From: [c d l 0] at [ns1.cc.lehigh.edu] (CONRAD DANIEL LLOYD-KNIGHT)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: news on Allentown, PA bust
Date: 4 Aug 93 15:24:20 GMT

Hi all!

A while back, someone (sorry, forgotten who!) posted a report about a drug
bust here in Allentown. to summarise: a neighbour complained about a cat urine
smell from the wall connecting to the house next door. cops said this could be
due to a meth. lab and potentially explosive. they asked around and sure
enough, the next door neighbours took out their garbage under cover of
darkness! there was also the sound of glasses clinking (lab equipment!),
toilets flushing (aha! they must be disposing of evidence!) and occasionally
one of them would cough (must be the fumes!). to top it all off, the bustees
had a fairly common last name, Davis. a police check found that someone with
the last name of Davis had been stopped for speeding in several nearby states
during the last few weeks. they figured this guy must be travelling a lot -
buying supplies! also, the same neighbour said that the couple had no visible
means of support. as it turned out after a 530 am raid, in which the woman was
strip searched, the man held at gun point and the children held captive in a
van across the road, he was an opera singer and she was a professional
musician and so they worked odd hours. the cat urine smell the neighbour
complained about appears to have come from her own cats - several scraggly
looking things, some of them unneutered males that tend to mark their
territory in this way!

Anyway, sorry for the rehash  - here's the latest. after several angry columns
in the local newspaper, The Morning Call, in which some of the more liberal
minded journalists have called for and end to the drug war, there seems to be
a public back-lash against the raid. since then (it was about three weeks ago)
there have been letters to the editor every few days protesting the erosion
of civil rights. some of the earlier letters were more in support of the
victims, but the debate seems to have moved on. here are two letters from
yesterday's (Tuesday's) paper:

Raid was erosion of Constitution
To the Editor:
    The recent case of a drug raid in Allentown that was terror in the night
for the victims involved must be harshly handled. This is another Big-Brother
Act taking place in violation or our Constitution.
    This crime against the innocent public is so heinous that it makes the
criminals they were seeking look like choir boys. We are too quick to take our
freedoms for granted. This is how they are eroded. Punishment is clearly
called for here. Our prisons should always have room for cheating officers of
the court.
-William H. Gieske, Nazareth.

Cost of drug war too high
To the Editor:
    It was sad to read about the latest casualties or our so-called "war on
drugs." I'm referring to the unfortunate Davis family, whose home and persons
were violated during an outrageous search by state drug goons. Perhaps an
ignorant soul could dismiss such abuse of power as simply a mistake. However,
an informed civilian in this war recognizes that acts of state terrorism such
as this happen all too frequently.
    If the price of a drug-free country is the destruction of our civil
liberties, then I'm for legalization of drugs immediately.
-Michael C. Schaeffer, Allentown.

(these were copied without permission from The Morning Call, Tuesday, August
3, 1993, page A6.)
Hope this is of interest to someone and i haven't typed this all in for
nothing! interestingly, i haven't noticed any letters supporting the cops in
this matter. maybe public opinion is changing?

Later,
-Conrad.
-- 

bye...
________________________________________________________________________________
*               Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.               *
*                     Love is the Law, Love under Will.                        *
*______________________________________________________________________________*
                           ___                                     - A.C.