‘Conscious
Living’ Community Raided at Gunpoint by SWAT in Yet Another Paramilitary Police
Action
A
small, Texas-based group calling itself a “sustainability community” says it
was raided by a police SWAT team over suspicion that members were growing and
distributing marijuana, but officers were unable to locate any contraband.
Photo:
Wikimedia Commons
By J.D
Heyes
Natural News
August 16, 2013
According to a press
release from the group, which calls itself The Garden of Eden, “a small
Intentional Community based on Sustainability,” Arlington P.D. SWAT officers
raided the community the morning of Aug. 2, awakening inhabitants while
executing a search warrant. But, says the group in a press release, no pot was
found.Natural News
August 16, 2013
“Ultimately only a single arrest was made based on unrelated outstanding traffic violations, a handful of citations were given for city code violations, and zero drug related violations were found,” said the group.
Seriously, a SWAT team?
Officers were reportedly on scene for about 10 hours, group officials said, conducting searches that “involved many dozens of city officials, SWAT team [sic], police officers and code compliance employees.” The group said “numerous official vehicles including dozens of police cars” were involved in the operation, along with some “specialized” vehicles that were involved in the “‘abatement’ operation.”
“Witnesses say that there were helicopters and
unmanned flying drones circling the property in the days prior to the raid that
are presumed to have been a part of the intelligence gathering,” said the
release. “The combined expenses for the raid itself and the collection of
information leading up to the fruitless raid are estimated in the tens
of thousands of taxpayer dollars.”
The Dallas Morning
News reported
that, despite finding nothing but a few code violations, the city is defending
the raid and, especially, the raid utilizing SWAT officers.
Arlington Police Sgt. Christopher Cook says it’s
not at all uncommon to use them for drug raids, though it is becoming apparent
that police departments
all over the country are using them more often for any kind of raid.
He also said the
department was “concerned” about how the group reacted to the raid on social
media sites.“That’s what concerns me about their social media allegations,” Cook said. “Yes, they were initially handcuffed, however once it was determined it was secure they were taken out of handcuffs. Typically we wouldn’t do that, but they were compliant.”
‘We have been targeted’
The group’s press release confirms the handcuffing:
All 8 adults present in the house were initially
handcuffed at the gunpoint of heavily armed SWAT officers, including the
mother of a 22-month-old and a two-week-old baby who was separated from her
children during the raid.
The group said that city
code enforcement officials ordered members to cut the grass, destroy some wild
and cultivated plants including blackberries, lamb’s quarters and okra, and
remove “other varied materials from around the premises such as pallets, tires
and cardboard that the Community members say they had collected for use in
sustainability projects.”
Shellie Smith, who owns the land the community sits
on, says the rights of her and her members were violated.
“We have been targeted by
the system because
don’showing people how to lict that we are talking about suspicion of growing
marijuana, notg more than just tomatoes here, we are
growing the consciousness that will allow people to live freely and
sustainably, and the system doesn’t want that to be known.”City officials said simply: “No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises. Narcotics detectives and members of the tactical unit cleared the scene within 45 minutes.”
‘They destroyed everything’
As we have oft reported here at Natural News, it is becoming far too common for police departments large and small to resort to using militarized SWAT teams inappropriately. What is quite obvious in this case is that the group that police were dealing with was about as non-violent as you can get. If in fact the Arlington P.D. conducted surveillance of The Garden of Eden for days before the raid, officers should have known this.
Therefore, is it unreasonable to expect a softer approach to carrying out a search warrant? I don’t think so, given the fact that we are talking about suspicion of growing marijuana, not cooking meth or pushing heroin.
Police know which groups in their communities are violent and which ones aren’t. And they knew in this case, too. But they used a SWAT team anyway.
“They came here under the guise that we were doing a drug trafficking, marijuana-growing operation,” Smith told WFAA, a local ABC affiliate. “They destroyed everything.”
Sources:
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