TheAgitator.com
Man watches massive SWAT style raid on his house from local bar
Friday, May 6th, 2011Police surrounded a man’s house after one of his “friends” warned the cops that he might be suicidal. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) the guy was down the street at a bar watching the whole thing on TV.
The mayor is calling it a very expensive ($75,000) hoax, but the cops are still investigating:
“He didn’t actually dupe us. He just was not in the house at the time when we thought he was based on the information – the best information we had at the time,” Oak Forest Police Chief Greg Anderson said.
Cops are referring to this operation as a “well-being check”. They apparently take these well-being checks pretty seriously:
Oak forest police and officers from 16 other districts were called in. Negotiators called his home, but eventually got him on his cell phone. The chief said he never told investigators he was not inside his house.
[Posted by Dave Krueger]
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help. (Ronald Reagan)
Did they ask?
And now some poor prosecutor has to spend his day figuring out what to charge this guy with.
It was really nice of the reporter, after reporting that the guy didn’t really do anything wrong, to spend a couple paragraphs slandering the guy anyway.
Can this guy give an anonomous tip that everyone in his local police department is completely fucking insane? Cause I can’t think of any logical explanation for this.
my mom used to tell me that I’d get in trouble hanging out in bars all the time and that I should spend more time at home… so much for that advice.
Every time I see a story like this, my first thought is overtime. The police wanted overtime, and until people start acting intelligently and demanding this shit stop, it will continue. Can’t blame the police, they are doing what the morons want.
The chief said he never told investigators he was not inside his house.
Why the hell would he? He’s at a bar, having fun watching the police tear his house up.
these multi-jurisdictional clusterfucks can’t deploy THAT quickly- you’d think someone from the police dept would’ve called or just driven over and knocked.
The mayor is right about it being an expensive hoax: except the hoax is BY the police on the mayor. Mayor should tell the cops to get some common sense.
“you’d think someone from the police dept would’ve called or just driven over and knocked.”
That’s what a sane person would do. These cops are clearly crazy. I question whether they are even competent enough to live on their own or be allowed to turn on an oven without burning down their home.
Police SWAT teams doing well-being checks? That sounds suspiciously like an attempt to “save” people from committing the crime of suicide by killing them before they have the chance.
After all, what would happen to a man who actually was suicidal, and when the SWAT team rushed in, happened to have a gun in his hand? That sure sounds like a great way to save his life to me! /sarcasm
Now that Usama is dead, I can’t even say which top national priority this waste of resources is detracting from. Help?
(Well, there’s the deficit inattention disorder…)
Why would anyone send a SWAT team out on a reportedly suicidal individual?
IN THEORY, a suicidal individual might want to ‘take someone with him’, but why not have a counsellor pick up a phone first?
Come on you guys. No self respecting SWAT member is going to allow a mere citizen to shoot himself. That’s what the SWAT member is for. Don’t commit suicide, just call the cops.
At least I now have a better estimate ($75K) for these SWAT operations. There are hundreds of examples of “suicidal” people being killed by cops. I personally knew three. They call it “suicide by cop” and sometimes that is appropriate. However; a lot of times a situation is violently escalated (imagine that) by cops working toward a different goal than saving the civilian. Cops just aren’t the type to swallow-the-whistle when appropriate and go on demanding complete submission no matter the situation. Result: dead peasant and fist-bumps by the cops.
If you hate a person and want them dead, call the cops and tell them they’re suicidal and have a gun.
Kudos to the reporter for swallowing. If you’re going to blow those government dicks, might as well do it right.
And the sheeple (yeah, it’s facile) rise to the occasion and turn on their neighbor, the guy who didn’t do anything wrong, while kowtowing to authority. “The cops did what they had to do…” What utter bullshit. There’s no way on earth that a guy who is depressed *ever* warrants:
- an over 6 hour ‘standoff’ (where the police are actually engaged in a standoff with an EMPTY HOUSE)
- evacuating “6 or 7 neighboring homes”
- responders from 17 different districts
Oh no! The guy sometimes shot off fireworks. That means he might blow up his house!!!!! We have to make people ‘safe’!
But the news folks have to continue to suck up to the cops, and toe the party line to keep their ‘access’. How about some honesty? How about some analysis? How about you report on stuff, instead of being propaganda tools. Absolutely pathetic.
Sorry, it was over a DOZEN houses evacuated for 6 or 7 hours. Even better.
(Knock knock knock)
“Sir, sir, are you in there? Are you in the house? Okay, I want you to REMAIN COMPLETELY CALM! REMAIN CALM AND STOP RESISTING! DROP THE WEAPON YOU INTEND TO KILL YOURSELF WITH OR ELSE WE’LL OPEN FIRE!!”
Watch the video with the story. At the end the other reporter basically says the cops screwed up but no one wants to admit it. He says the story doesn’t add up.
War crime.
Dear law enforcement:
If it ever comes time to do a ‘well being check’ on me – don’t do me any ‘favors’. Just let it be.
Jesus H. Christ on a stick! “Officers from 16 districts?”
Those cops need their funding cut. Clearly they have WAY too many cops over what is needed to do their simple job.
Hell, ALL of government needs it’s funding cut.
Dear Pete,
Don’t you get it? WE CARE CITIZEN!
Now then, DOWN ON THE GROUND!
I just SAVED YOUR ASS. Now THANK ME!
Why the hell would he tell them he’s not in the house? They are trying to assault (using the military terminology) his location. He’d be INSANE to tell them where he is.
Bob “Those cops need their funding cut. Clearly they have WAY too many cops over what is needed to do their simple job.
Hell, ALL of government needs it’s funding cut.”
Exactly! But unfortunately it won’t happen until the government goes broke.
Careful, Bob, keep making comments like that and you might end up needing a “Well-being check.”
Reminds me of Arrested Development when the cops arrest JOB’s puppet for resisting.
So the guy was (supposedly) suicidal. He goes to the bar to self-medicate and (hopefully) clear his head so he doesn’t do anything stupid. He’s in a nice, public place where suicide is not likely. Meanwhile, his “friends” call the cops and tell them he’s gonna kill himself. So the cops show up not with a couple of uniforms and a counselor, but with a damn SWAT team and 70 officers???
Wonder who’s really loony here? Sounds to me like the guy is just fine and it’s the police department that needs to spend some time in the therapist’s chair.
I think deploying a SWAT team is an act of war.
@Bob
No, government does not need funding cuts. Government needs abolishment.
Government needs abolishment.
Then you don’t have a country. Nice shootin’, Tex.
I love how the local media refer to it as a hoax instead of the over-reaction of police that it actually was. Fucking bootlickers.
EH “Then you don’t have a country. Nice shootin’, Tex.”
I’d prefer that to what we have now.
Re: EH, #30:
I’d kinda prefer that. After all, if an enemy of your nation shoots at you, it’s okay to shoot back. If your government shoots at you, it’s not. Either way, dead is dead.
Very off topic:
The headline reminds me of an old Far Side cartoon. Guys are sitting in a bar watching the news. One says “Hey, Norton! Isn’t that your dog attacking the President?”
The Far Side was a great strip, specializing in ridiculous notions that could never happen in real life. Unfortunately, Real Life® seems to have surpassed it in absurdity.
Wrong. You don’t have a Nation State; you do have a country.
The distinction is subtle and lost on most people, but it is important.
Sadder than the actions of the cops would be this.
“On Friday, he was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation while residents blame him – not police – for what they call an expensive hoax.”
He did nothing wrong, the cops were idiots, and his neighbors think it’s his fault.
The distinction isn’t subtle at all. Some people are just stupid.
I’m not too sure the neighbor’s reactions if true aren’t the worst part of the story.
For any fellow “cop haters” out there, some reading for ya from a firearms expert/former cop (the last 3 blog posts):
http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2011/05/06/clearing-up-misconceptions/
My word… Roman candles.
Better call the Bomb Squad.
“As a precaution, they evacuated about a dozen homes in the area…”
I’m surprised the sentence didn’t continue with “…and shot a dozen dogs, just to be sure everybody was safe.”
I think the reason why the police go in with full SWAT gear on every little thing is so the public gets used to it, that way when they break down doors and take citizens away nobody thinks anything of it.
SWAT thugs think they’re movie stars.
They think they’re God’s gift to something.
Remember the bigger and better Army Obama said he wanted…its here…
Obama’s Armed Civilian National Security Task Force
Posted by John W. McSherry on May 6, 2011 at 7:52pm
Send Message View John W. McSherry’s blog
http://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/issues/defense/files/2...
On the FOX news site http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/23/mcchrystal-right-stuff-n...
In the second paragraph, Obama asked General Stanley McChrystal to lead a new advisory board for the Joint Forces program at the nonpartisan center for a New American Security. What is this Joint Forces program and what details do we know about this new New American Security initiative?
Yes, the article talks about taking care of our veterans, which we are suppose to do, but I’m not comfortable with Obama new direction here, that’s all too familiar with what Mussolini did after WWI.
The upper website is in conjunction with the US Chamber of Commerce which talks about this Joint Forces program for an armed civilian national security task force, completely under Obama’s control. My question, are these two programs connected???
Obama is pushing hard to nationalize the US Military and now this para-military national security task force under the control of the US Chamber of Commerce. I don’t like it.
Am I reading this correctly????
John W. McSherry
http://www.patriotactionnetwork.com/profiles/blogs/obamas-armed-civilian-national?id=2600775%3ABlogPost%3A3781623&page=1#first_comment
Back in the early 70′s when I was in high school, my mom and I were woken up about 2 am by loud knocking and phone ringing. Mom answered the phone while I opened the window to see who was at the door. It was the police demanding to be let in. At the same time, my mom (who was blind) yelled at me to get away from the door and come to the phone. After some discussion with the cops on the phone and the ones at the door, it was determined that some nut who was mad at my mom had called the cops and said my mom was homicidal and suicidal. As it was obvious that neither was the case – the cops apologized and left – I shudder to think what would have happened if this same scenario occurred today!
16 flavors of homicidal swine? I wouldn’t fucking tell them where I was either! Better to let them trash my house than shoot me in the back for resisting assistance.
Two words: OVER TIME.
Did his friend say he had a massive weapons cache and was going to blow up the neighborhood?
Wouldn’t the first response be a cautious patrol to walk up to the house and just knock on the door and ask if everything is okay?
I think pinandpuller nailed it.
If the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, then any government actions contrary to it are illegitimate.
The Constitution expressly forbids the government from depriving people of their life, liberty, or property without due process of law. While this does not mean that all government actions which happen to damage people’s property without due process are illegitimate (the fact that a cop accidentally breaks something during a search would not render the search illegitimate), it does imply that government must make at least reasonable efforts to avoid risk or harm to persons and property.
The Forth Amendment expressly forbids unreasonable searches and seizures. While the Constitution does not specify all of the conditions a search must meet to be considered “reasonable”, someone conducting a reasonable legitimate search must make at least a reasonable effort to avoid risk or harm to persons and property.
A have no problem respecting legitimate government agents who deserve it, but government agents who break into a dwelling carrying a search warrant for a different address, or who invade a dwelling in a manner as to expose persons or property to unreasonable levels of risk or harm, are robbers and should be regarded as such. Too bad defense attorneys generally aren’t allowed to have juries evaluate the legitimacy of searches. Everybody would be much safer if they were.
“I was feelin’ kinda depressed, so I called the Police, so I could die…”
So maybe it was because the guy had a state-issued Firearm Owner’s card, which they discovered via a check of the man’s name through their computers when the report was first taken. Upon discovering he was suicidal AND ARMED, they then reacted as they did.
Maybe.
[...] the Air Mobile and SWAT have in common ? .. " those boys just couldn't stay put. " Man watches massive SWAT style raid on his house from local bar | The Agitator If the government thinks you're going to commit suicide . How do they respond ? They send out SWAT [...]
Where is the SOURCE news story? If all links lead back here, then the story is a FAKE. To have credibility, there has to be a link to the story. Not supposed random quotes from a story that is not findable on Google. LINK the source, so people can read it for themselves and judge its accuracy.
OK its Oak Forest Illinois. Apparently the story has evolved.
http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/mobile/4967766-463/neighbor-says-suspect-in-oak-forest-standoff-hoax-was-very-strange.html
Doncha just love the neighborhood gossip interviews presented as news?
The suspect has a drinking problem, two DUI stops, fines paid, and some charges dropped. SWAT is outside his home. He states he can’t go there because Swat is looking for him, AND he has been drinking again in the bar.
Sounds like his logic is working. The bartender apparently called the cops saying he was at the bar, and they came and got him. THEY slam him into a 72 hour Psych hold. (we don’t know all the details) Meanwhile the PRESS is slamming him as a psycho, and a nut job who likes M-80 firecrackers. A Nuisance? yes. any evidence of suicidal tendencies? Probably not.
Have they come out and said he perpetuated the hoax? Only on the news.
Sounds to me like we need more information, but despite what may be true or not, this guy is destroyed by the event.