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Georgia police and FBI conduct Swat-style raids on 'Cop City' activists' homes

14 points by TotalCrackpot 3y ago

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
Police were faced with a choice. They could have kindly waited a few moments for a woman to clothe herself or they could drag her out to the street (in a state of undress that women can be arrested for) like she was. They chose the most cop-like thing to do. Because they could. This week alone saw Atlanta-area raids by law enforcement that took a woman out of her house with no shirt left a naked photo of another woman on display after ransacking a room and dragged a man by his hair – while arresting none of them. Officers led her to a squad car, where she remained for “what seemed like hours” – while officers came in and out of the car, her top uncovered the whole time. One took photos of her, insisting, “it’s only of your face”. After some time, she was released. Please show me the law, manual, protocol, training, regulation or fusion center directive that says dragging a topless woman out of her home - to kept available for hours for male police to observe and photograph - is an appropriate response to anything.
- TotalCrackpot 3y ago
  [flagged]
- philwelch 3y ago
  When law enforcement is raiding a residence, they never just let people hang around inside unsupervised. They get them outside and detained. The primary concern is making sure no one has an opportunity to grab a weapon and put people in danger. And since this is literally a domestic terrorism investigation I think that’s a very reasonable precaution.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    And leaving her nude for hours taking photographs of her? Come. This is torture via shame. They easily could have offered any form of cover in a safe and controlled way but chose to humiliate her. The police are entitled to take measures for their safety, but this is abusing that right. There is a line, but the fact they’re allowed to cross it without reproach is why there is so little public trust in the police. They’ve become oppressors in safety’s name.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    Why execute the search warrant at 6am? Why use a flash grenade on sleeping people? Any raid that early must expect to find naked people sleeping as a lot of Americans sleep naked. (I see numbers including 8%, 12%, 17%, 28.5%, and "58 percent of Millennials"). The numbers are higher if you include partially clothed. Why do the police have no procedures in place for what must surely be a common occurrence, like a blanket or robe they can provide to a detained half-naked woman? I agree that it comes across like the psychological torment of the occupants of the residences is part of the reason for executing the search warrant this way. Just because it's a domestic terrorism case does not mean the suspects - who may well be innocent - should be treated this way.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      > Why execute the search warrant at 6am? Why use a flash grenade on sleeping people? To minimize the danger to the officers executing the search. This is a case of organized, premeditated violence motivated by opposition to law enforcement; obviously a high risk situation.
      - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
        >To minimize the danger to the officers executing the search. The trend of cops being safer every year hasn't changed in generations. Militarizing police and treating citizens as armed combatants didn't budge the overall trend. However, when war-grade policing rolled out, the officer-safety trend became spiker than it had been. ref: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1070627/us-law-enforcement-deaths-by-cause-historical/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1070627/us-law-enforceme... > This is a case of organized, premeditated violence motivated by opposition to law enforcement; obviously a high risk situation. Fear-the-public mantra is super helpful to companies that sell gear to maximize civilian harm (and PDs who adore that gear). It doesn't serve the public well, however.
        philwelch 3y ago
        > Cops are as safe as they were generations ago. Actually, according to the data you shared, they’re safer, at least from gunfire and stabbing. This is probably a direct result of these precautions. > Fear-the-public mantra is super helpful to companies that sell gear to maximize civilian harm Are you seriously accusing me of being a shill for companies that make SWAT gear? Give me a break. I don’t think every search warrant needs to be executed with a predawn raid and flashbangs, but those measures are clearly warranted if the search warrant is for a residence inhabited by suspected domestic terrorists with an animosity towards law enforcement.
superkuh 3y ago
Raids without any indictment for a crime are a way to punish people outside of the legal system. It can easily ruin lives from the actual damage to property, to paying for a lawyer, to spurious fines, social problems (ie, couldn't make it to work, couldn't pick up kids, landlord kicks you out, etc), and emotional damage from the physical attacks and threats to life from people pointing firearms at you and your family. It is a tool systematically in use by nearly all police departments and used constantly by the FBI. There should be consequences like job loss for police and agents and judges when their raids are not correlated with any accusation of a crime (ie, indictment).
- philwelch 3y ago
  This particular story sounds like they were executing a search warrant. Search warrants are commonly executed long before an indictment, because executing a search warrant is one of the ways law enforcement collects evidence to indict people in the first case. For example, a search warrant on Donald Trump’s residence was executed in August of 2022 while Trump was not indicted until June of 2023. In this case, 61 people have already been indicted under Georgia’s state RICO act along with various charges of domestic terrorism, arson, and money laundering (https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/us/cop-city-protesters-indicted-rico/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/us/cop-city-protesters-indict...). And just like any conspiracy or RICO case, it’s common to start by arresting some people at the bottom and see which of them is willing to inform on the people at the top who might be harder to catch. Its the same basic playbook the feds used to take down the Mafia.
  - superkuh 3y ago
    I wasn't trying to make a $modernpoliticalanalogy. I was speaking from painful personal experience that may be biasing me to think this is more frequent than it really is. Yes, they say they needed to search for a reason but I think we'll find none of these people ever have charges (related to the search warrant) filed against them. And that's the system: pretend the methods needed and used for real criminals need to be applied to people committing no crimes.

14 points by TotalCrackpot 3y ago

Police were faced with a choice. They could have kindly waited a few moments for a woman to clothe herself or they could drag her out to the street (in a state of undress that women can be arrested for) like she was. They chose the most cop-like thing to do. Because they could. This week alone saw Atlanta-area raids by law enforcement that took a woman out of her house with no shirt left a naked photo of another woman on display after ransacking a room and dragged a man by his hair – while arresting none of them. Officers led her to a squad car, where she remained for “what seemed like hours” – while officers came in and out of the car, her top uncovered the whole time. One took photos of her, insisting, “it’s only of your face”. After some time, she was released. Please show me the law, manual, protocol, training, regulation or fusion center directive that says dragging a topless woman out of her home - to kept available for hours for male police to observe and photograph - is an appropriate response to anything.

TotalCrackpot 3y ago
[flagged]
philwelch 3y ago
When law enforcement is raiding a residence, they never just let people hang around inside unsupervised. They get them outside and detained. The primary concern is making sure no one has an opportunity to grab a weapon and put people in danger. And since this is literally a domestic terrorism investigation I think that’s a very reasonable precaution.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  And leaving her nude for hours taking photographs of her? Come. This is torture via shame. They easily could have offered any form of cover in a safe and controlled way but chose to humiliate her. The police are entitled to take measures for their safety, but this is abusing that right. There is a line, but the fact they’re allowed to cross it without reproach is why there is so little public trust in the police. They’ve become oppressors in safety’s name.
- eesmith 3y ago
  Why execute the search warrant at 6am? Why use a flash grenade on sleeping people? Any raid that early must expect to find naked people sleeping as a lot of Americans sleep naked. (I see numbers including 8%, 12%, 17%, 28.5%, and "58 percent of Millennials"). The numbers are higher if you include partially clothed. Why do the police have no procedures in place for what must surely be a common occurrence, like a blanket or robe they can provide to a detained half-naked woman? I agree that it comes across like the psychological torment of the occupants of the residences is part of the reason for executing the search warrant this way. Just because it's a domestic terrorism case does not mean the suspects - who may well be innocent - should be treated this way.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    > Why execute the search warrant at 6am? Why use a flash grenade on sleeping people? To minimize the danger to the officers executing the search. This is a case of organized, premeditated violence motivated by opposition to law enforcement; obviously a high risk situation.
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      >To minimize the danger to the officers executing the search. The trend of cops being safer every year hasn't changed in generations. Militarizing police and treating citizens as armed combatants didn't budge the overall trend. However, when war-grade policing rolled out, the officer-safety trend became spiker than it had been. ref: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1070627/us-law-enforcement-deaths-by-cause-historical/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1070627/us-law-enforceme... > This is a case of organized, premeditated violence motivated by opposition to law enforcement; obviously a high risk situation. Fear-the-public mantra is super helpful to companies that sell gear to maximize civilian harm (and PDs who adore that gear). It doesn't serve the public well, however.
      - philwelch 3y ago
        > Cops are as safe as they were generations ago. Actually, according to the data you shared, they’re safer, at least from gunfire and stabbing. This is probably a direct result of these precautions. > Fear-the-public mantra is super helpful to companies that sell gear to maximize civilian harm Are you seriously accusing me of being a shill for companies that make SWAT gear? Give me a break. I don’t think every search warrant needs to be executed with a predawn raid and flashbangs, but those measures are clearly warranted if the search warrant is for a residence inhabited by suspected domestic terrorists with an animosity towards law enforcement.

superkuh 3y ago

Raids without any indictment for a crime are a way to punish people outside of the legal system. It can easily ruin lives from the actual damage to property, to paying for a lawyer, to spurious fines, social problems (ie, couldn't make it to work, couldn't pick up kids, landlord kicks you out, etc), and emotional damage from the physical attacks and threats to life from people pointing firearms at you and your family. It is a tool systematically in use by nearly all police departments and used constantly by the FBI. There should be consequences like job loss for police and agents and judges when their raids are not correlated with any accusation of a crime (ie, indictment).

philwelch 3y ago
This particular story sounds like they were executing a search warrant. Search warrants are commonly executed long before an indictment, because executing a search warrant is one of the ways law enforcement collects evidence to indict people in the first case. For example, a search warrant on Donald Trump’s residence was executed in August of 2022 while Trump was not indicted until June of 2023. In this case, 61 people have already been indicted under Georgia’s state RICO act along with various charges of domestic terrorism, arson, and money laundering (https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/us/cop-city-protesters-indicted-rico/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/us/cop-city-protesters-indict...). And just like any conspiracy or RICO case, it’s common to start by arresting some people at the bottom and see which of them is willing to inform on the people at the top who might be harder to catch. Its the same basic playbook the feds used to take down the Mafia.
- superkuh 3y ago
  I wasn't trying to make a $modernpoliticalanalogy. I was speaking from painful personal experience that may be biasing me to think this is more frequent than it really is. Yes, they say they needed to search for a reason but I think we'll find none of these people ever have charges (related to the search warrant) filed against them. And that's the system: pretend the methods needed and used for real criminals need to be applied to people committing no crimes.