SWAT raid on food co-op called 'entrapment'

[James (yaakov)]

Subject: SWAT raid on food co-op called 'entrapment'


http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=84594
(pic and video at link){COMPLETE VIDEO INTERVIEW PRINTED OUT HERE}

SWAT raid on food co-op called 'entrapment'
Lawyer says family badgered by agent to 'sell' eggs

Posted: December 26, 2008
10:40 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
(c) 2008 WorldNetDaily
A state agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture
http://www.agri.ohio.gov pressured a family whose members run a food
cooperative for friends and neighbors to "sell" him a dozen eggs, sparking
accusations of entrapment from a lawyer defending the family.
The case brought by state and local authorities against a co-op run by John
And Jacqueline Stowers in LaGrange, Ohio,
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=84445 came to a head on
Dec. 1 when police officers used SWAT-style tactics to burst into the home,
hold family members including children at gunpoint and confiscate the
family's personal food supply.
Two organizations, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund
http://ftcldf.org
and http://www.buckeyevoices.orgthe Buckeye Institute's
legal arm, the Center for Constitutional Law, are working to defend the
family.
In an audio podcast posted online,
http://www.buckeyevoices.org/index.php?id=98 Maurice Thompson of the
Buckeye Institute said the family has run the Manna Storehouse
http://www.mannastorehouse.com
, focusing mainly on organic supplies, for
several years near Cleveland.
The confrontation began developing several years ago when local health
officials http://www.loraincountyhealth.com/contactus demanded the family
hold a retail food license in order to run their co-op. Thompson said the
family wrote a letter questioning that requirement and asking for evidence
that would suggest they were operating a food store and how their private
co-op was similar to a WalMart.
The Stowers family members simply "take orders from (co-op) members ... then
divide up the food," Thompson explained.
"The health inspector didn't like the tone of the letter," Thompson said,
and the result was that law enforcement officials planned, staged and
carried out the Dec. 1 SWAT-style raid on the family's home.
Thompson said he discussed the developments of the case with the health
inspector personally.
"He didn't think the tone of that letter was appropriate," Thompson said. "
I've seen the letter. There's not anything there that's belligerent."
"Government officials have egos as well. The problem is when government
officials have egos, they use the power of government against us," he said.
Thompson explained the genesis of the raid was a series of visits to the
family by an undercover agent for the state agriculture agency.
"He showed up (at the Stowers' residence) unannounced one day," Thompson
explained, and "pretended" to be interested in purchasing food.
The family explained the co-op was private and they couldn't provide service
to the stranger.
The agent then returned another day, stayed for two hours, and explained how
he thought his sick mother would be helped by eggs from range-fed chickens
to which the Stowers had access.
The family responded that they didn't sell food and couldn't help. When he
refused to leave, the family gave him a dozen eggs to hasten his departure,
Thompson explained.
Despite protests from the family, the agent left some money on a counter and
departed.
On the basis of that transaction, the Stowers were accused of engaging in
the retail sale of food, Thompson said.
"You hear people scream entrapment," he said. "But in this instance..."
He said the state agency came from "nowhere" and then worked to get the
family involved "in something that might require a license."
Even that remained in dispute, because of a long list of exceptions in the
state law, some of which may apply in this case, he said.
The organizations have filed a complaint on behalf of the family naming the
Ohio Department of Agriculture, http://www.agri.ohio.gov/contacts.aspx
the Lorain County General Health District and the state's attorney general
as defendants. A spokeswoman at the Department of Agriculture told WND today
she was unable to comment, and officials with the local health agency did
not answer WND calls to three different office numbers.
A prosecutor assigned to the case previously declined to respond to WND's
request for a comment.
Pete Kennedy of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund said the case was
government "overreaching" and was designed more to intimidate and "frighten
people into believing that they cannot provide food for themselves."
"This is an example where, once again, the government is trying to deny
people their inalienable, fundamental right to produce and consume the foods
of their choice," said Gary Cox, general counsel for the FTCLDF. "The
purpose of our complaint is to correct that wrong."
In a video posted both on YouTube and on the Buckeye Institute's website,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdLxMKuxyr4&eurl=http://www.buck...
.org/&feature=player_embedded
the couple explained how they just wanted to
provide a resource for both farmers and consumers.
The video also is embedded here:
"We had a sheriff's department group of about 11-12, I don't know, 13 men
come into our home. It was violent, it was belligerent, they didn't identify
themselves," Jacqueline Stowers said.
She and 10 children were forcibly herded into a room and held there for at
least six hours, she said.
"In the meantime we had people with guns inside and outside," she said.
Thompson said officers confiscated the family's personal computers, cell
phones and food supplies, even though the Manna Storehouse food supplies
were in another building.
Officials with the Weston A. Price Foundation, www.westonaprice.org a
nutrition education non-profit, said several of its members had been
participating in the co-op, but now their food supplies are disrupted.
The raid on Manna was not the first such case of authorities invading a home
over issues involving the operations of food co-ops and direct
producer-to-consumer arrangements. WND reported several months ago when
authorities in Pennsylvania demanded $4,000 in fines from a farmer who
Provided raw milk to friends and neighbors.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63512
That case also was highlighted by a SWAT team-like raid on Mark Nolt's farm,
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63225 when government
agents confiscated tens of thousands of dollars worth of his products as
well as pieces of machinery he used for his milk handling and sales.
Online bloggers raged over the situation involving the Stowers.
"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," said one.
The complaint notes Manna Storehouse deals with wheat, flour, sugar,
grass-fed beef, lamb, turkey and eggs from free range chickens, mostly
coming from local farmers. The raid was based on an affidavit from Ohio
Department of Agriculture agent William Lesho that "makes numerous
conclusory and unsubstantiated claims," the complaint said.
* * * * * * *

"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to
live at the expense of everybody else." - Frederic Bastiat

[James (yaakov)]

They are nothing but tyrants.
This is no longer a free country, but a police state, fascist, socialistic, dictatorship, etc........

Well Said Batya

[Rivkah Cohen]

I have been following this story. And sharing it everywhere I can. If this isn't a further wake up call to the craziness going on and to come.What was committed against this family was way beyond a simple misunderstanding. It was out and out violation of their rights. Put a little tyranny in there,lack of humanness, etc.I am certain more is to come and also certain if we don't stand in unity together with people like this family and others, things can be much worse.
Rivkah

[James (yaakov)]

As I had put out in a general Broadcast I had something similar happen to Me nearly fifteen years ago when I was on the Inner-City frontline..But now they are pulling the guns out it seems.

If we do not arise in some form to take this country back to its roots we all become slaves for the NWO agenda and there will be no turning back.
Personally I feel AmeriKa was to become a LIGHT to all the Nations, to heal and fix the world, However the elite sold out the Birth-right for Control, and corporate greed the Basics of Mere humanity,... certainly NOT the Shekinah of YAH'

[Charleen Esterhuizen]

I am very shocked ....and feel for this family who may be the first of many who will be "attacked" by the world army. It is a horrifing experience that any parent would hope would not happen in their home. May we stand this family by...in prayer and thought. Knowing Yahuweh is in control!