Police state New Jersey: Gop fascism

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Written By Ted Lang

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As evidence grows attesting to the fascist police state agenda at the national level orchestrated by Bush and the GOP faction of America’s single political party, GOP fascism is occurring in yet another Republican stronghold: Morris County, New Jersey. I have written literally dozens of articles on my home state of New Jersey, and have always pointed out that it is easily the most corrupt state in America. More than a half dozen Gannett-owned newspapers recently ran a series on the unbelievable political corruption and cronyism in the Garden [of Evil] State, and in spite of this, nothing has basically changed.

Fostered by this high-level of political corruption, New Jersey’s auto insurance rates, as well as its property tax burden, are the highest in the nation. The state was able to get by without an income tax until 1976, at which time a collectivist governor and a collectivist NJ Supreme Court engineered “legislation” that mandated the Marxist structuring of a progressive income tax to fund “poorer” school districts via richer ones. Naturally, as politicians are now eager to dodge being labeled as “tax and spend liberals” evidenced by their “need” to continuously raise taxes on income, their alternative is to either borrow or spend through bonding issues or to increase the real estate property taxes on private property and homes.

Reflecting upon the increasing lawlessness and un-American fascism of the GOP at the national level, the corruption ascribable to New Jersey is directed mostly at the Democrats because New Jersey is a Democratic state. But wealthy Morris County, in the middle of the northwestern part of the state, is decidedly Republican. The distinction between true conservatism and neo-conservative police state fascism is lost on the residents and taxpayers of Morris County. And just as is the case with fans of neoconservative talk radio and TV hosts favoring one party over another, in spite of the reality that there really is only one monopoly political party instead of two, citizens of Morris County have been lulled to sleep by these MSM shills for Bush via their statist propaganda and prattle.

Of primacy in America, the stated first constitutional objective of our national government is the concept of justice. The Bill of Rights was created by those anti-Federalist Founders as a check against what they then recognized as being a grave and inherent weakness in the body of the Constitution itself; namely, that the rule of law of the land could be twisted and abused by immoral political leaders putting themselves and their supporters first as opposed to the interests of the people and the nation’s rule of law. The Bill of Rights served as the people’s freedom safety net.

As I had written earlier, laws based not upon justice, but rather only upon the police powers of political authority and their most popular member in power, in no way serve the best and common interests of the people. The political State only serves itself, thereby converting laws to weapons of oppression. It is thus fitting to recognize the State of New Jersey as yet another example of the festering sore of the American police state at this lower level of legitimacy, recognizing fascist authority borne of the immorality, corruption and the injustices of its political leaders.

It was New Jersey that first allowed semi-automatic military pistols for its police. And conversely, it is New Jersey that has the strictest gun control laws in the nation. New Jersey’s previous full-time Democratic governor resigned in disgrace, as did the Republican acting governor that immediately preceded him. And in response to Rush Limbaugh’s question, “Have you lost any freedoms yet?” New Jersey establishes yet another first, and in the GOP county of Morris. Limbaugh’s devotion to anything the Bush regime establishes as “law” includes the Bill of Rights-destroying USA PATRIOT Act.

Leave it to the most corrupt state in America to provide examples in the affirmative. Most consumers of truthful factual news reporting, those relying upon the Alternative Media as opposed to the MSM, will easily recall the December 29, 2004 offense of one David W. Banach, of Parsippany, New Jersey, in Morris County. Banach is the individual who wanted to demonstrate to his seven-year-old daughter the reach of a hand-held laser. He pointed it at a low-flying private Cessna jet passing over his house on final approach to Teterboro. Banach’s actions were less than clever but probably perpetrated without deliberate or malicious intent to do harm. His actions can be best described as just plain stupid.

Federal prosecutor, Christopher J. Christie, a career GOP politician and a rising star in GOP politics in his home base of Morris County, once had his eye on the New Jersey governorship. He distinguished himself in GOP circles by targeting former Democratic Governor James McGreevey’s top fundraiser, millionaire Charles Kushner, whom he convicted of income tax fraud and obstructing a federal investigation. Kushner’s conviction contributed to McGreevey’s disgrace and eventual resignation from office. Christie has again distinguished himself as a GOP player, this time by applying Bush’s USA PATRIOT Act to a non-terrorist crime.

This is, of course, the most dangerous aspect of the PATRIOT Act. History continually confirms that once the political State grants itself powers to expand its continuing infringements upon the freedoms and rights of its citizens, it will eventually abuse those powers and expand them greatly. Banach did commit a crime, whether he intended to or not. But by no stretch of the imagination, even the questionable imagination of a deranged federal prosecutor, can Banach’s actions be described as a terrorist act. Did he intend to cause the plane to crash? Was he involved in a conspiracy? What foreign terrorist group or nation did he belong to? It is painfully clear that no terrorist act could even remotely be ascribed to his seemingly unplanned and unintended criminal act.

Yet Christie, ever wishing to serve the greater interests of his own political ascendancy and the continuing success of his political party’s masters, conned Banach and his lawyer into a plea bargaining arrangement thereby hoping to obtain a conviction and the required precedent needed for the Bush administration to wield the power of the USA PATRIOT Act at will. And this power will be employed not only against actual potential terrorists, but virtually against any citizen that the American political State and its rulers see as a political threat to its power and authority. Either a citizen is with the Bush administration, or they are a traitor and therefore a terrorist for their dissent! Christie has established the legal precedent, manipulating Banach’s lawyer by promising to allow Banach to go free and avoid prison if he confesses to a terrorist act as covered by the USA PATRIOT Act.. The avoidance of Banach’s incarceration would probably have been the outcome anyway had the focus of his defense been on intent, but it is Christie’s intent that is criminal. Where in these proceedings has justice been considered?

On Sunday, November 20, 2005, 400 police were busily arresting 110 individuals and impounding and confiscating 60 vehicles in a coordinated sweep targeting an illegal drug operation in Morris County. Considering the salaries and pension benefits of police nowadays, it is clear this was not only a massive police operation but a highly costly one as well for the taxpayers and citizens. Morris County Prosecutor Michael M. Rubbinaccio and his Chief of Investigations, Joseph Devine, led the police sweep involving 31 local police departments and elements of federal drug and immigration enforcement officers. And as always, a government-coordinated action needs a code name. This one was termed “Operation Bulldog.”

Why are drugs illegal? What business is it of the American political State if its citizens wish to use drugs? Sherlock Holmes, even though a fictional character, used drugs, with seemingly no detrimental effect on either his vocation or violin virtuosity. Isn’t it possible that Doyle himself was a user? And what of star athletes, or actors, or musicians, or Rush Limbaugh? Why should drug usage be a crime? And what president of the American political State openly declared a “War on Drugs,” before he was charged with abuse of power and faced impeachment for corruption? It would seem that the more corrupt a state and/or its politicians, the more is the need for the State to employ the weapon of unjust laws to regulate morality in each of us. And it is these draconian laws that actually increase the availability of drugs, increase their street price, and promote crime and murder, and cause drug abuse amongst our school children. It is the best example of the State creating competition amongst fellow criminals.

Caught up in the furor of Morris County’s “Operation Bulldog” was 41-year-old Fernando López and his companion Pilar Peña. The day before the big drug bust, and probably as part of the preliminary arrest activity to round up targeted “snitches” to facilitate the massive arrests, Rubbinaccio’s office issued an arrest warrant for a Carlos Acevedo-Vral. The address on the warrant and on the envelope containing it was Apartment 1, 28 West Blackwell Street, Dover, New Jersey.

But overzealous police officers made a mistake in their massive efforts to protect and serve the public. They hit López’s apartment instead. According to an article in the Morris County Daily Record of November 23rd by reporter Maria Armental entitled, “Dover residents seek apology for drug raid mix-up,” Armental reports: “Fernando López and Pilar Peña woke up early Saturday morning to the sounds of police officers pounding on their apartment door. ‘Open the door, police,’ López recalls their screams. It was about 4:45 a.m. ‘At first, I thought there was a fire,’ López said. López said he hastily put on a large shirt and rushed to the door thinking officers were alerting neighbors to evacuate the building.”

Armental continues López’s account: “‘When I opened the door, they pushed me against the (kitchen) wall and they put their guns to my head,’ López said. ‘One of the officers was wearing a uniform. The other two were dressed in plain clothes,’ he said.”

Armental goes on: “López said one officer remained with him, keeping his gun to López’s head at all times, which prevented López from seeing what was happening behind him. The other two officers proceeded into the apartment, searching through the closets, living room, bathroom, and bedroom, where Peña remained still unclothed, only protected by the bed covers. The officers, they said, never allowed them to put on any clothes. Peña said they started questioning her, asking her who López was and about their relationship. López and Peña said the officers never identified themselves nor did they show a search warrant for the apartment.”

The three “law enforcement” officers continued to harass the innocent couple, clearly putting them in fear for their lives. Innocently believing that a fire had broken out, causing not only the loud and urgent shouts from the police that early in the morning, but having caused López and Peña to conclude also that police were going from apartment to apartment in order to save lives, they hastily opened the door. Instead of helping them, the police were there and terrorized these innocent people with fully-loaded and cocked semi-automatic military pistols, treating them as they would the most dangerous and heavily-armed criminals deserving of such.

Eventually, Lopez was lucky enough to notice the address on the envelope. He advised the three police officers that they were at 28 East Blackwell Street, and not 28 West Blackwell Street. After he pointed this out, here is the account of the actions of these professional officers according to Armental’s article: “‘I told them it was the wrong address and the officer turned to the other officer and said, ‘Oh, my God.’ And they left,’ López said. Peña said one of the officers, of Hispanic descent, told them ‘they had to be aggressive because they were looking for someone believed to be very dangerous.’ Peña and López said they asked them to identify themselves, and as they left the third officer who had fallen behind simply told them, ‘Call the Attorney General’s Office.’ ‘The entire ordeal,’ López and Peña said, lasted approximately 10 to 15 minutes. ‘But it was so horrible. It seemed interminable,’ López said. ‘Wouldn’t you be scared if you had three guns to your head?’”

Now for the response, not from the three police involved, but from the government official in charge of their activities and responsible for their behavior and actions: “The Morris County Prosecutor’s Office, in charge of the pre-dawn, multi-county drug sweep, is investigating López’s allegations,” writes Armental. “Joseph A. Devine, chief of investigations of the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office, said officers apparently went to 28 E. Blackwell Street, Apt. 1. They did not have a search warrant, just an arrest warrant, for Carlos Acevedo-Vral of 28 W. Blackwell Street, Apt. 1. After the initial misunderstanding, López pointed officers in the right direction, resulting in the arrest of Acevedo-Vral. ‘There is always a possibility that a mistake like this can happen when you do an operation of this size,’ Devine said. ‘Probable as it may be, it is still unacceptable,’ Devine added, referring to the apparent address confusion.”

Following this incident of police state terror, reporter Armental, in her November 22nd article, published they day before the aforementioned account, offered this: “The tenant in the ‘wrong’ apartment, Fernando López, 41, complained that three officers, one in uniform and two dressed as civilians, somehow got into his building, knocking on his apartment door, the first door to the right, and ordered him to open the door.” The key operative words are, of course, “somehow got into his building.” Why are these key? Because they allude to two conditions peculiar to that address.

First, as is the case with many apartment house buildings, in order to enter the building you must be “buzzed” in. To be buzzed in, you must look for the apartment number of the resident whom you are seeking, usually identified by the name and apartment number of the resident, and probably placed atop each resident’s mailbox. Upon identifying the name and apartment number, the visitor must ring the bell or buzzer, announce his or her name, and the resident will depress a button that allows entry to the apartment house lobby. This would explain the phrase that police “somehow got into the building.” An emergency in the building, such as a fire, would probably cause police to call for the landlord to unlock the building. And that of course would be acceptable, IF there was either a real emergency, or if the police had a properly executed search warrant and not an arrest warrant.

If the police in this case had spoken to the landlord and mentioned the party to be arrested and for whom they had an arrest warrant, the landlord, in all likelihood, familiar with his tenants’ names, even at that early hour, would have told them that no one with that name was living there. It is indeed, therefore, very curious as to how these police got into the building such that López quickly opened the door for them. Considering these facts, let’s now compare the answers given for this dangerous foul-up by the “government official” in charge.

In her article of November 22nd entitled “Did officers enter the wrong home?” Armental relates: “‘The three-member team that went to the Blackwell Street address,’ Devine said, included a federal, a state and a local officer.’ There was no one present from the Prosecutor’s Office, though they were under Devine’s command. ‘And therefore, I take full responsibility,’ Devine said.” Sound familiar? It is a repeat of the Janet Reno pronouncement after the Waco massacre of American citizens to promote government terrorism targeting gun owners. She took full responsibility, but received no penalties or punishment for massacring 81 human beings.

As regards Chief of Investigations Devine’s comments relating to the jurisdictional makeup of the raiding police officers, one Devine termed as being a “local officer,” here’s the comment from Dover Police as reported by Armental in her later article: “Dover Capt. Robert Kerwick said his department was never notified of the arrest warrants and was not involved in the operation, contradicting Devine’s earlier comments that the three-officer team that was dispatched to the West Blackwell Street address was comprised of one federal, one state, and one local officer. ‘I want to be perfectly clear that there was no Dover police officer involved in that (case) whatsoever,’ Kerwick said. Kerwick said normally, the Prosecutor’s Office would notify the local department. ‘If we were involved in this operation maybe they wouldn’t end up in the wrong address,’ Kerwick said. Devine said officers were issued ‘knock and announce’ search warrants. In the case of 28 W. Blackwell St., they only had an arrest warrant for Acevedo-Vral.”

Obviously, someone is lying! Chief Devine offers that local police were involved – they say they were not! They say they weren’t even informed of the Saturday morning raid on López’s apartment. However, Devine’s comments are not only curious in this aspect of the incident; here’s another: “‘The officers did not force their way in,’ Devine said, noting López had let the officers into the building.”

Now compare this statement to the analogy and hypothesis given before. Armental’s first quote of López citing a possible fire, and being curious as to how else the police could already be at his apartment door that early in the morning, furthers discrepancies in Devine’s explanation. He offers that López let them in of his own free will, completely glossing over the fact that this wasn’t possible in terms of building security, and nullifies as well the contention that police used a “knock and announce” means to gain entry to the apartment.

These are the crimes these three from some jurisdictions’ finest are guilty of:

 

    1. The felony crime of ADW [Assault with a deadly weapon]. To commit assault against another, it must be shown that intended physical harm was demonstrated towards the victim, and that the victim believed he was indeed going to be harmed and was put in morbid fear for his life.

 

    1. Illegal entry. Actually, if any burglary tool, credit card or other lock-picking device were used, it should be considered “breaking and entering.”

 

    1. Illegal search and seizure. Clearly, no warrant was in the possession of the three police terrorists to permit a search of López’s apartment.

 

  1. Failing to identify themselves appropriately as police. If it is illegal for a citizen to impersonate an officer, then why should it be legal for officers to shield their identity as being such?

It should be clear from the foregoing incident that the police, the enforcement elements of the lower echelons of the American political State, are extremely dangerous and deadly individuals. And their bureaucratic bosses aren’t any better, whether it’s a Reno, a Rubbinaccio, a Christie, or a Devine. Bureaupoliticians are legitimized terrorists and organized gangsters. And the more crimes Bush and his mignons on both sides of the single monopoly American political State party get away with, the more will be the unjust imprisonment of innocent individuals in the State’s gulags, prisons and torture chambers.

The inadvertent and stupid crime of a David Banach, a crime where no harm was intended, pales by comparison to the intended terrorism of Rubbinaccio and Devine’s three professional, potential killer goons, who showed their utter contempt, if not an outright hatred, for their victims. The López incident is a far cry from the days of 1950s-style “Dragnet” and “The Line-up” police shows aired on television in the not-to-distant past, where service to the public and protection of the vulnerable were uppermost in virtually every police officer’s psychological and professional make-up.

It was “Howie-the Cop,” the NYPD traffic officer and crossing guard for school children at the dangerous intersection of Northern Boulevard at Murray Street that signed my grammar school album upon graduation. And it was this officer that was always the first line of inquiry we had to get past before our parents on report card day. He was our friend. Or it was the two NYPD cops who made the lifesaving decision to rush my father to Flushing Hospital in their patrol car after a near-fatal auto crash. This dedication and loyalty to the American public is now forever lost.

Our police are no longer our police. Police earn higher salaries and enjoy more generous pensions and benefits than ever before. They now enjoy pay and benefits beyond that of the average American worker. As the American political State exports average workers’ jobs overseas via GATT, NAFTA and CAFTA, thereby giving large American corporations huge breaks on their income statements allowing magnificent reductions in their largest expense items, namely wages and salaries, the American political State has commandeered local sovereignty and brought it under the heel of the central State. And as corporations, on an increasing basis, transfer their operations overseas to avoid the American political State’s income taxes, a greater tax burden will be shifted onto an American worker that is even more hard pressed to pay them and worries constantly about the security of his continued employment. Corporate loyalty is yet another casualty of the political State!

In a word, the problem we now face with our increasingly dangerous police is “federalism.” Our local police are becoming federalized. Complying with federal drug and immigration laws, police apply for equipment and financial grants from the federal government secured by the binding chains of obedience to federal mandates to secure these bureaucratic favors. Police of America are being challenged by the feds: Police of America, unite! Secure your chains to Washington, and we the rulers will serve and protect you. If anyone still thinks the Second Amendment has something to do with only the police, the military, and their national guards and reserves, you will soon find out why you were totalitarianly wrong!

Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”

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