California: SWAT Team Breaks Into Home, Detains Family Over Student Loan Default
June 8th, 2011Update: Questions, Questions
News10 dissappeared the first story about this.
Via: News10:
A federal education official Wednesday morning offered little information as to why federal agents raided a Stockton man’s home Tuesday.
The resident, Kenneth Wright, does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe why what he thought was a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 in the morning.
“I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers,” Wright said.
As Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts, he said the officers barged through his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn.
“He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there,” Wright said.
According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children, ages 3, 7, and 11, and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house.
“They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids,” Wright said.
As it turned out, the person law enforcement was looking for – Wright’s estranged wife – was not there.
Wright said he later went to Stockton Mayor Ann Johnston and Stockton Police Department, but learned the city of Stockton had nothing to do with the search warrant.
U.S. Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton confirmed for News10 Wednesday morning federal agents with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), not local S.W.A.T., served the search warrant. Hamilton would not say specifically why the raid took place except that it was part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Hamilton said the search was not related to student loans in default as reported in the local media.
—End Update—
Via: 10News:
Kenneth Wright does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.
“I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers,” Wright said.
Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts as the officers team barged through his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn.
“He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there,” Wright said.
According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children ages 3, 7, and 11, and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house.
As it turned out, the person law enforcement was looking for was not there – Wright’s estranged wife.
“They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids,” Wright said.
Wright said he later went to the mayor and Stockton Police Department, but the City of Stockton had nothing to do with Wright’s search warrant.
The U.S. Department of Education issued the search and called in the S.W.A.T for his wife’s defaulted student loans.
The link is broken and the media is revising the story.
Now the story is that the Warrant was not over unpaid student loans, but over something else like student loan fraud or similar malevolence.
Odd that News10 site doesn’t have the story anymore on their website. This story is just another sign of the U.S. becoming a police state. The next thing you will see brought back will be debtor’s prison since so many Americans are in over their heads in debt. It is would be very profitable to some to greatly expand the U.S. prision population by making defaulting on a loan a criminal offense punishable by a long prison sentence on a prison chain gang. I could imagine what they would say to justify their actions too on criminalizing so many poor people.
@sapphire
its already started w/ my neighbors in Minnesota, the debtors prisons anywase, bout 2 years now they been rounding folks up when they miss court dates for credit card violations…
@pessimistic optimist
Well, they’re being rounded up for missing their court date, not because they owe money. The trick is to not answer the door so you won’t get served.
AND, if you do open the door and get served, then you have to either go to court or get a lawyer, if not you will get arrested, the same as on any charge.