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RENTON, WA — A SWAT team spent hours firing “mortars, grenades, and teargas canisters” at an empty home. The 4-hour siege destroyed windows, doors, and walls and left the home in ruin. The suspect didn’t even live at the address, and the innocent homeowner was left homeless for months and ultimately was stuck with over $100,000 in repair bills, which the responsible parties have refused to pay.

The wild raid took place on April 25, 2012. Police entered a gated community and surrounded a condo they believed to contain a robbery suspect.

Instead of knocking on the door or getting a visual on the suspect and arresting him, police decided to execute a dramatic siege in a residential neighborhood in hopes of causing anyone inside to surrender. Police surrounded the condo, closed off the street, and evacuated the neighbors.

For four hours, police shot “rockets and grenades filled with pepper gas” at the home, breaking every window and making a mess of everything inside. Teargas was fired from 40-mm canisters into the home, pumping everything inside full of caustic chemicals. After hours of using their toys, SWAT placed explosives on the front door and blew it off the hinges.

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ALPINE, TX — Federal agents violently raided a tobacco shop, unnecessarily broke down a door, tampered with surveillance cameras, and allegedly cracked a woman in the neck with a rifle stock. In the process, they also raided a neighbor’s home, only to later cover their tracks by acquiring a warrant retroactively. The carnival of injustice was completed when witnesses were ordered to recant their stories under penalty of law.

Forced to change her story

Business owner Ilana Lipsen was arrested and charged with a first-degree felony, for allegedly selling a controlled substance, synthetic cannabis, in a drug-free zone. The charge is so draconian that it could result in a potential life-sentence in prison; not unlike the Texas teen who faces a similar charge for baking pot brownies. (Read more)

As a condition of her release from jail, U.S. Magistrate Judge B. Dwight Goains ordered her to pay $10,000.00 and publicly recant her story, which she had already televised to the media. The handwritten orders required that she request that pictures of her sister’s injuries be removed from the internet, and that she write an apology letter to the DEA for impugning their reputation. Specifically, the judge ordered that Lipsen “will advise media that her sister, Ariel Lipsen, was not beaten by agents… and her sister instigated/assaulted agents.”

Nicholas Branson is a 30 year old student at Sul Ross University, studying for a degree in geology. Now this student and former Eagle Scout is afraid for his future, for his career and even for his life.

Branson had the unfortunate fate of living adjacent to the Purple Zone, a business that was raided by local and federal agents on May 7, in Alpine, Texas. Branson witnessed the alleged attack on Arielle Lipsen, an act that was denied by the district attorney’s office.

Branson’s apartment is separate from the Purple Zone. It is a place to sleep and study and is close to campus. The only thing Branson states he has ever purchased from the Purple Zone is an occasional can of Red Bull when he stops over to pay his rent.
[...]
One agent, realizing they did not have a warrant for that address, directed other agents to leave the premises. Then, according to Branson, another agent, the one who allegedly choked Arielle Lipsen, told Branson he had to leave. At that point, Branson asked to see a warrant.

“He said, ’I don’t need to show you a F—–g warrant.’”

Branson said, “I need to see a warrant, based on the fourth amendment…”

“The agent answered ‘Oh you’re a F—–g lawyer now. We can do this the easy way or the hard way and put his finger on the trigger of his M16. That’s when I just backed up,” Branson said.
[...]
Branson’s account matches reported accounts by the Lipsens and Tom Cochran. He recounts how Lipsen’s sister Arielle started asking questions. Then, things got ugly.

“The same guy who cussed me out comes walking up. He’s about my size in full tactical gear with an M16 strapped to his chest, with what looked like four extra clips. He comes walking up real aggressive and she starts to back off. He says, ‘You need to shut up.’

“She says, ‘What are you going to do, shoot me?’

“At that point the officer grabbed her by the neck. She flinched and said, ‘get your hands off me.’ The officer then said ‘that’s resisting.’

“He threw her to the ground.

“As she tried to get up, he grabbed her and threw her down again and her foot hit him. It wasn’t a kick. It is what happens when you get your legs kicked out from underneath you and get thrown to the ground.

“The officer said, ‘You just assaulted a police officer’ and then started choking her (with the butt of the gun). I saw it. I was standing right in front of the Purple Zone.”

Branson was there when Tom Cochran arrived and witnessed them being very rude to Cochran.

The DEA eventually did get a warrant for Branson’s house. It was issued at approximately 11:58am, well after agents had entered the premises.

Agents seized all Branson’s hard drives, flash drives, camera disks and his grandfather’s shot gun.

Branson is not originally from Alpine, he is a student at the university. He states that he does not shop at the Purple Zone except to buy the occasional Red Bull energy drinks. He rents from the Lipsens, and that is as far as his relationship with them goes.

The agents broke his gate. Agents totally destroyed a beehive that he maintains. They broke plates and ransacked his apartment. Branson said, “I’m afraid they are going to threaten me.”
[...]
“I’m deathly afraid to come out. They said they suspected I had mushrooms, which is a federal crime. I’m a college student. If I get indicted I lose my Pell grant, my scholarship money, my student loan money. If they charge me I will lose everything I have been working for the last five years. But I can’t put up with it. It’s Un-American.”

“When I told them this was my house, they said, ‘well, that’s the price you pay for choosing to live where you live.”

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) - After waiting for 4 hours for dialysis with a shunt in his arm, a veteran told a Veterans Administration hospital he was leaving, whereupon VA police beat the hell out of him and stomped on his carotid artery, giving him a stroke that killed him, and they lied to his wife about it, the widow claims in court.

Norma Montano sued the United States of America in Federal Court, for the death of her husband of 44 years, Jonathan Montano. The Montanos' son and daughter also are plaintiffs.

The lawsuit comes as veterans hospitals nationwide are under investigation for lying about wait times to which they subjected patients. News reports have not yet linked the long waits to any deaths. Norma Montano does not attribute her husband's death to the long wait, but to the needless beating.

Jonathan Montano died on June 11, 2011, after VA police brutalized him at the VA hospital in Loma Linda on May 25 that year, his widow claims in the lawsuit.

Jonathan, who was 65, had a shunt put in his arm by the VA hospital staff that day, and waited with his wife for treatment "for approximately four hours, without being treated," Norma Montano says in the complaint.

"This greatly frustrated Jonathan Montano, who then decided that he didn't want to wait any longer at the VA Hospital in Loma Linda and decided to leave the hospital and to go to the VA Hospital in Long Beach," the complaint states.

Jonathan told his wife to get the car to take him to Long Beach. As she went to get it, her husband "was told by the nursing staff not to leave the hospital," the complaint states.

It continues: "Jonathan Montana told the nurse that he was leaving and was going to the VA Hospital in Long Beach, California, [and that] he wanted to leave the needle apparatus in his arm, so they wouldn't have to put a new one in at the Long Beach VA Hospital.

"In response to Jonathan Montano's attempt to leave the VA Hospital in Loma Linda, California, the nursing staff called VA Police Department to stop Jonathan Montano from leaving the hospital.

"The summoned VA Police Department police officers then stopped Jonathan Montano from leaving the VA Hospital in Loma Linda, by tackling him to the floor, slamming his head on the floor, and kneeing and stomping on his neck, and otherwise brutalizing and restraining him.

"This kneeing and stomping on his neck by the VA Police Department police officers caused the dissection of his carotid artery, that resulted in immediate (or very soon thereafter) blood clotting, which resulted in [his] suffering a stroke. Moreover, the brutalization of Jonathan Montano resulted in him suffering other serious physical injuries, and associated physical, mental and emotional pain, suffering and distress."