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SWAT Team busts Utah rave; excessive force alleged (Merged)

This is fucked up plain and simple. They just wanted to write some tickets and their fucking egos went wild. I cant believe how outrageous and outright breaking the law went down. I mean they are no better than any drug dealer "Scum" and should be locked up in little cages for how brainwashed and they're "im a cop i am god" thought process. FUCK THEM, in january when I was raided without a warrant and had a gun drawn, and another officer threw me down and placed his foot on my neck. Imagine this though, I stood there with my hands up as they use a key and a tool to take off the chain lock w/ out a warrant.

-Weez
 
I've heard of several sites having trouble keeping the video up and available. If you're still looking for it, try torrent sites.
 
You guys insult Utah alot...but have you ever been there?

I am in Utah for the first time, have toured quite a bit here, and spent most of my time, and currently am in, SLC. Sure, Mormonism is a little weird. But god damn, you should see the city here! SLC is NOTHING like anything out there! I don't believe in god personally, but if anything would, it would be just simply walking down the street here.

There is not a single piece of litter down the street. I mean nothing. Nothing on the street, nothing in the gutter, nothing in the curb corners, not even anything under the bushes. Not even cigarette butts. This may sound like nothing, yea who cares right? But it is simply unbelievable. You have to see SLC to believe it. It is spotless. Crime is extremely low. Everything looks nice. It is simply "God's City".

I am saying this in defense of Utah. Sure, it's a little werid. Mormon is fucking nuts. But you should just see the city they built. The only crime I saw here was some guy getting beat up by a mob because he didn't pick up a tissue he threw at a trash can and missed.

Kidding about the last part! But it is just amazing here.

I know this was an event of brutality. But look at it this way. What happens when the cops get a warrant to raid a drug house? You guys don't find much error their besides the prevailing illegality of the drug in question. This raid on the rave is the same case. It was treated as a "drug house" and was consequently raided. You guys can't tell me that the cops had a reasonable doubt of drugs being there. And, when there's drugs, there's guns. Simple.

Sorry for drugs being illegal, tough luck. Blame the liberals for making those laws back in the day. But you guys shouldn't just start making out the ass comments about LDSers and Utah.
 
the stuff that goes on in our "free" country amazes me. even with all of the propper premits and everything... makes me scared to go out to events.
 
TheLoveBandit said:
I've heard of several sites having trouble keeping the video up and available. If you're still looking for it, try torrent sites.



i have also noticed this what is up with that they cant really hope to sweep this completely under the carpet or can they ?

fuck yes they can they will go to court and be found not guilty of brutality even though we have seen the video that shows that way more force than was necessary to" protect people" was used

welcome to america land of the free:(
 
I just called and left 2 messages on the police dept's answering machine. What a suprise , I couldn't get thru to anybody! I urge everyone to leave a message on the answering machine, the least I can do is piss them off.
 
I lived in utah for 18 years. In a lot of ways it is an amazing state, but in instances like this, it is one of the worst. The one mindedness of 70% of the population is completely unreal; every public highschool in the state lets the students take one period off per day to walk across the street to study mormonism in "semenary". The school board even reduced the science requirement so that students could fit it into their scheduals (when they stoped counting it as credit).

I considered sending letters to public officials and news outlets..after reading a couple of the local news reports and considering the nature of the public officials, I decided to not waste my time.

Our only hope (in this instance) is to make them listen with a slew of damaging lawsuites.
peas
 
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Update: Rave Raid by Local Newspaper

I've never contributed an article before, but here goes. I am currently on vacation in Utah, and I am very close to where this happened. It is a big issue in the papers. Just not as big as when the president came by, or the brother with a sword getting shot by his brother, or the sewage system flooding 19 houses because someone put a dog in the sewer...but hey, it still makes news. So on with the story.

---------------------------------------------------

Source: The Salt Lake Tribute: UTAH page B2 (#1 local paper)
Author: Connie Coyne (Reader Advocate...whatever that means)

http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_2978214

Edit; link added - Skyline

Rave raid coverage shows incremental story development

A story in Monday's Tribune about a police raid in Utah County on a rave party drew more than 200 e-mails and phone calls from people angry over the report.

One male reader sent the following e-mail, which was typical of much of the reader response:
" I sent an e-mail to the reporter who wrote the story about the paramilitary-style invasion of the dance party a couple of days ago, and cc'd you. I have not received a response from anyone at the paper, nor have I seen a correction in the paper regarding the story. As I stated in my original e-mail, the lead was inaccurate in stating as fact that the rave was illegal. My understanding is that it was established at the time the story was written that there were illegal activities going on at the rave, but that whether the rave itself was illegal (i.e. had the correct permits) was beign disputed.
" The writer appears to have passed off police allegations as fact, instead of following a basic rule of journalism, which is to note that something is an allegation when it is just that."

Probably the opening paragraph of the Monday story should have read:
"About 60 people were arrested Saturday night when police officers busted what they said was an illegal rave in Spanish Fork Canyon."

Police in Utah County still maintain they believe the rave was illegal because, although the promoter had a mass gathering permit from the Utah County Health Department, he did not have a mass gathering permit from the county that requires a bond and the approval of the County Commission.

Now let's get to the "about the paramilitary-style invasion of the dance party" section of the e-mail. Police departments are paramilitary organizations - especially a special weapons and tactics (SWAT) unit. Any police raid on a large gathering of people is going to resemble to a certain extent a military raid.

Finally, let's talk about putting together a story - on a Sunday - about a police raid that occurred late Saturday night. Unless one has a tape of the raid - which several of the local TV stations and The Tribune ultimately obatined - there is only one source to rely on for initial reports: the paperwork filed by the law enforcement officers who made the raid. That is the source used by reported Michael Westley for the first story that appeared on Monday.

Both Brent Israelsen and Sheila McCann, the editors who supervise the cops and courts news desk, concur that digging up such information on a Sunday often is a tall order. Neither of them felt the Monday story warranted a correction.

Executive Editor Tom Baden agreed, but he stressed that readers critical of the story had raised an important point: It's the responsibility of The Tribune, or any newspaper, to vigorously check information from the police - no matter when an incident occurs.

On Tuesday, The Tribune did just that, publishing a follow-up story in which several people who attended the rave said that police used excessive force in the raid.

Partygoers interviewed for the Tuesday story said that officers beat people to the ground, used weapons to intimidate the crowd and used excessive profanity in ordering the crowd to leave. All of those allegations were denied in the Tuesday story by one of the officers at the raid who reviewed amateur videotapes of the raid.

Teens as young as 16 were arrested during the raid, according to police.

The bottom line to all of this discussion is this: Many news stories are incremental and develop over a number of days as reporters have better access to information and to more sources of comment. The difference between the Monday and Tuesday stories illustrates the incremental nature.

The Tribune will continue to cover news on weekends to the best of reporters' and editors' abilities. If initial stories on Sundays or mondays require follow-up stories with more information and nuance, then those stories will also be gathered.

This Week's Stats

200 Complaints about "rave raid" story.
 
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Now my comment (I didn't want to mix up article and personal comment). The police seemed to have raided this rave because it was illegal, as mentioned in italics. Is sending a full force SWAT team just because a mass gathering doesn't have the right permit a bit excessive? Perhaps. But you can't tell me that the cops had a reasonable doubt that drugs would be there. And cops take the position "where there are drugs, there are guns" which holds true, especially to dealers (if you are a dealer and say I'm wrong....stop).

Think of this as a large scale drug bust, with the permit being the legal gateway for the cops to execute this. Not much to complain now is there... And as for excessive force, yes, you may say "well cops will always say they aren't forceful". Well, people who hate cops or rubbed the wrong way, are obviously going to tilt toward a bad side of cops. Even you guys who say "cops are always brutal!" are living proof of such slander.

I'm not saying force didn't happen. But it was justified. These cops are on the lookout for dealers with guns, and you scraping your knee is the last thing they care about.

Oh, and there were a few other "This Week's Stats". That was the only one that pertained to this article though.
 
Correction people. This rave WAS illegal. I posted an article updating the subject from a newspaper you must be familiar with Jimmy the Gun, the Salt Lake Tribune.
 
^^^
Did they really need a swat team and the national guard with fucking ASSAULT RIFLES to break it up?!? Doesnt a raid like that take more than short notice to set up? Looks like they were planning that for days. Could of just asked the promoter? That was some soviet style shit there
 
CreativeRandom said:
Yes. Drugs and Guns come hand in hand. Better safe than sorry.

Yeah, I've never been in a cuddlepuddle where I didn't feel cold steel on most of the participants 8)

--- G.
 
that has to be the most fucced up thing i've ever seen! that was completely uncalled for and utterly unnecessary.
 
What is this world coming to? Not to get all plurry, as another poster put it, but DAAAMN. This is so FUCKED UP. Why can't people leave each other alone, live and let live, or even better, actually LOVE their fellow human?! I'd be crying if I wasn't reading this at school.

I'm starting to have no faith in the human race anymore.
Sad, sad day.
 
who takes a gun to a rave. honestly. that's just stupid.

what we're facing here are issues of social justice, excessive force, and military attacks on civilians (aka terrorism). but then this is Utah - the land of conservative gun toting mormons and violent speedcore. so i guess the rave culture is different over there, especially in a state where civil liberties are a thing of the future and don't belong in the past.
 
Just another reason why I hate the country I took a bullet for!!!!! Also, another reason I'm looking to relocate to australia. Wish me luck!=D
 
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