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Why we needed Ron Paul: SWAT team raids a food co-op
Posted by Paul Mulshine December 06, 2008 11:28AM
Around this time last year, Ron Paul was making a run for the Republican nomination for president on a platform of cutting the federal government down to size and restoring freedom.
One of the many issues on which he dissented from the Beltway oligarchy was on the issue of raw milk: It's none of the government's business if you want to drink milk that hasn't been pasteurized, said Ron
In that regard, take a look at this blog entry. It was sent to me by one of my real (as opposed to "neo") conservative readers, Larry Farrell of the Gun Owners of New Jersey.FULL STORY.
"On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized."
I couldn't believe what I was reading. A SWAT TEAM holding a family at gun point in their own home over a food Cooperative? So I followed the links in the first Blog article to the second one.
Swat Team Conducts Food Raid In Rural Ohio
On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years.FULL STORY.
There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly supicious-looking .
Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.
This same type of abusive search and seizure was reported by those innocents who fell victim to oppressive federal drug laws passed in the 1990s. The present circumstance raises the obvious question: is there some rabid new interpretation of an existing drug law that considers food a controlled substance worthy of a nasty SWAT operation? Or worse, is there a previously unrecognized provision(s) pertaining to food in the Homeland Security measures? Some have suggested that it was merely an out-of-control, hot-to-trot ODA agent, and, if so, this would be a best-case scenario. Anything else might spell the beginning of the end for the freedom to eat unregulated and unmonitored food
This family, children and adults, were held for 9 hours at GUN POINT and their property taken for a possible 3rd degree misdemeanor? My daughter belongs to a food co-op in the Ann Arbor area. She buys direct from the farm. After finding out that my youngest grandson is allergic to soy and soy products, my daughter joined a farm co-op buying all meat and vegetables from them instead of the processed foods from the store. Is there something wrong with wanting to know where your food comes from and wanting it to be healthy?
Why wasn't this reported on national news? I started doing some google searches and came up with this article on the Christian World View.
SWAT Team Like Raid by Ohio authorities on a farm house in LaGange
The Morning Journal, a newspaper serving northern Ohio, reported that the Stowers were believed to be operating without a license. However, the Stowers claim that the food co-op they run does not engage in any activities that would require state licensing.FULL STORY.
Friends of the Stowers openly question why such aggressive tactics were necessary to investigate a licensing complaint.
The only way I could find the one MSM article was to google "Morning Journal" "Stowers" and came up with this article which does not tell the whole story. Just read some of the comments and the blogs postings above and you'll get the drift.
Local food cooperative searched by state
By MORNING JOURNAL STAFF
news@MorningJournal.com
FULL STORY.
PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP — An Ohio Department of Agriculture agent seized food, electronic devices and documents from a Pittsfield Township organic and natural food cooperative believed to be unlicensed, according to a search warrant filed yesterday in Lorain County Common Pleas Court.
I hope that these people demand a trial by jury, and I hope that the jury understands their power to turn this type of abuse around. If not, someone in the Pittsfield, Ohio area better get busy and start educating their neighbors.
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