Posted on 06/07/2012 4:57:15 AM PDT by marktwain
GREELEY, Colo. – A Colorado woman has filed a lawsuit after agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the ATF, entered her home without a warrant and threatened her and her 8-year old-son while looking for a previous tenant who had left the address more than a year earlier.
According to the filing from Linda Griego, it was on June 15, 2010, when officers with the ATF – as part of the Regional Anti-Gang Enforcement Task Force – violently entered her home without a warrant, handcuffed and pointed guns at her and her son, Colby Frias.
“They had multiple machine pistols pointed at my son. I could see the laser sights on his body and he began to freak out. While I was cuffed I had to calm him down while the officers broke down his bedroom door,” she said.
Her legal action is against the Greeley Police Department and the ATF for illegally entering the home without a warrant.
David Lane, Griego’s attorney, told WND that to this day the agency still has not produced a warrant authorizing it to enter her home. He said Frias continues to suffer nightmares about the events of that day.
A couple of months ago, Frias had a friend over to the house, and the family had ordered pizza. When it arrived, the delivery driver gave a loud knock on the door.
“It scared my son so bad he jumped over the couch to hide. This was two years later, and it still bothered him,” Griego said.
In the months following the incident, Frias was so scared he had to sleep with his mother.
“Here he is an 8-year-old boy, and he is sleeping with mom again,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
good. I hope she wins
Good thing they didn’t have a dog.
I hope she owns these Jack Booted thugs.
It’s a shame she didn’t live on IN where she could have legally shot them.
Their lives would have been forfeit in my house.
If she had made a twitch, the home invaders would have turned her and her son into swiss cheese.
Indiana law or not.
These things have been going on for decades, tried, true, and vetted by the courts under the umbrella of the Drug War. Welcome to the party.
What I want to see is not the “department” sued,
I want to see the INDIVIDUAL OFFICERS sued.
That will put a stop to this crap good and fast.
I’m glad that poor kid didn’t have a dog. He would had to have watched as they filled it full of holes.
Can you imagine pointing a gun at an 8-year-old? What a bunch of punks.
That agency has GOT to be banned.
From the article, it sounds like the Indiana Supreme Court has overturned that right and citizens have no right to resist an unlawful entry by law enforcement. Serfdom is here.
Hey, Rambo, do you really want a solitary woman with an 8-year old son to start firing on a group of SWAT invaders (I couldn't find out how many, but front + back doors, means 5-6 at least).
Not to mention this little tidbit: Last year, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that “there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.”
Tell me again what you would have your wife or mother do ?
I can visualize what it would look like with a six-year-old. There comes a time when government agents should say, "No, that's outside the scope of what government should be doing." We are so far past that time in so many ways that I worry about what our next few years will look like. I hope that at least most of our military, our FBI, and our police will be on the side of our citizens if a showdown comes.
..couldn't wait 'em out, so they burned them down! ... men, women & children.
yep
Why isn’t someone at ATF being charged with child endangerment? This was neglegence leading to a life endangering situation. A badge changes nothing, save the political decision of corrupt prosecutors.
Two sides to every story, and we are only hearing the carefully crafted side that this woman’s attorney is allowing her to say; one that is crafted to illicit an emotional response that benefits the attorney.
That being said, this is a DRUG gang task force. So, she is the victim of a failed war on drugs, which continues to trample all over the Constitution.
Pointing a gun at a child is a crime: child endangerment.
Actually, the tactical assault teams are extremely fast and lethal...
We can all beat our chests and state we’d take’em out however the most predictable outcome is you would die with your gun in your hand....no deference to you, even the best amoung us who suffer the same fate....
They pick the best time and place for the confrontations, the deck is heavily wieghted in their favor.....
The key here is political pressure to ensure these type of tactical assaults are extremely limited and subject to judicial oversight.
These tactical assaults are necessary to cull the most dangerous amoung us and ensure that our police officers can go home to their families at night. These practices should be extremely limited. Unfortunately, recently and way to often, are used routinely to occasional tragic result....
Oh Waco was worse then just burning men, women and children to death.
They shot people who were trying to escape the fire. The fire the ATF knew was the likely outcome of their assault.
The ATF also pumped in CS tear gas in massive amounts. The tear gas alone killed some of the children. Other children were broke in half by their own muscles due to the phasogene released from the burning CS tear gas. Their back muscles spasmed so tightly they bent the children backwards, breaking their back and killing them.
The people who caused this were proclaimed heros.
This actually happened once in Western Md. a few years after the drug war got started and "no-knock" raids were just getting started, several dead fibbies and state cops, and a jury took less than half an hour to find the defendant innocent on all charges and, near as I can tell, that had the effect of shutting down no-knock raids for some time afterwards. That was well before the internet age however and I've not been able to find any reference to the story on the net in recent years.
I guess they are slowly improving, no kittens were stomped to death, the house was not burned down.
But I bet that if she pushes her case “Something” will be found to justify an arrest, and threat of taking her kid.
ATF intimidation is not just for the moment, it’s their SOP.
Don’t forget Eric Holder was #2 at Justice, dictating orders from Janet Reno & Bill Clinton.
“Two sides to every story, and we are only hearing the carefully crafted side that this woman’s attorney is allowing her to say; one that is crafted to illicit an emotional response that benefits the attorney.”
Sure, that means you think she did something wrong that led to a warrantless no-knock raid.
It would be good to see some of the Nazi thugs lose their jobs without pay. Let them work in the real world for awhile.
“They had multiple machine pistols”
Where do I find one of these???
There was a case in Minneapolis a decade or so back where an immigrant (Hmong) family was invaded in a wrong address scenario. The father fought back with a shotgun, and the SWAT team backed off. No one died or was wounded, and the family ended up with a substantial six figure settlement.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317398,00.html
I don't think that you can reasonably claim this, as well as recognize that their actual suspect wasn't in the home and hadn't been for a year. There is something definitely defective in their process. I think it is that they simply don't care who gets hurt. This will eventually backfire badly for them, I think.
bookmark
And I've interacted with quite a number of young OEF/OIF combat vets, particularly Marines, who seriously think the biggest threat to freedom in America is "right-wing religious nuts."
I wasn’t referring to the target aquisition process just simply the tactical enrty plan as executed by the on-site personnel......
Regardless of the flawed intelligence gathering prior to the onsite targeting, the tactical entry would be fast agressive and potentially lethal to anyone or thing within the home....
My post was in response to the stereotypical “beat of the chest” post we always see...
Re-read my post in that context and you will see that I was spot on with my assessment....
The ATF should have been disbanded after Waco...
Time for us to change that.
The Rambo’s that day were the ones entering the house illegally. No apologies, just I hope you have a better day than up to this point. Talk about arrogance, abuse of power and utter contempt for the citizenry.
If you know an order is illegal, immoral and unconstitutional do you obey it? If your answer is I just followed my orders then I ask where have we heard that before?
I too would like to hear the officer/agents side but from the article they come off as pure goons.
It should have been a "feed Dale Price's hogs" moment (from the novel "Unintended Consequences"). Every one of those ATF agents should have gone home in a body bag. Only when that happens will this jackbooted crap begin to wane.
What everyone is assuming is that it was a SEARCH warrant when it almost certainly an ARREST warrant for the lady she said no longer lived there. That little tidbit is left out by the attorney, intentionally.
Since the homeowner was not the person the warrant was for, no, she would not get a copy of the warrant. So, thus without further information it would seem to be “warrantless.”
Courts make a serious effort to serve warrants at the last known address.
Again, the story does not give the other side of the story with important details such as whether any surveillance was done on the address that would support the courts decision to serve said warrant there. Or the veracity of the person giving the statement to the press.
DD, the woman admits that the police knocked. So much for the no-knock raid argument.
Different agency ~ same idiots.
The state legislature has subsequently acted to ADJUST THINGS. I think we have a couple of threads on it. Might go look for them and see what the outcome was.
They still didn't take down the judges who screwed up the decision.
That is the desired outcome, fear on the part of the populace, fear of the agents of the State.
Yes they knock with the battering ram. But hey the cops got to play with their toys, automatic weapons and laser sights. So although they didnt get to shoot a dog it turned out fairly well.
There you go again.
Reading my mind.
Excellent book.
If I'm an unarmed woman with an 8-year old son nearby, and 6 armed SWAT types coming in the door, YOU'RE DAMN STRAIGHT I obey it.
If she had a gun like Indiana Jones above wished, and shot one of them, then she has twelve bullet holes, the kid has no mother, and the state has no witnesses. Who's better off when THAT happens?
No warrant says it all. Two years later and they still have not produced a warrant.
ATF is the worst offender and violator of the constitution and should be disbanded.
Agreed. Then I pick the time and place for suitable retribution.
As I said before, this was not a search warrant, it was most likely an arrest warrant for the previous tenant. The new tenant will not get a copy of an arrest warrant for another person.
Different agency, same tactics. All approved by the courts with decades of precedent. Thanks to the Drug War.
You know this how?
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