Highland Park apartment raided (spraypainting = terrorism)

[JackieO]

HIGHLAND PARK — Tom Howard and a couple of friends were on their way to a barbecue Saturday evening when they found themselves in the midst of an apparent counter-terrorism investigation.

...In the hours that followed, a squad of officers from the State Police Counter-Terrorism Bureau would arrive, clad in bulletproof vests and helmets and armed with assault rifles. They would secure the second-floor apartment where one of Howard's fellow barbecue-goers, Ted Nebus, lived, and keep Nebus, Howard, and three others in detention on the porch as a crowd of neighbors gathered outside to watch, Howard said.

...the search did not end until the early hours of yesterday. By then, Howard said, Nebus' apartment had been thoroughly searched by a forensics team. Investigators removed Nebus' computer, containing his master's thesis on labor relations, Howard said, and signs advocating animal rights, said Dan O'Donnell, who owns and lives in the building.

...O'Donnell said he has rented to the couple for at least two years, noting that they are a positive influence on his 6-year-old son. Since Saturday night, he added, he's had to explain to his frightened son why police entered their home with weapons to investigate people he knew.

"For allegedly spray-painting, they sent a SWAT team," Howard said.


MORE:
http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050725/NEWS/507250376/1001

[Jim Sagle]

1. Why do you hate our freedoms?

;)

[kestrel91316]

2. Well I hope they did the prudent thing and ..........................

shot all those baggy pants kids in the head, just to play it safe. Terra, ya know.

[JackieO]

3. it's a school teacher

from the article:

"It's like if you saw one of those hyped-up movies, except you replace the Hollywood stereotype of the evil terrorist with the people who actually live there," Howard said. "And it's a woman who is a school teacher, who's an art teacher at a school who weighs 100 pounds soaking wet, and her husband, who is a grad student studying labor relations."

Angelillo belongs to an animal-rights group that protests Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British drug-testing firm that uses animals in laboratories in Franklin. But O'Donnell said the couple could hardly be considered violent.

"They're pacifists," he said. "They protest for peace."

[ugarte]

4. Sue, sue, sue

I wish I was their lawyer.

[Bozita]

5. Now how many taxpayer-funded man hours are tied into this "investigation"?

This kinda shit really makes my blood boil.

Working on a post-graduate degree in labor studies?

Definitely terra-ist material.

[mcscajun]

6. So now they're sending SWAT Teams to stifle free speech?

Hard to tell from the article, because details aren't being released "pending further investigation", but it sounds like the most these people can be charged with is vandalism if they actually spray-painted protest slogans on something other than a sign.

Very dangerous people those spray-paint-can wielders. Must go after them with heavy firepower and flak vests. Right. :sarcasm:

It's getting truly scary 'round here.

:scared:

[Bemis]

7. I love the double standards here......

A small group spray paints a corporate property and they get raided by the State Police. They are considered animal rights TERRORISTS.

Gangs in Trenton spray paint all over the place, mostly residences and small business, several shootings a week, and they get Community patrols. The police in Trenton have been fighting a major gang problem. But they are still just considered GANGS, not terrorists.

Obviously, the State's first concern is the corporation.

[Reverend_Smitty]

8. Yeah it's funny how a gang is not considered a terrorist group...

the gang problem is starting to get out of hand in Trenton, but it's good to see that those pesky animal rights activists are off the streets...I can sleep well tonight :sarcasm: