Word of Dallas\’ pokery discontent spreads far … and Chris in Ketchikan, AK, writes in offering his belligerent support:
From: Chris Snyder
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 4:36 AM
To: info@old.pokerati.com
Subject: Jack-Booted ThugsJust found your website….What a bunch of BS you Dallas folks are putting up with. Or not putting up with.
I would encourage your readers to check out a couple of web sites: cato.org and reason.com Reason has some great articles on the new gambling law, and cato has a pertinent booklet I think called Overkill, The Rise of Paramilitary Police Forces. Read that and I think you may come to my conclusion that the SWAT teams are purely after the money.
The study mainly deals with the use of SWAT teams in the prosecution (persecution?) of the drug war, but the basic premise is the same. A city obtains a bunch of surplus military gear to put together a SWAT team and then has to find a way to continue funding the squad. Usually they get a CI to point out a \’drug house\’, obtain a no-knock warrant from a pathetically blase\’ judge, break down a door in the middle of the night, and start making arrests and seizures. Unfortunately, CIs sometimes lie and cops sometimes fuck up. The thing is..even when they fuck up they still often try to seize property. One particular case that sticks in my mind is that of an old grandpa in California. Cops had the wrong house, busted in and shot the old man, found 10K and seized it, then realized they had the wrong house. They kept the money until the guy\’s family could PROVE that it wasn\’t \’drug funds\’.It sounds to me like the Dallas PD has found the ultimate victimless crime to help fund their little war games. And I\’m curious, any reason why a couple of beat cops without attitude couldn\’t have carried out these warrants? Perhaps the Chief thinks it is his job to create dangerous situations instead of protecting and defending. I\’m disgusted, but I\’m in Alaska, and I\’ll be at my neighborhood game tomorrow. Good luck in court and good luck at the tables to y\’all.
Regards,
CKS
Again it\’s a case of agreeing with his sentiment — in America we shouldn\’t have to live in fear of armored semi-soldiers busting into our houses and shooting us for petting our dogs — but I\’m still cautious about pinning the brunt of dismay specifically on the Dallas police. Not only has the \”victimless crime\” rant not worked too well for the prostitutes and druggies, but also … if the problem really is with the DPD, then Dallas as a whole has issues to deal with that go far beyond just poker. And while it\’s quite plausible that being named the #1 crime city in America could put an entire department on tilt, we all know the best way to approach such a situation would be to simply let them knock themselves out.