Anaheim small-business owner Tony Jalali fled Iran in 1978 for a better life in the land of liberty, but he soon may find his American Dream unconstitutionally taken from him by the city of Anaheim and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern California in a ploy that should leave most Americans shaking their heads in disgust. Jalali faces the loss of his well-maintained office building if the city and the federal government get away with an attempt to do an end-run around California laws.
Setting aside all the stupid mistakes these kids made like consenting to a search, including the embarrassing moment where the kid pissed himself, take note at the end when the cop said if he comes clean, he’ll just get a ticket instead of going to jail. The kid talks… and he still goes to jail.
Never trust the police. They are not your friend. They are not looking out for your best interest.
And these kids right here are stupid enough to break the law without first knowing their own rights and how to assert them.
You want to smoke pot and break the law? That’s cool. I don’t give a shit. But at least have the sense to know how to protect yourself in the chance that things could go south. And for crying out loud, don’t piss yourself.
Note: The “Raid of the Day” features accounts of police raids I’ve found, researched, and reported while writing my forthcoming book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces. It’s due out in July, but you can pre-order it here.
In the mid-1980s, the federal government and the state of California stated the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or CAMP. The program combined federal law enforcement and military resources with state law enforcement in an effort to eradicate marijuana cultivation in the northern part of the state.
It effectively turned parts of California into a military zone. CAMP sent U-2 spy planes over the skies to search for pot, then sent — literally — black helicopters full of armed National Guard troops, drug cops, and sometimes even volunteers to cut down the plants. Anyone who happened to be nearby could be detained, often at gunpoint.
Journalist Dan Baum writes in his book Smoke and Mirrors, that CAMP roadblocks started hauling whole families out of cars and holding them at gunpoint while searching their vehicles without warrants. CAMP troops … went house to house kicking in doors and ransacking homes, again without warrants.” California Attorney General John Van de Kamp also recruited LAPD cops to raid suspected pot grows in the northern part of the state. Baum reported that the the feeling within the department was that spending a couple weeks of raiding hippies in a place like Humboldt County was like “summer camp.”
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Within a year, the CAMP program had extended to other states, and by 1985 was operating in all 50. The program is still operational today.
Read the full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/26/raids-of-the-day-the-camp_n_3163932.html
