Watch the video report below.
A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that
included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.
Members of the local police raiding party had a search
warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden
farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft.
Worth NBC station that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears
to have been code enforcement.
The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15
okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after
holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner
Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said.
Local authorities had cited the Garden of Eden in recent
weeks for code violations, including "grass that was too tall, bushes
growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood
that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side
of the house, and generally unclean premises," Smith's statement said. She
said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began,
and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified. According to ABC affiliate WFAA, resident Quinn Eaker was
the only person arrested -- for outstanding traffic violations.
The city of Arlington said in a statement that the code
citations were issued to the farm following complaints by neighbors, who were
"concerned that the conditions" at the farm "interfere with the
useful enjoyment of their properties and are detrimental to property values and
community appearance." The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington
Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner
was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement
said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises,"
the statement acknowledged.
The raid on the Garden of Eden farm appears to be the latest
example of police departments using SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics to
enforce less serious crimes. A Fox television affiliate reported this week, for
example, that police in St. Louis County, Mo., brought out the SWAT team to
serve an administrative warrant. The report went on to explain that all felony
warrants are served with a SWAT team, regardless whether the crime being
alleged involves violence.
In recent years, SWAT teams have been called out to perform
regulatory alcohol inspections at a bar in Manassas Park, Va.; to raid bars for
suspected underage drinking in New Haven, Conn.; to perform license inspections
at barbershops in Orlando, Fla.; and to raid a gay bar in Atlanta where police
suspected customers and employees were having public sex. A federal
investigation later found that Atlanta police had made up the allegations of
public sex.
Other raids have been conducted on food co-ops and Amish
farms suspected of selling unpasteurized milk products. The federal government
has for years been conducting raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states
that have legalized them, even though the businesses operate openly and are
unlikely to pose any threat to the safety of federal enforcers.
Radley Balko is a senior writer and investigative reporter
for The Huffington Post. He is also the author of the new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's
Police Forces.
This story has been updated to clarify that a federal
investigation found that the Atlanta police officers who raided a gay bar had
made up the allegations of public sex.
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