Writes SG:
9:10 am on August 20, 2014I enjoy your contributions to LR. I am a 55 year old white male who for about 15 years now has considered myself a libertarian. For most of my life I could probably have been pegged as a mainstream conservative. Listened to Rush, swallowed the party line and the ridiculous excuses for our horrible foreign policy.
One thing that greatly impacted my thinking was an event that happened some years ago. I allowed a friend of my oldest child to come and stay at my home for a few weeks. I was told that he had no family in our city and that he was in between living arrangements staying at different places, sometimes even sleeping rough. I had most of my life, as my father had before me, always tried to help people when I had the resources to do so. I was happy to help this young man get back on his feet. One day while I was at work and there was no one in the house, this young man brought a friend and another person into my home and sold the stranger a couple of grams of marijuana. This other person (buyer) turned out to be an undercover cop. The following Friday evening two heavily armed policeman showed up at my front door with a search warrant for this young man. I told the officer that he wasn’t there at the time but that I had been allowing him to stay in my home while he searched for other accommodations.
These two officers, along with nine other officers, all heavily armed and several actually wearing black ski masks, entered my home and tore everything to hell including emptying every item of food in my pantry and going through all drawers and turning them out on the floors. They grabbed my 15 year old son and threatened to physically assault him, treated me like I was some kind of animal, shouted orders at me and pointed their guns in my face. They found less than two grams of marijuana in the bedroom where I was allowing this kid to sleep and took me to jail in handcuffs. Because my minor son was in the house, they charged me with two counts of consenting to the delinquency of a minor. I guess it was the only thing they could charge me with. Because the drugs were in the room that they considered to be my son’s room, they charged him also but did not take him to jail or juvenile.
Almost $9,000 in attorney fee’s and fines later, I finally extricated myself and my son from this ordeal, fortunately without losing my job. Lesson learned, I will NEVER bring anyone into my home again.
I swore after this happened that I would never let the police touch me or enter my life again. No matter what happened to me or any of my property, I would NEVER call the police to my assistance. I managed for many years to not have any more intervention by these paid thugs into my life – until a couple of months ago. Ryan, I fell into their hands again; I transgressed the law. While driving, at the speed limit or below, on one of our local interstates, I was pulled over by the State Highway Patrol and ticketed. The transgression; because of where my seat-belt falls across my chest, I sometimes will place it under my left arm and across my stomach instead of wearing it the traditional way. Initially seat-belts were only worn across your stomach so I have never understood what the issue is. I just find it more comfortable that way. This was a BIG mistake. I was ticketed for wearing my seat-belt improperly. Who says our paid protectors aren’t out there looking out for us? It is good to know that they have everything else so under control that they have the time to pay attention to such minor details as a seat-belt infraction.
PS: When they came in on the issue above, they took all the guns from my home. It took me multiple calls to the Sheriff’s office and threatening to involve an attorney to get them to release them back to me.