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FYI the neighborhood is Kalorama in DC, where a lot of diplomats and high-level government officials live. Maybe the agents didn't want one of the neighbors to
by imgabe 5y ago
FYI the neighborhood is Kalorama in DC, where a lot of diplomats and high-level government officials live. Maybe the agents didn't want one of the neighbors to call the director of the FBI to have them chewed out for "making the neighborhood look bad", which is not an impossible thing to happen there considering who the neighbors are.
I imagine if you're an FBI field agent, the last thing you want for your career is for the director to be getting angry calls from other high level officials because of you.
- sitzkrieg 5y agothanks for pointing something out that is in the article?!
- imgabe 5y agoThey briefly mention it, but quickly move on to "the FBI doesn't knock down rich people's doors". In this case it's more likely these particular rich people (i.e. well-connected people in the US government) than a blanket policy of "don't knock down doors in affluent neighborhoods".
- ALittleLight 5y agoAre there many neighborhoods packed with unconnected rich folks?
- imgabe 5y agoNot in the DC area, but in plenty of other cities sure. It's not that they're particularly rich, as far as rich people go, it's that the neighbor is like, the chief of staff for the Senator who's in charge of the committee that sets the FBI's budget. Imagine you're a low to mid level employee of a company, and you go do something that makes all of the CEO's friends, business partners, and investors pissed off at him. Do you think that's going to be good for you?
- pennaMan 5y agoA bit unsetteling how institutionalized corruption is talked about so casually.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- michaelt 5y agoSure, plenty of rich people choose not to cultivate political connections. After all, maybe I make $300k a year and think our mayor is, by the standards of politicians, one of the good ones; and getting invited to fundraising dinners and charity galas and rubbing shoulders with influential people makes me feel important and successful. So maybe I'll donate a few thousand dollars every election cycle. On the other hand, maybe you make $300k a year but think political donations are a grubby embarrassment; that fundraising events are full of fools, the stuck-up and the self-important; and that the two parties produce policies that are barely worthy of your vote, let alone your money. So you don't donate anything.
- QuietCF 5y agoWhat’s the difference? What would the implication be of „don’t knock down doors in affluent neighborhoods“?
- Retric 5y agoPresumably if they avoided kicking down doors in a rich part of Dallas Texas or something. This is on that upper 0.01% of politically connected areas at the national/international level and perhaps top 1% of wealthy areas. Describing it as a wealthy area isn’t wrong, but that not why it’s unusual.
- slim 5y agoHe's pointing out that people in the neighbourhood are politically influent, that's why they are treated that way, not because they are rich. Which I did not get even after reading it. I'm thankful he pointed it out
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago> people in the neighbourhood are politically influent, that's why they are treated that way, not because they are rich When (and where) is there a difference? What neighborhoods are there where rich people reside who have no more social or political influence than people living in The Projects?
- analyst74 5y agoAn FBI director makes less than 200k, and will be very politically connected and influential; an engineer making that much probably has as much political influence as people living in the projects. Money can buy political influence, but that's beyond the reach of lower echelon of wealthy.
- imgabe 5y agoNot only that, but the FBI director is appointed by the President, which means the President knows who they are and personally wanted them to do that job (or at least the President's trusted staff recommended them). The same is going to be true of a lot of people living in Kalorama - they're on "personally know the President" level of political influence or they work directly for someone who does. It's the neighborhood where Obama lived after his term ended. It's where Ivanka Trump and Jared Kuschner lived during Trump's presidency. That kind of thing. It's a little different than a standard affluent neighborhood of doctors and lawyers and executives that you might find in any random city in the US.
- pathseeker 5y ago>What neighborhoods are there where rich people reside who have no more social or political influence than people living in The Projects? Compared to this one? Nearly all of them. The neighborhoods in Mountain View are filled with affluent people that have no connection to federal politicians and no influence over the FBI at all.
- onion2k 5y agoIt's also possible that knocking the door down is less effective in wealthy places. The reasons to knock a door down are things like flight risk, destruction of evidence, etc. You can mitigate the flight risk more easily if the property has gardens around it, and knocking the door down might make it easier to destroy evidence because an FBI team would take much longer to sweep a big house. Obviously I don't know anything about FBI tactics, but it's conceivable that they choose what to do based on experience of what works best instead of just applying the same strategy regardless of where the property is.
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoOther reasons to knock down doors include: it looks cool, you saw it on a TV show and wanted to try it, no one will punish you for knocking down poor people’s doors and shooting their dog, you’ve been wanting to try out that battering ram…
- lalopalota 5y agoThere is another reason to knock down doors: search warrant and no one available to open it. Also, they did knock down a door - the back one.
- tareqak 5y agoI'd argue that the someone in the neighborhood should call the director of the FBI for unequal treatment of suspects regardless of which neighborhood they live in and who they happen to be.
- giantg2 5y agoYou think those people have the life experience to know that it was odd that they didn't kick in the front door? Or that they even care that others are treated worse?
- BurningFrog 5y agoThe point is whose call the director would have to take.
- hoofhearted 5y agoIt’s worth noting that some of the residents of Kalorama include Barack and Michelle Obama, Rex Tillerson, Hillary Clinton, Jared Kushner, and Jeff Bezos.
- FerretFred 5y agoNice, but even Bad Guys live in nice neighborhoods!
- ThunderSizzle 5y agoYeah, we just listed 6 of them!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cheschire 5y agoYour knowledge seems to extend beyond the article. Any idea why Kalorama is shaped the way it is? Looking it up on google maps, it looks like two triangles connected by a street, which seems odd for a neighborhood.
- imgabe 5y agoWell, I don't have any particular knowledge, other than living in and around DC for a long time. If you look at the neighborhoods to the west of Kalorama on Google Maps [1], bounded by Rock Creek, they are Kalorama Heights and Kalorama Triangle Historic district, which I think most locals would just consider Kalorama. Although I think a lot of people would consider most of the lower triangle to be part of Dupont Circle rather than Kalorama. There's also this map [2] which, admittedly, is not trying to be an official map of anything, but it is an artwork featured in one of the DC government buildings. It shows Kalorama more as a single triangle. [1] https://imgur.com/a/WNii05X https://imgur.com/a/WNii05X [2] https://imgur.com/a/QprVzJm https://imgur.com/a/QprVzJm
- MisterTea 5y ago> Any idea why Kalorama is shaped the way it is? Looking it up on google maps, it looks like two triangles connected by a street, which seems odd for a neighborhood. I can point out dozens of such intersections in my NYC neighborhood where streets cross at angles not 90 degrees.
- bell-cot 5y agoWorse - imagine you're an FBI field agent, and your "kick in the front door" operation turned into a "SS agents and FBI agents shooting each other" train wreck - because there was a Secret Service protection detail on the other side of that door, and an agent or few got a very fast judgement call wrong, in the heat of the moment. Or similar, with some VIP who's got trigger-happy private security - because he knows that (say) Mr. Putin would much prefer that he was dead.
- Miner49er 5y agoThis is a risk that is taken in every "kick in the front door" operation. The people inside generally have right to self-defense and may start shooting. So it's not an excuse to not do it in a certain neighborhood.
- bell-cot 5y agoAh...here in the U.S., the consequences for law enforcement agents who gun down innocent homeowners, who were only exercising their rights...those consequences are generally rather mild. Federal agents gunning down each other would have far worse career consequences for the agent who made the "kick in the door" decision.
- after_care 5y agoIt’s moot in practice. The people inside the house are caught off guard while the people kicking down the door are well trained, staffed, and practiced. Their zero injury success rate is impressive.
- zionic 5y agoThe FBI wasn't reigned in after killing dozens of women and children in cold blood at Waco, I'm not sure anything will at this point.
- nukemaster 5y agoMany people don't appreciate the connections here and the degree to which the FBI and their friends are holding our country hostage.