As many of you know State and Local Police have become more and more militarized across the country. We are hearing about these incidents with increasing frequency. Making many people start to believe we are fast becoming a shoot first ask questions later quasi-police state.
For the most part this phenomenon has been a little more rare in Virginia. Although about a year ago an incident in Charlottesville, Virginia occurred involving a female college student. In this incident, the police came after her swat style, not in uniform, demanding that she surrender to them without even identifying who they were, as one officer jumped onto the hood of her car with his gun pointed directly at her. She rightly refused, so they then forcefully attacked and subdued her.
Their reason? They thought she was buying alcohol under the age of 21. What was she buying? Only a bottle of Evian water. This was definitely a case of excessive force, even if she had tried to buy alcohol as a legal adult under the age of 21.
Before this, Chesterfield Police, with federal agents watching, illegally detained a former Marine Brandon Raub. What was their rational? He wrote some possibly disturbing and violent song lyrics on Facebook.
So what was their excuse for ignoring his constitutional rights, by abducting him without actually arresting him, and placing him in a mental institution indefinitely? That they thought he might be mentally unstable for posting violent lyrics (though he treated no one). Later a judge released him citing that the government didn’t have substantial evidence to detain him.
Now it can be argued that Mr. Raub was asking for it, because his posting of violent song lyrics could be taken as a threat, but the police in Charlottesville using swat style tactics to prevent an otherwise legal adult from buying alcohol under age 21? And in this case it was a mistaken reason why cops attacked her.
*Full disclosure I have known Brandon Raub since he was 12 years old.
But in the Richmond Area, until now, as far as people being mistakenly arrested in a police state fashion, it hasn’t really occurred. The college student was in Charlottesville and MR Raub wasn’t mistaken.
Now State Police in Henrico accosted an innocent 75 year old women in her home. They stormed in, tied her up and then questioned her. She was scared to death, because at first she didn’t have any idea they were police. They had targeted the wrong house on a drug sting. Luckily she didn’t have a gun like another elderly woman in another case that took place in another state, or she could have been shot.|
All I know is that this is a concerning trend of the militarization of State and Local police.
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75-year-old grandmother says she was restrained during police raid
Posted on: 12:53 am, April 23, 2014, by Jon Burkett, updated on: 10:17am, April 23, 2014
HENRICO, Va. (WTVR) –Ruth Hunter, a 75-year-old woman, said she was tied up while State Police invaded her Henrico apartment.
She said officers told her during the raid what they were looking for, and court documents also show the information. She said she had nothing to do with the investigation.
Virginia State Police said a drug investigation is what prompted a Henrico County magistrate to issue a warrant for an apartment in the 5600 block of Crenshaw road.
The woman claims that officers ultimately arrested a man who lives two doors down from her.
“I thought someone was breaking in to rob or kill me,” Hunter said.
Seconds after her front door flies open Hunter said she heard a voice yell “Police!”
“…Took my hands with a tie-thing and said ‘You’re under arrest’ and started asking questions,” she recalled. “The more I told them I didn’t know these people, the more he continued.”
Hunter said she’s lived at the Village at Arbors apartment complex in Henrico for about six years, the whole time she’s kept to herself she says, only speaking when spoken to by others. She said she was shocked at the line of questioning from State Police, on the morning of April 10.
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