Monday, January 07, 2008

SWAT team busts in, takes son for checkup.

SWAT officers invade home, take 11-year-old at gunpoint
Cops demand boy go to doctor because of fall during horseplay

This is unreal.

Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team in western Colorado punched a hole in the front door and invaded a family's home with guns drawn, demanding that an 11-year-old boy who had had an accidental fall accompany them to the hospital, on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak.


The paramedics were allowed to see the boy, and found no significant impairment, but wanted to take him to the hospital for an evaluation anyway. Fearing the hospital's bills, the family refused to allow that.


The sheriff said the decision to use SWAT team force was justified because the father was a "self-proclaimed constitutionalist" and had made threats and "comments" over the years.

However, the sheriff declined to provide a single instance of the father's illegal behavior. "I can't tell you specifically," he said.


Can you not tell us because its sooooper seekrit??? Or could it be because he didn't do anything illegal, and was only guilty of making you uncomfortable? I suppose you can't answer that question specifically either...

"He was refusing to provide medical care," the sheriff said.

However, the sheriff said if his own children were involved in an at-home accident, he would want to be the one to make decisions on their healthcare, as did Shiflett.

"I guess if that was one of my children, I would make that decision," the sheriff said.


Wow. Sometimes you just wonder if people can hear themselves talk. You just want to record the conversation, and play it back for them until they understand the deep disconnect in their line of thinking. At least, you HOPE it's a disconnect, and not just a rationalized double standard. "I'm the ONLY ONE qualified to make that kind of decision!"

"While people can debate whether or not the father should have brought his son to the ER – it seems like this was not the kind of emergency that warrants this kind of outrageous conduct by government officials," a spokesman said.


The crux of the issue. Should society be allowed to infringe upon people's rights simply because their choices and decisions make other people uncomfortable. Last I checked, the bill of rights doesn't enumerate those rights for everyone unless you're weird. In fact, that's why we live in a republic, so minorities cannot be oppressed by majorities simply because of numbers. But hey;
"The United States can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..."
~ William Jefferson Clinton, March 1, 1993
There you have it.

"Now I'm hunting for lawyers that will take the case … I'm going to sue everybody whose name was on that page right down to the judge," he said.


Godspeed, from another American who believes in the constitution, and makes "comments."

No comments: