Jose Guerena
Take, for example, the case of Jose Guerena. On May 5, 2011, at Jose Guerena around 9:30 a.m., several teams of Tucson, Ariz., police officers from various police agencies armed with SWAT gear and an armored personnel carrier raided at least four homes as part of what was described at the time as an investigation into alleged marijuana trafficking.180 One of those homes belonged to 26-year-old Guerena, a former Marine who had served two tours of duty in Iraq, and his wife, Vanessa.
Asleep after returning from a twelve-hour overnight shift at a local mine, Guerena was awakened by his wife who heard noises outside their house, later identified as flashbang grenades deployed by police in the backyard as a diversion.181 Seeing a man pointing a gun at her, Vanessa Guerena yelled, "Don't shoot! I have a baby!"182 Vanessa thought the gunman might be part of a home invasion by criminals, especially because two members of her sister-in-law's family were killed in 2010, with their two children in their Tucson home.183 She shouted for her husband in the next room. Jose woke up and told his wife to hide in the closet with their 4-year-old.184
As the SWAT team forced its way into his home, Guerena armed himself with a rifle and confronted them from the far end of a long, dark hallway. The police opened fire, releasing more than seventy rounds in about seven seconds, at least sixty of which struck Guerena.185 He was pronounced dead a little over an hour later.
The police initially claimed Guerena fired his weapon at the SWAT team.186 However, the police later acknowledged that not only did Guerena not fire but the safety on his gun was still activated when he was killed.
Incredibly, after ushering Jose's wife and son out of the house, the police refused to allow paramedics to attend to Guerena for more than an hour, leaving the young father to bleed to death, alone, in his own home.187 Guerena had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home. The raids on the other homes carried out that same morning, all part of the same operation, resulted in no arrests and turned up little if any actual marijuana.188
Rendering Us Helpless
The problems inherent in these home raids are further compounded by the fact that SWAT teams are granted "no-knock" warrants at such high rates that the warrants themselves are rendered practically meaningless.189 This sorry state of affairs is made even worse by U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have essentially done away with the need for a "no-knock" warrant altogether, giving the police authority to disregard the protections afforded American citizens by the Fourth Amendment.
In the process, Americans are rendered altogether helpless and terror-stricken as a result of these confrontations with the police. Indeed, "terrorizing" is a mild term to describe the effect on those who survive such vigilante tactics. "It was terrible. It was the most frightening experience of my life. I thoughtitwas a terrorist attack," said 84-year-old Leona Goldberg, a victim of such a raid.190
Of course, SWAT team raids and other extreme shows of force by the police are only possible because of the acquiescence of the American people to all government programs relating to "security" since 9/11. Despite the fact that violent crime rates are low,191 and terrorist attacks are statistically rare (in fact, one is more likely to die in a car wreck or be struck by lightning than be killed by a terrorist),192 we are being subjected to government agencies "protecting" us in the name of security.
This is the inertia of government bureaucracy. Created during moments of fear, such agencies and the corporate entities that benefit from them always resist change once a citizenry gathers their senses and demands are made for the restoration of free government.
The War on Drugs
Fear, coupled with violence, have been the tools utilized by past historical regimes to control an unruly populace–that is, those citizens brave enough to exercise their rights and vocally disagree with the powers-that-be.
A perfect example of this masterful use of the politics of fear to cow the populace is the government's War on Drugs. Reputedly a response to crime and poverty in inner cities and suburbia, it has been the driving force behind the militarization of the police, at all levels, over the past 40 years.193 While it has failed to decrease drug use, it has exacerbated social problems by expanding America's rapidly growing prison system and allowing police carte blanche access to our homes and personal property.194
The foot soldiers in the government's increasingly fanatical war on drugs, particularly marijuana, are state and local police officers dressed in SWAT gear and armed to the hilt. As author and journalist Radley Balko reports, "The vast majority of these raids are to serve routine drug warrants, many times for crimes no more serious than possession of marijuana... Police have broken down doors, screamed obscenities, and held innocent people at gunpoint only to discover that what they thought were marijuana plants were really sunflowers, hibiscus, ragweed, tomatoes, or elderberry bushes. (It's happened with all five.)"195
Every nineteen seconds, someone in the U.S. is arrested for violating a drug law.196 Every thirty seconds, someone in the U.S. is arrested for violating a marijuana law,197 making it the fourth most common cause of arrest in the United States.198
For those Americans who find themselves on the wrong end of a SWAT team raid in search of marijuana, the end result is a tragic loss of countless lives, including children and the elderly. Usually, however, as Radley Balko details in "The Drug War Goes to the Dogs," the first to be shot are the family dogs.
When police in Fremont, California, raided the home of medical marijuana patient Robert Filgo, they shot his pet Akita nine times. Filgo himself was never charged. Last October [2005] police in Alabama raided a home on suspicion of marijuana possession, shot and killed both family dogs, then joked about the kill in front of the family. They seized eight grams of marijuana, equal in weight to a ketchup packet. In January [2006] a cop en route to a drug raid in Tampa, Florida, took a short cut across a neighboring lawn and shot the neighbor's two pooches on his way. And last May [2005], an officer in Syracuse, New York, squeezed off several shots at a family dog during a drug raid, one of which ricocheted and struck a 13-year-old boy in the leg. The boy was handcuffed at gunpoint at the time.199
Incentives for Drug Busts
Adding fuel to the fire, the government is providing financial incentives to the SWAT teams carrying out these raids through federal grants such as the Edward Byrne memorial grants and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants. These grants seem to focus on the number of arrests made, particularly drug arrests, in addition to funding the purchase of equipment for SWAT teams.200
As always, the special interests have a lot to say in these matters, and it is particularly telling that those lobbying hard to keep the prohibition on marijuana include law enforcement officials, the pharmaceutical corporations, and alcoholic beverage producers.201 However, when the war on drugs becomes little more than a thinly veiled attempt to keep SWAT teams employed and special interests appeased, it's time to revisit our drug policies and laws. As Professors Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilson recognize:
During the 25 years of its existence, the "War on Drugs" has transformed the criminal justice system, to the point where the imperatives of drug law enforcement now drive many of the broader legislative, law enforcement, and corrections policies in counterproductive ways. One significant impetus for this transformation has been the enactment of forfeiture laws which allow law enforcement agencies to keep the lion's share of the drug-related assets they seize. Another has been the federal law enforcement aid program, revised a decade ago to focus on assisting state anti-drug efforts. Collectively these financial incentives have left many law enforcement agencies dependent on drug law enforcement to meet their budgetary requirements, at the expense of alternative goals such as the investigation and prosecution of non-drug crimes, crime prevention strategies, and drug education and treatment.202
CHAPTER 10
"Dominate. Intimidate. Control."
"They're trying to scare the pants off the American peo
ple that we need these things ... Fear is a commodity and they're selling it. The more they can sell it, the more we buy into it. When American people are afraid, they will accept anything."203
– KATE HANNI, passengers' rights advocate
Perhaps you, reader, have yet to experience the particular thrill, and I use that word loosely, of being patted down by government agents, having your personal possessions rummaged through, and your activities and associations scrutinized. If so, not to worry. It may only be a matter of time before such a military task force comes knocking at your door. Only, chances are that it won't be a knock, and you might not even be at home when government agents decide to "investigate" you. Indeed, you may be at a shopping mall or a grocery store when you're subjected to a pat down. As increasing numbers of Americans are discovering, these so-called "soft target" security inspections are taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat.
What I'm describing–something that was once limited to authoritarian regimes–is only possible thanks to an unofficial rewriting of the Fourth Amendment by the courts that essentially does away with any distinctions over what is "reasonable" when it comes to searches and seizures by government agents. The rationale, of course, is that anything is "reasonable" in the war on terrorism.
Airport Security Patdown (Thinkstock)
Ritualized Humiliation
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) continues to draw ire from various travelers because of security procedures which have subjected airline travelers of all ages, most of whom clearly do not in any way fit the profile of a terrorist, to invasive virtual strip searches, excessive enhanced pat downs, and unreasonable demands by government agents–what one journalist refers to as "ritualized humiliation of travelers."204 In 2011, for example, TSA agents at a Florida airport forced a 95-year-old wheelchair-bound cancer patient to remove her adult diaper during the course of a security check.205 Ninety-year-old Marian Peterson, also confined to a wheelchair, was pulled out of line for a random security check and according to her son, Joe, TSA agents "groped her. All of her body: her crotch, her breasts, and everything else." She was also made to get out of her wheelchair and stand with her arms outstretched for over ten minutes.206 Then there was the incident with 4-year-old Isabella, who was forced to undergo a pat down after she ran to hug her grandmother goodbye during a security screening at a Kansas airport. The little girl, who became hysterical during the course of the pat down, was declared "an uncooperative suspect."207
VIPR Strikes
Unfortunately, in light of TSA's Chief John Pistole's determination to "take the TSA to the next level," there will soon be no place safe from the TSA's groping searches.208 Only this next time around, the "ritualized humiliation" won't be restricted to airports but will be spreading to train stations, bus terminals, shopping malls, and concert venues, meted out by Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) task forces comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams.209 As a sign of where things are headed, Pistole, a former FBI agent, wants to turn the TSA into a "national-security counterterrorism organization, fully integrated into U.S. government efforts."210
VIPR is the first major step in the government's efforts to secure so-called "soft" targets such as malls, stadiums, bridges, etc.211 In fact, some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets,212 such as department stores, restaurants, and schools. Given the virtually limitless number of potential soft targets vulnerable to terrorist attack, subjection to intrusive pat downs and full-body imaging (scanners, that is) will become an integral component of everyday life in the United States. As Jim Harper of the Cato Institute observed, "The natural illogic of VIPR stings is that terrorism can strike anywhere, so VIPR teams should search anywhere."213
The goal of VIPR is to have an omnipresent anti-terrorist force deployed at every moderate or high-density site: malls, stadiums, restaurants, grocery stores, and so on. Expanding VIPR to its logical conclusion necessitates a police state. Additionally, VIPR, by expanding intrusive searches beyond the spatially circumscribed confines of airports, regularizes abusive behavior by government officials and inculcates submis-siveness and subservience on the part of the average citizen.
In effect, VIPR paves the way psychologically for the implementation of Orwellian apparatuses of control. Furthermore, by entrenching frequent, intrusive searches in the American mindset as an unquestioned component of everyday life, programs like VIPR actually serve to reduce the level of protection afforded citizens by the Constitution. And once VIPR has accrued a sufficient bureaucracy, it will be virtually impossible to eradicate.
Getting After the "Bad" Guys
For now, under the pretext of protecting the nation's infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems, and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, these VIPR teams are being deployed to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations,214 airports,215 ferries, and subways.216 VIPR teams are also being deployed to elevate the security presence at certain special events such as political conventions, baseball games, and music concerts.217 Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology218 pat downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.219 Unfortunately, these sweeps are not confined to detecting terrorist activity. Federal officials have admitted that transit screening is also intended, at least in some instances, to detect illegal immigration or even cash smuggling.220
Incredibly, in the absence of any viable threat, VIPR teams–roving SWAT teams, with no need for a warrant–conducted over 8,000 such searches in public places in 2011 alone.221 For example, in February 2011, a VIPR team conducted a raid at an Amtrak station in Georgia, not only patting down all passengers–both adults and small children alike-entering the station but also those departing.222 In a characteristic display of incompetence, TSA agents co-opted the station and posted a sign on the door informing patrons that anyone who entered would be subject to mandatory screening223 (this, despite the fact that boarding passengers can easily bypass the station entirely and access the boarding area directly).224 One officer rummaged through a passenger's hand luggage and even smelled her perfume.225 A vacationing firefighter roped into the search commented, "It was just not professional. It was just weird... we are being harassed by the TSA."226 In fact, when Amtrak Police Chief John O'Connor was informed of VIPR's activities, he "hit the ceiling" and banned VIPR personnel from entering Amtrak property227
These raids, conducted at taxpayer expense on average Americans going about their normal, day-to-day business, run the gamut from the ridiculous to the abusive. In Santa Fe, TSA agents were assigned to conduct searches at a high school prom.228 At the port of Brownsville, Texas, VIPR units searched all private and commercial vehicles entering and exiting the port. Although the TSA admitted the search was not conducted in response to any specific threat, VIPR agents nonetheless engaged in "thorough" inspections of each and every vehicle.229 In a training exercise in Atlanta, VIPR teams allegedly arrested a man after discovering a small amount of marijuana in his semi-trailer.230 In San Diego, a VIPR investigation at a trolley station resulted in the deportation of three teenagers apprehended on their way to school.231
In April 2011 Homeland Security official Gary Milano stated that VIPR teams involved in a raid at a Tampa bus station, again conducted in the absence of any threat, were there "to sort of invent the wheel in advance in case we have to, if there ever is specific intelligence requiring us to be here. This way us and our partners are ready to move in at a moment's notice."232 He added, "We'll be back. We won't say when we'll be back. This way the bad guys are on notice we'll be back."233
Likewise, in an intimidating display of force
in June 2011, VIPR conducted a vast training exercise–that is, a military raid–covering more than 5,000 square miles' worth of crucial infrastructure sites such as bridges, gas lines, and power plants between Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky.234 The raid included members of seventy different agencies, over 400 state and federal agents, Black Hawk helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft,235 and Coast Guard vessels.236 Although the surveillance activities constituted an exercise rather than a response to an actual terrorist threat, the sweep was clearly calculated to produce a deterrent effect. According to TSA official Michael Cleveland, the purpose of the exercise was to "have a visible presence and let people know we're out here... It can be a deterrent."237
On September 11, 2012, the Cincinnati Police Department SWAT team conducted a training raid on the University of Cincinnati campus without first warning the student population. Concerned students videotaped the incident and uploaded it to YouTube,238 documenting a dozen or so armed men with masks and shields exiting a black SWAT team vehicle. When a concerned student asked one of the lead officers what they were doing on campus, the officer was evasive, refusing to confirm or deny that any federal agencies were involved. The SWAT vehicle did, however, have the words "Department of Homeland Security" emblazoned on the side.239
A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State Page 8
