Police RAID progressive bookstore in Indianapolis tonight!

[tooncesj0nes]

The Governors conference is meeting in Indianapolis this weekend- a group planning a protest for the conference have noted an increase in police surveilence in the last few weeks- tonight IPD (Indpls police), Fire Marshall, Health department and even ATF agents were present for an 'inspection' of a property where the Solidarity Books group was meeting...Police towed cars, wrote tickets and went through the house without a warrant as did the ATF..approx 20 officers were present. The house is owned by a member of the Inpls Peace and Justice Center..No arrests were made but the Fire marshall (who was actually a reasonable guy) noted some violations. also, the Health Department wrote up the owner of the property for a vacant building he owned next door stating it appeared to 'need demolition- when the owner was informed in the last year by the same Health Department, that his vacant building was in fact in compliance and not in need of demolition. ..several of the Solidarity group members were arrested in the spring during war protests..they were aquitted of all charges...

[DagmarK]

1. Whoa........now this is getting scary......

And it doesn't matter how friendly the fire marshal was. He obviously had been there within a year -- so didn't have any reason to be there except under orders from Herr Asscroft. Not that the fire marshal just shows up anywhere for inspections by "surprise."

This should be considered a HUGE totalitarian event.

They need to be stopped!!!

[G_j]

5. preemptive

arrests have become very popular in the last few years :-(


on edit; :hi:

[Clete]

2. The ATF is the American version of the SS.

A Democratic President and Congress need to do some very deep and thorough housecleaning in this agency. Think about it. Problems that could have been handled without a heavy hand and some intelligence at Ruby Ridge and Waco got blown out of proportion with these cowboy ranger types who are very unprofessional as a policing type of agency.

[tom_paine]

12. No, that's the OHS, Clete

n/t

[Clete]

24. Isn't ATF part of OHS?

So perhaps ATF absorbed into the OHS is the same as the S. A. absorbed into the S. S.. I get your point.

[Cthulu_2004]

28. Heh...careful....

criticizing BEFAT will make some people think you're a Freeper...

They've been out of control for the past 30 years. There was even talk in Congress of totally disbanding the agency, and turning their duties over to the FBI. The FBI was against it, because it would mean accepting BEFAT personnel, who have a really bad reputation for being corrupt.

[berry]

3. Do you think this will be reported in the media? At least locally?

If you think not, I hope you send this to some indy media or bloggers to start getting the word out. This is not beyond belief (given Ashcroft, et al.), but it IS disheartening and infuriating. If they do sweeps like this before the Governors' Conf, think what they'll be doing in NYC for the GOP Convention.

Hope you're OK. Take care.

Edited to say HI! and welcome to DU! :hi:

[G_j]

7. the last GOP convention in Philly

saw preemptive arrests of protest 'puppeteers', and that was before Ashcroft. Of course Tom Ridge was the gov of Pa. then. :shrug:

[tom_paine]

13. Yes, that was a disgrace

And Philly is a Dem town.

[salin]

4. I would love any more information

to pass on to the bloomington peace community. Some folks have done work in the past with the Indi peace and justice center. This would be of great interest.

Thanks for posting.

[tooncesj0nes]

6. news media....

TV ch 8 and 13 was present..the Indpls Star was called..but to my knowledge they werent present when we left (approx 10:45)..a couple Inpls Peace and Justice members were there....should be making the rounds tomorrow..BTW, a peace rally is planeed in Indpls saturday afternnon....

[salin]

19. will try to get some kind of a heads up

locally in the morning if it isn't already there. Thank you, again for your information.

There is a rally this weekend? I believe there is also an event scheduled for the following weekend (made the pipeline down here). Apparently a Nazi group is scheduled to protest downtown (targeting Indy due to the large, porportional, recent latino population growth) and counter events are being planned and staged.

[Pallas180]

8. tell them to do 3 things immediately: have the attendees write notarized

affidavits of what happened;

contact the ACLU immediately;

and contact IN PERSON IF POSSIBLE your democratic congressperson
and Senator....if not also Jay Rockefeller, Ted Kennedy, and
other democratic reps on the House Judiciary and Senate Judiciary
committees (I'm not kidding)and tell them what happened and then
hand them the notarized affidavits.

This government is out of control. These are KGB/Nazi tactics
of intimidation.

[davsand]

9. What reason did they claim to have the IPD and ATF guys there?

I'm not questioning the info at all, but I'm wondering what possible reason the Fire Marshall claimed for bringing the other guys along? If they were there without a warrant, I'd seriously question if this was legal. The property owner could possibly have not allowed them entrance if they didn't have a warrant.

Don't screw around with this, call a lawyer NOW, TONIGHT. If this is as much of a screwup as it sounds, the owner of the bookstore may well have enough of a case to end up owning a BUNCH of bookstores!

Laura

[tooncesj0nes]

10. laura-

my partner, who is an attorney herself, asked the fire marshall why police were present- they stated the policewere there 'to protect the fire marshalls'..but wouldnt say who ordered them there when questioned... my understanding is that attorneys have been contacted tonight.....

[RainDog]

11. I've checked my email

for info...I'm on the P&J mailing list...and I forwarded your info to some journalists with requests for info.

...and welcome to DU.

I don't know if you remember, but Bloomington was the focus of domestic surveillance planes a few months back. They wouldn't fess up till the exact question was asked...they said no, they weren't doing electronic surveillance...but then admitted they were patrolling...looking for...who knows what.

but several people were also visited by the FBI at the time, too.

[Pallas180]

16. What is going on in Bloomington that is drawing the goon squads attention?

protesters? It;'s illegal to protest?

there's no question it was plain harrassment and intimidation.

What the hell were they looking for? Did they say?

Were the cars parked illegally?

This is really an outrage......and should be fought all the
way to the highest court.

Either we have a Constituion or we
dont.

If you need money for legal fees...ask on DU. Maybe
we should make this a DU class action lawauit.

[tooncesj0nes]

17. the Fire marshalll stated...

that he was 'acting on a complaint'...one car that was towed, according to IPD, because he was 'too far from the curb'. The owner of the car was present and was not allowed to correct the situation....

[salin]

20. The claim (as to why B-ton was an early target to surveil)

is the large international student population at Indiana University. And that one person (not a student, if I recall) who was found to pass through the area - was remotely involved with ties to Pakistan and their ties to Afghanistan. I don't recall the details.

[RainDog]

21. haven't seen them for a while

they were surveilling Bloomington via an airplane...don't know if it was more than one.

my neighbor called to find out who was buzzing our city every day and night for days and days, which is how the local newspaper ended up writing about it...my neighbor called them to ask what was up.

various reasons were given...they were looking for people who grow something other than corn...Indiana is a big area for that.

Also, ELF and ALF have been active here...though some people wonder if one so-called ELF attack was self-inflicted by the victim for insurance and political purposes...that's just local rumor.

there definitely was an unsuccessful attack on a poultry place in a poor neighborhood.

I don't think what went on in Indy has any bearing on what was going on in Bloomington, except that Johnny Law around here seems to lean pretty far to the right.

Probably their justification for this thing in Indy was the arrest of a guy back when Bush was here...some claimed he tried to throw a flag, but I don't think the charge stuck.

ATF, though???

[tom_paine]

14. Links! We need links!

Somebody...anybody...?

Keep this baby kicked!

[RainDog]

15. I did a search on the Indy Star

but didn't find anything.

there's a place on the site where you can read the latest police reports, but it relies heavily on Java script and my set up is too luddite for that.

if you or someone you know can access that, you might be able to read it.

Like I said, I've contacted some local journalists who can find out and who will, hopefully, report on this event.

[Pobeka]

18. Original post said this happened in Indy, not Bloomington

Is something else going on in Bloomington?, my parents live there...

[salin]

22. I write from Bloomington

:D

As RainDog indicated there has been some heavy bouts of FBI presence and monitoring here. Purportedly tied to the U. and the international student presence. It has not detered the peace movement, however.

Btw, there are a few Bloomingtonian DUers. If you ever come to visit your parents - let us know maybe we can do coffee somewhere in town!

[RainDog]

23. tangent

no, nothing going on in Bloomington that I know of. I was just thinking about what had gone on earlier in the year, as related above.

[Pobeka]

25. Thanks for the info salin and RainDog

I get back to Bloomington about once a year, I'll give you a "jingle" and see if we can "do coffee". I'm really uninformed about Bloomington politics, and my parents are of the republican bent, but I think they are softening and if I knew what was going on in Bloomington that might help me understand how they view the world. (But that's for another thread, eh?)

[salin]

26. It is indeed

we have our own unique polarized town (worse in the past 8 years). Much of the polarization is around local, not state, national nor international relations. But it could serve to further entrench party affliation (on either side) that penetrates beyond the local context even if that is not logical. And yes it is another thread altogether.

[soup]

30. Got the incident report map to load, but

the dates it covers are 7/23/03 through 8/01/03.

It's a map of a very large area that can be narrowed down to smaller blocks, but unless you know exactly where the incident took place, and it happened between 7/23/03 and 8/01/03, there's nothing to be found there.
for what it's worth (apparently nothing, but future reference), the map can be accessed here: http://arcimsnt1.indygov.org/prod/incident/

[in_cog_ni_to]

27. Ah, yes

John A@@croft's Patriot Act at work.

[ikojo]

29. Same thing happened in St Louis on May 16

For more info go here: http://www.stlimc.org/#raids

There was a protest planned around the World Ag Form that was meeting here in St Louis, the home of Monsanto, in May. There was also an alternative conference, organized by the Gateway Green Alliance, called Biodevastation 7 that took place at Forest Park Community College.

The morning of May 16 the cops raided two buildings in the city of St Louis. One building housed the home of CAMP (Community Arts and Media Project which includes St Louis Indymedia, Food Not Bombs and the Gateway Green Alliance as well as some other activist organizations). Another was a collective called the Bolozone. Both buildings were being rehabbed and up to this point had not experienced any trouble with the "authorities."

Cops took computers, notebooks, journals and other things such as nails (HEAVEN forbid that there be NAILS in a building that is being REHABBED! Oh my goodness!). The owner of the Bolozone house was pulled over when the cops saw him leave the house. In his possession were HIS computers which they promptly took. On the compliant corporate news the cops presented the nails and other tools used for rehab as PROOF that there were going to be RIOTS in the streets of an otherwise empty downtown St Louis.

I should add that the weeks preceeding the World Ag Forum (which is to agriculture and biotechnology what the WTO is to trade) the cops scared downtown workers with visions of "50,000 SEATTLE ANARCHISTS" coming to the fair city of St Louis. E mails were sent to downtown businesses urging them to secure their buildings. Blue Cross Blue Shield which is across the street from where the World Ag Forum was taking place boarded up their windows and erected a barrier.

A group traveling as part of a bicycle circus people was arrested in Tower Grove Park for bicycling without a license. Now this was a little known ordinance that was REMOVED from the books TWO YEARS AGO!

One person was pulled over immediately upon leaving a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce (I think it was the Chamber) and charged with drug possession...the "drug" she had was VITAMIN C pills.

In all approx. 25 or so people were arrested and held for trying to exercise their constitutional rights.

For more info go here: http://www.stlimc.org/#raids