Some of you probably heard a news item about "Sergeant Bill", an unemployed security guard and minister who played federal agent for five months in Gerald, Missouri. With the local police backing him up, he arrested dozens of people, searched their homes, and "roughed them up," all without warrants or probable cause.
This story is being treated as a human interest curiosity. But I believe it is much bigger than that, a clear window onto what the once-individualistic USA has become under the fascist policies of the Bush administration. Anyone can break down your door these days, as long as it empowers the people in charge.
The basics from the story, from the NY Times:
How did Mr. Jakob wander into town and apparently leave the mayor, the aldermen and pretty much everyone else he met thinking that he was a federal agent delivered from Washington to help barrel into peoples’ homes and clean up Gerald’s drug problem?
...
When residents first began noticing Mr. Jakob, he certainly looked the part. His hair was chopped short, residents recalled, and his stocky chest filled a black T-shirt he sometimes wore that read POLICE. They said he wore military-style boots, pants with pockets running down the legs and carried a badge (his lawyer said it was from a former job as a security guard in St. Louis).
...
Soon, the busts began. Some of those whose homes were searched said they were kicked in the head and had shotguns held against them. Mr. Jakob, many said, seemed to be leading the crew of Gerald police officers.
This con was revealed by a member of the much-maligned Fourth Estate, 51-year-old Linda Trest, a reporter for The Gasconade County Republican:
“Once I got his name, I hit the computer and within an hour I had all the dirt on this guy,” Ms. Trest said."
So what's the significance of this story? I heard the headline and didn't pay much attention to it, feeling like it was some curious one-off.
But then I heard Linda Trest interviewed on NPR's Talk of the Nation.
Listening to that interview, I got chills and was struck dumb with fear. The key quote from Linda Trest:
It was really kind of unusual, because people weren't sure whether you still needed search warrants. You know, they said, "we know they can now tap our phones. Maybe they don't need search warrants anymore either." People were confused. Because he said he was a federal agent, they thought maybe he was allowed to play under different rules.
Larry Mantle approaches this interview from the perspective of trusting the police in general, and chuckling at how this could have happened. But Linda Trest's sober realism pops his bubble:
Mantle: "What about the police, though, in Gerald? Did they not think he needed a search warrant?"
Trest: "They backed his story up and said federal agents did not need search warrants."
Mantle: [laughing] "And have they read the constitution lately?"
Trest: "Evidently they have not. But you know, I'm sure it made their job much easier to ignore that one little piece of paper called a search warrant."
Mantle: "And that's one aspect of this story that makes it pretty interesting. He was doing a pretty good job! Cleaning up a lot of people that, well, a lot of people wanted cleaned up."
Trest: "I disagree with that. I don't think there's a huge methamphetamine problem in Gerald... the amount of drugs they confiscated is miniscule comapred to the damage they've done..."
Mantle: "But the police seemed to go along with him because they thought he was getting results."
Trest: "The police I believe went along with him because they were able to write impressive press releases."
The establishment media can act surprised that such a thing could happen in America's heartland. But to me this seems like a natural trickle-down of the fascist policies perpetrated by the executive branch. If the president does not care about warrants, due process, habeaus corpos, and the humane treatment of prisoners, why should we expect our local police do care? Patriot Act on the local scale, with no actual "Act" needed.
Anybody who shows up promising to bestow upon the local police the new powers that our federal executive branch have been exercising will be welcomed by those police, not questioned.
And to leave you with a simple thought of Trest's on this July 4th weekend:
Too often we look the other way when one small portion of anyone's civil rights are violated, and as a nation we are all made smaller by that. I think it's time that we insisted that all law enforcement agencies, federal, local, everywhere, re-read the Constitution and really understand what those rights are.
And the real criminal? The NY Times says "Sergeant Bill" is "likely to face charges" and is "under investigation." But as of right now, he remains a free man and has been doing the talk show circuit in New York this week.