[jsr]

22. That's their real job description

To protect and serve the 1%.

[PeaceNikki]

14. No. If we were you wouldn't be able to post this question.

I am glad that the ACLU exists and is addressing cases like this, but implying that we live in a police state is hyperbolic melodramatic bullshit.

[mac56]

31. ^ THIS ^

[cordelia]

38. Thank you.

[Honeycombe8]

16. He stole a bike? How do you steal a bike?

You just ride it thru the door while people chase after you, or what?

The first time the govt put video surveillance on the street, we became a Big Brother country.

[Honeycombe8]

17. He wasn't hunted that intensely for stealing a bike. Here's what it was about:

Fort Collins police said Taylor stole a bicycle and a grocery cart full of merchandise from Walmart about 4 p.m. Feb. 13. Police tracked Taylor’s car to a trailer home off Summit View Drive, south of Mulberry Street and east of Timberline Road.

Because Taylor has a history of violence and using weapons, police called in the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team. More than 20 marked and unmarked police and sheriff’s vehicles descended upon the neighborhood from about 6 to 10 p.m. but were unable to find Taylor.

In addition to being a suspect in the Walmart robbery, Taylor also was wanted on a warrant for failing to appear in an ongoing court case in which he had been charged with kidnapping, felony menacing and violating a restraining order.

Taylor in 1998 pleaded guilty to leading police on a chase through the city after firing 14 shots from a rifle into the home of a Fort Collins couple. Also that year, Taylor was convicted of robbing an East Mulberry hotel.

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20130218/NEWS01/302180031/Wanted-Fort-Collins-felon-arrested-following-Walmart-robbery

[treestar]

19. Thank you

These alarm posts are at the point where they have no credibility - one has to get the actual facts but they want you to judge the situation without all that.

[Junkdrawer]

23. Still, it seems that neighborhood "lockdowns" are being used for more minor crimes.

Don't like where this is going

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Oh FFS this has been going on since I have

been listening to scanners, which is a few decades now.

[uppityperson]

48. Minor crimes? The next lockdown was for bombing the Boston marathon. Minor crime? Huh.

[Honeycombe8]

56. Like where? This is not an example of that (kidnapping is a federal crime)....

what would you be saying if they had failed to go all out to find this guy who had KIDNAPPED someone, was running from a warrant for his arrest, and had SHOT INTO THE HOME OF A COUPLE?

It depends on the neighborhood? Are there complaints in any neighborhoods in the country that the police are locking them down to find suspects or criminals on the loose? I haven't heard of any.

Sometimes I think people are frantically looking for an issue, when there isn't one.

[randome]

26. Jesus, that changes the entire story, doesn't it?

What are we up to now with posts headlined 'Are we in a police state yet?' I think it's in the neighborhood of 30 - 40 posts now. It's almost a monthly occurrence.

[Robb]

40. My outrage has rather piffled thanks to your post.

Seems the police were being goddamn prudent.

[uppityperson]

47. Thank you, I read the article, followed links and found that information also. Missed that in the OP

[arely staircase]

66. that makes a difference

this was a dangerous and violent felon.

[Cleita]

18. If we look back in history at other police states, I believe we are

certainly showing a lot of the signs of a police state, but to be honest we always have been to a certain extent where minorities and immigrants were concerned. There always has been a set of rules for white, native born Americans and another more dictatorish set of rules for everyone else. I remember back in the forties and fifties how people of African and Mexican decent or who spoke with funny accents were treated by the authorities and it was much different than the white Americans were treated by the same authorities.

[RKP5637]

33. +1, I also look back at Germany, they did not plan for a

police state, ... it was a collective shift. And good citizens became enemies of the state.

I am thoroughly convinced there are those in the US, the reactionary authoritarians that would love to do similar. It's all a slippery slope and today the technological mechanisms are available to achieve a pretty despotic place. No, we are not there, but must always be mindful of the potential ...

[treestar]

20. A police state is where they can arrest you for nothing

For insulting a powerful politician, as revenge for protest, and where you don't get a trial, a lawyer, or a right against self incrimination. You don't get to know the charges against you. You get put in jail indefinitely and released or tortured on whim of the officers.

This case could be overkill, but this is not a police state. Quit making us look like the reverse of teabaggers.

[datasuspect]

21. you can get arrested for nothing in Uhhhhhmerica

it happens all the time.

get a little too uppity with a certain breed of copper and see what happens to ya.

[treestar]

50. He still has to make some sort of a charge

And it can't be political disagreement with the government.

You can still fight said charge in court. There is a neutral judge. As there is not in a real police state.

People who really lived in those and then live here can tell the difference.

[Th1onein]

67. Um.....like Gitmo? Hmmm?

Just sayin'.......

[treestar]

68. Most of us don't have a real fear that we are going to be

arrested and sent there incognito. And no one new is going there, though not closed.

Bush and Cheney tried, but no dice.

[loli phabay]

24. simple answer is no.

[Paladin]

27. Yeah, we're pretty much there. (nt)

[BeyondGeography]

28. Here, for three bucks you can see what a police state looks and feels like

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lives-Of-Others/dp/B000XKZQ74/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1367159613&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lives+of+others

Then you can count your many blessings as an American in the here and now.

[RKP5637]

29. Reactionary USA. Home of panic and delusions! n/t

[HereSince1628]

34. This may be over-the-top but I don't see characteristics of police state

When I think police state I think of police enforcing arbitrary and secret decisions of unelected authoritarians that result in repression and subjugation of a population to the will of a dictatorship.

This just seems like another display of the 'make my job easier/safer' hyperbolic mentality that drives tactics of contemporary police forces.

The use of SWAT teams for searching for a shop-lifter is an example of misuse of force. And it's one of many news stories every week about how police forces across the country no longer have the philosophical or logistic capacity for a measured response. Police seem to have two settings...no response of defcon 1.

[bike man]

37. no

[BlueCaliDem]

43. No. We are already a FASCIST state. Your story clearly illustrates that when the SWAT team

was called in because a corporation was being disadvantaged. This is what our taxpayer dollars are funding: police brutality, military weapons for civilian police officers, allowing police to act above-the-law, and police protection for the wealthy - while these same wealthy don't pay a DIME in taxes toward those same police officers' salary and benefits.

The police don't give a shit about the people they're supposed to "protect and serve". When I see that quaint little writing on the squad cars, all I think about is, they should've added: the boys in blue and the wealthy ONLY".

OWS protested peaceably and their members were infiltrated by corporate-paid trolls in order to start law-breaking activities that fit well in the corporate media that the OWS is eveeeel, and they were beaten and gassed by the very authority that's supposed to protect them because . . . why? Because they were protesting against banks and Wall Street, and the incorporated rich folk.

For those who still believe we live in either a republic or a democracy, think again. Corporations already govern this country by proxy, making Mussolini's wet-dream come true: a country with a fascist government.

[nobodyspecial]

59. Hey, don't let the facts get in the way of your rant

How should the police handle a wanted felon who already has shot into the homes of innocent victims?

[quinnox]

44. We seem to be heading that direction, but as long as Obama is president,

its all good. He is protecting us, and he knows best.


You have to learn these things.

[bowens43]

45. Not yet, but it's in sight unless we do something about it.

The 'leadership' of both parties will do nothing to stop it. We have seen that.

[davidn3600]

49. So now we are locking cities down to catch Wal-Mart shoplifters?

Hurry! Someone post the pic of the cop buying milk so we can feel better about this!

[DevonRex]

51. See Honeycombe8's post #17 above. nt

[DevonRex]

52. If you have to ask that on DU

then the answer is no. Pretty simple.

[jazzimov]

53. The fact that you can post that question

on a Community Board says "No."

[Apophis]

54. All that for a guy who stole from Walmart?

That's excessive and a waste of taxpayer money.

[bike man]

57. No. See Honeycombe8's response #17 above.

[nobodyspecial]

60. Would be nice if people actually read threads

[Apophis]

64. Yeah, the snarky response was greatly appreciated.

[rollin74]

55. no, not even close

[onenote]

62. +1

The question basically answers itself. If you can freely ask whether you're living in a police state, you're not.

[arely staircase]

63. no, in a police state there would be no aclu

I am not defending the police in those cases, and am a member of the aclu. But we do not live in a police state.