Wisconsin Dems used battering rams against Scott Walker supporters – literally
The physical, emotional and unconstitutional abuse of Wisconsin conservative activists in the “John Doe” investigations.
We have been covering the “John Doe” investigations of Scott Walker and Wisconsin conservatives since January 2014, when it came on our radar after a state court judge quashed certain subpoenas.
Since then, we’ve had over 25 posts, detailing the depths to which Democratic prosecutors sank in the effort to get Walker and his supporters, as well as related litigation.
John Doe No. 1 targeted Walker’s time as Milwaukee County Executive. That probe failed to find any misconduct by Walker.
John Doe No. 2 targeted alleged illegal coordination during the Recall Election between Walker’s campaign and conservative groups. A state court judge already has ruled that even if there was such coordination, it was not illegal; that ruling is on appeal in the state courts.
A federal District Court ruled the same way, but was reversed by the federal appeals court primarily on procedural grounds as to whether a federal court should interfere in a state investigation; a request is pending for the U.S. Supreme Court to take that case. In a second federal case, the same District Judge ordered Wisconsin not to enforce its coordination law as relates to issue advocacy. We’ll see if that holds up on appeal.
While the legal proceedings are interesting, it is the physical and emotional abuse visited up innocent conservative activists by John Doe investigators that is particularly outrageous.
We’ve focused on the home raids before, including this description by George Will, The nastiest political tactic this year:
The early-morning paramilitary-style raids on citizens’ homes were conducted by law enforcement officers, sometimes wearing bulletproof vests and lugging battering rams, pounding on doors and issuing threats. Spouses were separated as the police seized computers, including those of children still in pajamas. Clothes drawers, including the children’s, were ransacked, cellphones were confiscated and the citizens were told that it would be a crime to tell anyone of the raids.
David French in National Review has more details on the battering rams and intimidation, Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’:
Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking.
She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram. She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full view of the police. Some yelled at her to grab some clothes, others yelled for her to open the door. “I was so afraid,” she says. “I did not know what to do.” She grabbed some clothes, opened the door, and dressed right in front of the police. The dogs were still frantic.
As French details, Cindy Archer wasn’t a criminal. She just happened to be a Wisconsin conservative, and the police seized her laptop and cell phone:
They wouldn’t let her speak to a lawyer. She looked outside and saw a person who appeared to be a reporter. Someone had tipped him off. The neighbors started to come outside, curious at the commotion, and all the while the police searched her house, making a mess, and — according to Cindy — leaving her “dead mother’s belongings strewn across the basement floor in a most disrespectful way.”
Then they left, carrying with them only a cellphone and a laptop.
Cindy Archer wasn’t alone. French tells the story of “Anne”:
“IT’S A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH.”
That was the first thought of “Anne” (not her real name).
Someone was pounding at her front door. It was early in the morning — very early — and it was the kind of heavy pounding that meant someone was either fleeing from — or bringing — trouble. “It was so hard. I’d never heard anything like it. I thought someone was dying outside.”
She ran to the door, opened it, and then chaos. “People came pouring in. For a second I thought it was a home invasion. It was terrifying. They were yelling and running, into every room in the house. One of the men was in my face, yelling at me over and over and over.”
It was indeed a home invasion, but the people who were pouring in were Wisconsin law-enforcement officers. Armed, uniformed police swarmed into the house. Plainclothes investigators cornered her and her newly awakened family. Soon, state officials were seizing the family’s personal property, including each person’s computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information.
French has other stories in his column.
It was a full-frontal assault on civil liberties and free speech, as was detailed in Exposed: How Prosecutors targeted Scott Walker and conservatives. It had a profoundly chilling effect on conservative activists, who were afraid to associate with each other or to advance political issues, for fear that they or others would hear the battering ram again at the door.
Welcome to the world of Scott Walker and Wisconsin conservatives.
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Comments
And he/they won anyway. Awesome.
One important way to fight this tyranny…and THAT’s what it IS…is to defy it.
One of the most important tactics here was the “order” not to talk about the process.
Screw that. Talk about it plenty. Everywhere. Make noise, and defy them to do anything about it.
Bonus points if you can get somebody else to record the order and post it online.
It is a thing to lament, that ordinary Americans, even active, conservative Americans, obeyed their orders, were “good Germans”.
O tempora o mores
It is a thing to lament, that ordinary Americans, even politically active conservative Americans, followed their orders, were “good Germans”.
O tempora o mores
Yeah, it was worth saying twice.
Dunno, my iPad or this’s mobile site, one way or another a combination from heck, the place for people who don’t believe in gosh
This raises an important, fundamental issue that Conservatives have to come to grips with.
We are law-abiders. This is a weakness.
There are laws and there are laws. SOME laws NEED to be openly, conspicuously and defiantly VIOLATED. This is hard for Conservatives to accommodate. Until we DO, we leave a potent and moral weapon on the table, unused.
There is NOTHING that should keep us from pushing authoritarian, totalitarian forces in America into the limelight, putting THEM before both the courts of law and the court of public opinion. That will entail defiance and “breaking” some laws, such as the gag orders here.
>> … There are laws and there are laws. …
If I may, there is law, and there is the Rule of Law.
Following Arendt, law can be mere ‘state violence’, mob rule ratified by the majority. Whereas — the Rule of Law is an idea of the purpose of laws, that they are to “provide for stability, certainty, and protection to individuals against arbitrary power”.
Si monumentum requiris circumspice
quote stolen from http://www.hannaharendt.net/index.php/han/article/view/145/256
I couldn’t agree more, and I would relish the opportunity to openly defy these bastards.
As for the cops, I wonder how they sleep at night. They are beyond shameful. Buncha lackeys and toadies. I’ve seen it all before, but never this bad.
Ed Driscoll reminds that one of the whistle-blowers that brought this to light was a cop. Just to keep balance.
I would think that telling any American that they cannot even contact a lawyer is not lawful. They all should have gotten legal counsel immediately.
I would consider each of these break-ins as threatening behavior, menacing, assault with blunt instruments and deadly weapons, property vandalism, and multiple civil rights violations. Here comes the judge for each and every one involved.
MENACE. A threat; a declaration of an intention to cause evil to happen to another.
When menaces to do an injury to another have been made, the party making them may, in general, be held to bail to keep the peace; and, when followed by any inconvenience or loss, the injured party has a civil action against the wrong doer. Com. Dig. Battery, D; Vin. Ab. h.t.; Bac. Ab. Assault; Co. Litt. 161 a, 162 b, 253 b; 2 Lutw. 1428. Vide Threat.
Assault
At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.
An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal or civil liability. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and Tort Law.
The proper response is to file a 42 USC 1983 suit for damages for violation of civil rights. Just because they had a search warrant does not mean they didn’t violate the Fourth and Fifth amendments. Plus, warrants have to be executed in a reasonable manner based on the totality of the circumstances. This was not a drug bust or a siege situation.
So what would be the outcome if one of those homeowners, believing it was truly a home invasion, shot and killed an officer?
It’s going to happen some day if this continues.
The union-thug cops were the real criminals here. Somebody needs to clean house.
These are Fascists. The police that took part in these raids violated their oaths. The people who gave these orders a Stazi wannabees.
This tactic will eventually end up with a blood bath. But – even then – those responsible would never be held accountable for their actions by the government that protects them.
Yeah, lets have national police force as Al Sharpton suggests.
The Left alleges police brutality when a thug is killed when attacking a police officer. I have a feeling they will be really upset by this fascist operation.
Can anyone say with insight on the issue of the “invasion”, do those who were invaded have any legal recourse for property damages, illegal taking, etc., when (not if) the appeal before the courts is denied and the original finding is upheld?
The prosecutors involved are facing claims for violating the civil rights of the search victims. Ordinarily, prosecutors benefit from a privilege that exempts them from such claims. Wisconsin and federal courts have previously held that privilege only applies once the DA establishes the existence of probable cause that a crime has been committed.
By using the John Doe proceeding, the prosecutors gave up this protection. By its express terms, John Doe proceedings are only available to determine whether there is probable cause that a crime has been committed. So either they lied to the court about the purpose of the John Doe proceeding, or they give up their immunity.
What can we do to rally around our friends in Wisconsin? If we don’t help them contain and root out this evil locally, then this won’t just be “…the world of Scott Walker and Wisconsin conservatives.”
Dems in power elsewhere will be emboldened and thenIt will be rest of us.
This should trigger our national outrage, a movement to investigate and prosecute John Chisholm and put Dems who are contemplating the same abuse of power on notice.
Abolish government unions. When they reach the point where they can send out their members to break down doors in the name of the “law” and threaten people for political reasons, they no longer belong in a civilized society.
They got Nifonged on acid.
It is not just Scott Walker and conservatives in Wisconsin. It is the political prosecution of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay. And Rick Perry is already charged and on deck. Every one is a political prosecution.
If they can not tie you up in court to silence you for being conservative, then they seek to ruin you financially: see Memories Pizza (I read some of the 1200 Yelp reviews – just some of the nastiest, most vile, hateful language I’ve ever read), the Duck Dynasty guy, the Mozilla guy, and virtually nonstop harassment of advertisers of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
The newest angle is to attack our mental stability. A commenter at Jonathan Turley’s blog approvingly linked to research several weeks ago published by a psychologist purporting to show that conservatives have a mental defect. Regarding climate change, there is an emerging scam called “climate psychology” in which they intend to brand anybody who has not bought into the notion that man made climate change will lead to a catastrophe a century from now is a crazy lunatic.
Then look at education. The schools are being turned into leftist indoctrination factories – sort of a 21st century equivalent of “re-education camps”.
Make no mistake. These are the kinds of tactics used by authoritarian leftists, not liberals. They may not call themselves communists, but they are “fellow travelers”.
My dog trainer says he used to work at a ranch in Oklahoma. They kept around 80 pit bulls.
I’m guessing the raid would have gone down differently at that residence.
They would have shot the dogs first like they did at Waco.
Get the police to testify. Ask them what they were told. Be sure to get the one who said “Sometimes I hate my job.”
Raid my home, seize my property, terrorize my family and then tell me I’m under a gag order and can’t even contact a lawyer? Just watch how fast I call my lawyer, every relative, every friend, post on it on the internet and contact the media. Screw unconstitutional directives.
Why a Walker Presidency would be a wonderful thing to the restoration of justice.
The People’s Cube is reality. Who signed the warrant? Perhaps no warrant is needed in cases of thought crimes.
This is why Scott Walker will get my vote for President. He is the only candidate vetted in a way that matters to me. He stuck to his word when the chips were down. All the pressure that could be brought to bear on Scott Walker was brought to bear. He never wavered,cowered or waffled in his convictions. He kept his word. They arrested his campaign staff, rioted and damaged the state capitol, fled the state to prevent any new legislation from being passed. All of this while the leftist press eviscerated him. I don’t know of and nor do I see another candidate with that kind of integrity elsewhere in the field. God bless the man for he is a rare entity in our current world.