Dalla SWAT vs. Poker Players

From Reason.tv:

. . ."This story highlights the hypocrisy that surrounds gambling in this country," said Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason.tv. "States will gladly take your hard-earned money if you want to play the government's lottery. But if you sit down with some veterans to play Texas hold 'em you may end up with cops, in full riot gear, busting down your door. No one gets hurt when consenting adults sit down for a game of cards. And there's no reason for the government to get involved."

Video Here: Texas Close'em: Dallas Poker Raid

On a side note, for an interesting discussion of the militarization of U.S. police forces I highly recommend Bradley Balkos whitepaper "Overkill," available as a *.pdf download here.

f**cking cop pricks should shoot themselves, in the face, with their own shotguns.

"Drew Carey goes all in to report how Dallas cops carried out a paramilitary-style raid on a poker game at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1837"


WOW WHY DO THIS TO THESE PEOPLE?? some were war veterans.... holy fsdfsdfsdfsdfsd ya aim a gun at your soldiers you rat bastard scumbags.

I seriously i hope those cops die in a car fire, yeah, car fire. They all get in a bus, and crash brutally killing them all.


AND IT WAS RAKE - WHICH WAS THE CRIME- WAS RAKE FOR CHARITY LOLOL JESUS CHRIST!!!


To those that give the argument "cops were doing their job" nyah nyah nyah....noooo... you really need to go out of your way and be a TRUE asshole cop to bust old people at a poker hall.

Karma will get them back.

This makes me mad. Can you tell?

LOL, glad someone still gets mad about this sort of thing.

don't want stuff like this to happen, easy, don't break the law

If that's the case, then we'd all have to stop playing poker for real money.

I don't really blame the cops here, I blame the law makers who've criminalized a card game.

F******* moralists want your money supporting their perverted preachers at the local church/child abuse house.

Sorry , this may be inappropriate, but I'm as mad as Mono here. Irks me to the bone.......

[quote=Genso Hikki;666029]If that's the case, then we'd all have to stop playing poker for real money.

quote]

not really, the problem occurs when the "house" takes a rake. other than that i think it's all good

Eh, it's ridiculous, but theirs nothing the individual cops could have done. Getting KICKED OFF of a SWAT team does NOT look good on a resume, and my job is a LOT more important than 6 old guys breaking a stupid law.

Gotta say that wishing the cops to die in a fiery car crash is a bit harsh. Most cops are just following orders, they don't make the laws they just enforce them.

I imagine you've got to work your way up in the ranks a few years before you can even think of questioning policy.

I actually considered a career in police work at one time but decided not to mainly because I wouldn't want to enforce laws I disagree with. Personally I wouldn't be able to do that with good conscience.

Even the militarization of our police forces, tactics and policy is set by city council/Mayoral/state/federal politics. IMHO there are far too many SWAT actions using FULL FORCE when a little undercover recon and common sense basic police work is all that is required, but that too is not necessarily the police departments fault as much as it is a lack of citizen/city council/mayoral oversight.

In every trade there are bad apples, be it doctors, bakers, taxi drivers or cops, this film is an example of how crap happens. Hopefully the citizens of Texas, of this community can get some common sense relief from this kind of thing. I believe there is a cop somewhere here that needs to lose his job, a city council/mayor who needs to lose their next election.

I understand the passion of wishing someone to "die a fiery death" but in this instance ... put the brakes on and look for solutions instead of revenge.

Ya u cannot blame the officers for this, there are laws and then there are the guys high up sitting in their office who can tell those officers what to do, and usually ppl get pissed at the officers and not those higher ups telling them what to do. i have been around law enforcement and been on rides n such and i have seen some ridiculous calls like telling a strawberry guy he has to move his truck 500 feet every 10 minutes, and the officer was saying wat bullshit it is that they have to waste ther time pushing these guys around when ther is more important things to do, and somewhat cursing those higher ups who hardly get n e blame for this. of course officers do not want to be fired and many are not in position to contest these orders so they have to do it. im pretty damn sure that all, if not most, of these officers busting up this game thought wtf are we doing this for.

that still reallly sucks though that poker got that place shut down, just crappy texas law