FBI agents and police turned the entire village of of Armada, Michigan into a checkpoint last night, interrogating every driver who attempted to enter or leave the town and then marking ones who had been grilled with an ‘X’ on their hand.
Authorities took a blanket approach to the search for clues about 14-year-old April Millsap, who was found murdered in a wooded area last week.
With Michigan state police complaining about the fact that tips in the case have “dried up,” officers and agents occupied areas of the town between 5pm and 8pm last night, blocking off the main road and other routes before going “car by car” and quizzing every driver.
Pictures from ABC 7 showed huge tailbacks with cars “backed up for miles.” Armada township Police Chief Howard Smith defended the action, saying it was a necessary measure to find clues about the case by stopping cars driving in the vicinity of where the murder took place at the same time.
“It looked like a roadblock, but it was what police call a rolling canvas,” reported Local 4 News, adding that “swarms of police” covered three checkpoints.
A local group protested the move, asserting that the roadblock was unconstitutional and not backed up by probable cause. The group, which was not named in the ABC 7 report, planned to read both the federal and state constitution to the police chief.
“This is the second time in recent years that police have imposed what amounts to an mass investigative detention as part of a crime investigation,” writes William Norman Grigg, pointing to a similar approach after a June 2012 bank robbery in in Aurora, Colorado where everyone within the vicinity of the bank was placed in handcuffs.
Dear Helot,
It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system.
And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
From: Author of The Moon Is Down – J. Steinbeck – Quotes
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_steinbeck.html
I had to look up the meaning of, ‘concomitants’.
I know so much, …but I know so little. (The guys and girls noticing my gammer errors are nodding their heads in the background, ha!)
Anyway, thanks for the link, Tor.
That is correct! We believe that all of the world’s problems could be solved thru the use of humor. I had the pleasure of serving the Republic as its Army Commanding General. Our Secretary General Sir Peter Anderson recently passed and a memorial was held for him over this past weekend–in true Conch Republic style!!
Harry53 wrote, “I had the pleasure of serving the Republic as its Army Commanding General.”
Better to know, than to not. ?
My satisfaction is, … that you know. Now.
Also, Welcome to the ranks of Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
War Is a Racket
But then, you knew that.
Similar situation in the Florida Keys in 1982. Feds set up a roadblock on US1–the only road into and out of the Keys. Claimed they were looking for illegals. Guess they must’ve been pretty small, because Feds were looking in glove boxes for them and under the vehicles. Tourism in the region suffered. KW Mayor pleaded with government to halt the roadblock. Govt refused. Mayor sued in Fed Court and lost. Asked what he would do now, he replied, “if the U.S. is going to treat us like a 3rd World country, they we shall become one.” The next day, the Florida Keys seceded from the U.S., formed the Conch Republic, declared war on the U.S., immediately surrendered and asked for war reparations. The CR is still waiting… But, the effect was tremendous. The CR now has its own passports, which I have used to travel to other surrounding islands. We also raised our own “military” forces and celebrate our “independence” every April with a “battle” against those evil govt forces and a huge drinking celebration. Ah, the Keys. Miss them so much. Looking for form the Western Territories of the Republic out in Arizona now…
Conch Republic flag motto:
“We seceded where others failed.:
http://www.conchrepublic.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic
http://conchrepublicgrill.com
http://www.conchrepublicseafood.com
RE: ““if the U.S. is going to treat us like a 3rd World country, [then] we shall become one.”.
I was aghast at the digital signs, and the messages on them, on the roads leading into Key West. Prison-town, anyone?
Yes, ‘The Moon Is Down’.
The unitedstate is an occupied nation. …Same as all the rest?
They really do pick and choose sympathetic stories to make their advances in power and the clovers just lap it up.
Hi Brent,
Yup. It’s defeating to see so many people just passively accept it. Worse, many of them cheer it.
You got that right Eric, the Clovers actually cheer their jailers. I’m still sickened by the response in my neighborhood to the martial law imposed on us after the Boston Marathon bombing last year, these saps actually cheered the costumed thugs for locking them in their houses and then rousting them at gunpoint to (totally illegaly) search their homes. My favorite part was the cop who got shot and almost bled to death was shot by his fellow thugs who were running wild down the street firing at anything that moved; that little detail was on the back page of the lamestream media and then quickly shoved down the memory hole.
Also interesting to note that the cops are so incompetent they can’t even do real police work anymore, such as actual investigation into the murder. All they can do is what they excell at – unconstitutionally harassing an entire town, just because they can. effing parasites, every one!
I probably wouldn’t put up a fight if I got caught in that. I would politely mock them.
Pulling up to the checkpoint they greet me… I respond: “Heil Obama!” They ask for my license and insurance card, I get them, hand it to them, and ask, “Are my papers in order, comrade?” I’ll play the game mocking them every step of the way and there is precious little they can do about it because I am complying. Ridicule has power. maybe more power than defiance.
Do it with a Schwarzenegger accent BrentP – and call the cop “Boris”.. 😉
RE: “Ridicule has power.”
I think it’s Very minimal,… and often temporary.
Have you ever read a story, or heard in the local gossip line how some cop quit the force due to ‘ridicule’?
Me neither.
I’d have a field day with this. Hope that group gets bigger and files a class action. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a false flag operation, however I bet many were booked for outstanding fines or suspended licenses etc. Yep. Let’s raise revenue while we’re clueless about the actual crime, if there was one, there’s no Corpus Delicti yet.
Hi Rev,
In my youth – all of 20-something years ago – this sort of thing would not have been possible. Legally, speaking. Because citizens were not (yet) subject to dragnet-style random stops absent individualized suspicion. One could have quite literally told the cop: Fuck off. You’ve got nothing on me. I’m leaving. And done so. With the law on your side.
Today, thanks to the Volksgerichsthof (Supreme Court) the cops can stop people at random, dragnet style, without even the pretense of individualized suspicion – and if you refuse to comply, they can and will do awful things to you. With the law on their side.
When I was a kid Eric, there was a prison escapee seen in our country district at the time. Cops were checking the boot (trunk) of every car. I’m OK with that, but a full interrogation on the side of the road is way past my limit.
If they open the boot and supposedly find something they’d like to hang you with, like an axe, tell them it’s not the prisoner they’re looking for.
An axe? No shit? What about lawnmower blades? Machetes? Think Billy Bob “Yeah, I saw that prisoner…..reckon I used that slingblade on him”. You gonna take me back to the horsepital?
EightSouth –
You forget that in the Gulag Americana, having a baseball bat without a ball and glove indicates it is a weapon.
A screwdriver is a tool for burglary.
And a crowbar, or hammer, without other tools?
Etc.
ANYTHING and EVERYTHING is illegal, IF they say it is.
Why we need to be pre-emptive. We remove even the benign tumors when possible…
RE: “Cops were checking the boot (trunk) of every car. I’m OK with that,”
Oh crap! A supposed anarchist such as You says that?
…We *Are* fucking doomed.
You seem really cool in most every instance, ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N. But in this one, I hate to say it, you come across as a pussy bootlicker not so different from all the rest of the brain-dead zombies who populate the world.
Once you give in to that, a full interrogation on the side of the road is inevitable.
Yeesh, “tell them it’s not the prisoner they’re looking for”?
You’re already long past that at that point. You’re theirs. And you gave yourself up to them. Willingly. …It’s sickening.
I’m shocked that you don’t see it.
Rev has consistently advocated standing up to the praetorians in other circumstances. I suspect he would be aghast at what passes for law enforcement in the unitedState.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_Australia
RE: “Rev has consistently advocated standing up to the praetorians in other circumstances.”
Which is Why I Was So Shocked To Read His Words.
But yeah, I too suspect he would be aghast at what passes for law enforcement in the unitedState.
The professors in college ( those who seemed to be not so-corrupted) told us in the 1980’s that the corruption south of the border would reach us.
I guess their words went in one ear and out the other?