The Shut-Down Question
While I think it’s a crucial question to debate going forward, at this point I am agnostic about whether the decision to shut down the entire city of Boston on Friday was the right one or not. Furthermore, thus far the question has been presented as an either/or choice: to shut down all of Boston, or none of it. It is possible the best decision would have been to shut down Watertown.
My biggest concern, however, is the possibility that the decision communicates to potential terrorists that they can shut down an entire city with 4 pressure cooker bombs and one dead cop.
All that said, I think as we discuss the question going forward, we need to be clear that the analysis probably needs to evaluate three steps in the process:
- The decision to release the photos of the brothers on Thursday night
- The actions surrounding the firefight in Watertown
- The decision to shut down Boston
After all, the only thing that changed between Tuesday — when Boston remained open — and Friday — when it was shut down — is the murdered MIT officer and the hijacked Mercedes. The brothers were on the loose, presumed very dangerous, the entire time. Indeed, there might have been more reason to lock the city down immediately, to prevent their getaway. But the city did not shut down unti Friday, after they had been flushed out by release of the pictures. So to some degree, you need to start with the decision to release the pictures.
The NYT suggests law enforcement did not delay, after getting a clean image of Dzhokhar, to try to ID the brothers using facial recognition.
“We were working the videos, and the footage was getting better and better as the week went on, and by Thursday we got a good frontal facial shot,” a senior law enforcement official said. “That tipped it.”
The official added: “With that type of quality photo, there was no doubt about who they were. We had these murderers on the loose, and we couldn’t hold back, and we needed help finding them.”
I’ve been wondering since that time whether waiting 12 more hours to do more facial recognition might have IDed the brothers, allowing law enforcement to set up a raid on the brothers in a way where law enforcement controlled the circumstances. Had they facially IDed them when they released the pictures? If not, how long would that have really taken?
But, according to the NYT, they released the pictures because so much time had elapsed they were worried the culprits might get away or strike again.
The WaPo provided a slightly different rationale for releasing the photos, which has everything to do with the media coverage of the story.
Law enforcement officials debated whether to release the photos, weighing the risk of the suspects fleeing or staging another attack against the prospect of quicker identification. Officials said they went ahead with the public appeal for three reasons:
- Investigators didn’t want to risk having news outlets put out the Tsarnaevs’ images first, which might have made them the object of a wave of popular sympathy for wrongly suspected people, as had happened with two high school runners from the Boston area whose photos were published on the front page of the New York Post under the headline “Bag Men.” At the news conference, FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers sternly asked the public to view only its pictures or risk creating “undue work for vital law enforcement resources.”
- During a briefing Thursday afternoon, President Obama was shown the photos of the suspects by senior members of his national security team. Senior administration officials said that although Obama was not asked to approve release of the images by the FBI, the president offered a word of caution after viewing them. Be certain that these are the right suspects before you put the pictures out there, he advised his national security team, according to the administration officials.
- Investigators were concerned that if they didn’t assert control over the release of the Tsarnaevs’ photos, their manhunt would become a chaotic free-for-all, with news media cars and helicopters, as well as online vigilante detectives, competing with police in the chase to find the suspects. By stressing that all information had to flow to 911 and official investigators, the FBI hoped to cut off that freelance sleuthing and attend to public safety even as they searched for the brothers.
Now, I am, to a significant extent, very sympathetic with this thinking, to a point. If the FBI hadn’t honed attention on the real (suspected) culprits, any number of innocent Saudis or Moroccan-Americans or Indians who were at the Marathon were at great risk. But is the solution to set off a SUV car chase early (which is what I jokingly suggested CNN was trying to do when they mistakenly claimed there was an arrest earlier int he week)? Or is the solution to shame the irresponsible things the 24-hour press did (and applaud the good reporting, such as that from Pete Williams), and come up with better ways to use crowd sourcing for you (this may be an important lessons learned question moving forward)? Also, there’s an irony that the government wanted to reclaim control of the investigation, given that within minutes after they gave up their search, a citizen gave them the tip that would locate Dzhokhar. Ultimately, citizens — the injured racer, the SUV owner, and the boat owner — were the ones who provided the crucial leads in this investigation.
NYT’s sources admit that they didn’t anticipate how much chaos releasing the pictures would cause.
The authorities knew that broadly distributing the images — some captured by ubiquitous surveillance cameras and cellphone snapshots and winnowed down using sophisticated facial-recognition software — would accelerate the digital dragnet, but they did not realize the level of chaos it would create.
Intelligence and law enforcement officials said the authorities in Boston weighed the risks of some mayhem against their growing fear that time was slipping away and that heavily armed and increasingly dangerous men, and possibly accomplices, could wage new attacks in the Boston area or beyond.
Which brings us to the gunfight in the early hours of Friday morning (really, still night time). This interview, from the Watertown Police Chief, is enormously helpful on what happened there.
The cops have not provided a robust explanation either of how Dzhokhar was able to flee Friday morning or how they failed to find him, hidden and bleeding just one block outside their search radius, during the day. Here’s how the WaPo describes how Dzhokhar got away.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, now out of his car, attempted to lob a makeshift bomb at police, but the device exploded in his hand. While Tamerlan Tsarnaev was firing a pistol with the other hand, police tackled and tried to subdue the 200-pound amateur boxer.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, apparently intending to help his brother, tried to ram the officers with the Mercedes. Instead, the officers lunged out of the vehicle’s path and he ran over his brother and dragged him along the street before speeding off with police in pursuit.
Officers found the Mercedes abandoned and quickly sealed off neighborhoods in Watertown as they began a street-by-street search for the suspect. But police acknowledged later that there were not enough officers to establish a solid perimeter and that the suspect, who may have been wounded, had escaped.
Update: This BoGlo article has new details, including that the brothers were still in separate cars (presumably the stolen Mercedes and Tamerlan’s Honda) when the firefight started. It also says the officers were wrestling with Tamerlan when Dzhokhar hit him with the SUV.
I suspect one problem had to do with the number and training of the cops who responded to the chase. The Watertown police chief, above, says only 6 cops were in the immediate firefight (though others were in the vicinity). And recall that the critically injured policeman on scene was a transit cop; while he should be lauded for his response, he presumably does not deal with or train on these kinds of standoffs regularly. Also, the FBI issued a press release at 3AM indicating it had no clue what was going on, suggesting some of the folks who do deal with such standoffs were nowhere near the location. So between the IED explosion (which has been described both as a dud and as a real explosion) and the effort to save the transit cop’s life, it’s understandable that Dzhokhar got away from the handfull of local cops, though also understandable that cops more generally aren’t entirely forthcoming — and perhaps a bit embarrassed — that what looked like a giant manhunt from the outside failed to catch him.
But if the problem is that the manhunt wasn’t prepared for a manhunt in the hours after setting it off, then why weren’t such forces more prepared after they released the pictures, for such a response?
I also wonder, given that he was found just a block outside the perimeter of the search, whether Dzhokhar had found a way to monitor police communications and therefore knew how far he had to get to evade the search. A lot of people asked during the day why cops’ communications aren’t encrypted. It’s probably a good time to ask that question again.
Also, given that he was found just outside the perimeter, to what extent were dogs, who wouldn’t have been constrained by a search perimeter, used to search for him?
Finally, there’s the question of how much the cops knew after Dzhokhar got away. If they believed he could get far in the SUV, I get shutting down a wider area. But when did they find the SUV? It can’t have gotten far.
As I said, this is actually a crucial question to debate as we learn more facts. But the debate needs to cover a range of activities, starting from the crappy media coverage in the days after the attack, through the ultimate decision to shut down the city.
As I understand it, the lockdown on Friday was just Watertown, and they were still searching for him, assuming that he hadn’t gotten far from the Thursday night shootout. When he turned up Friday evening, the people who know the area were quick to point out that it’s within walking distance of the Thursday-night location, while outside the perimeter where they’d been searching.
@P J Evans: Residents of Boston, Cambridge, Belmont, Newton, and I think Needham were also asked to “shelter in place”. A lot of other people in the greater Boston area chose to stay home as well.
As for the range of the closure… I get why shutting down mass transit was intended to limit the range of escape as well as possible hostage taking, etc. But I don’t get the 6 city area. If the suspect had access to a car, that range is far too small, if on foot, far too large.
I can understand Watertown (where he was last seen) and Cambridge (if you assume he tries to go home or to a local friend), but I can’t understand the rest. I am curious what the rationale was.
I live in a town bordered by two of the six towns. I am familiar with a lot of the geography in this bizarre series of events and while I am not on board with a lot of the conspiracy theories (of all stripes), I am baffled by several aspects of what has transpired here and look forward to learning more as time goes by…
With all the trigger happy cops, guns waving around, I am surprised that more “accidents” did not happen.
But that boat sure took a beating . . .
@phred:
I have relatives in the Boston area. They used to live in Belmont. I’ve been there.
(I suspect is was more like having a big invisible blizzard for at least the younger people.)
I hope the kid recovers enough to talk. They’re saying he has a neck injury and can’t be questioned yet, but the police said he was swearing while in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
@P J Evans: That particular rumor (swearing in the ambulance) appears unlikely to be correct:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/21/boston-marathon-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-injuries
Encrypting to evade scanners is a mixed bag, like all counter-terror measures. They can switch channels with an auto feature. The problem with that is coordinating between agencies.
The gate is closing for all.
They made really poor perimeter choice, the boat was outside the perimeter, yet it was about two blocks away from where the Mercedes was abandoned, which had a bloody trail into a backyard, so they knew he was injured and couldn’t go too far, unless he stole another car, and then he would have likely been far gone.
The reason the owner of the boat noticed is they went outside after the in house lockdown was lifted and noticed something amiss. If there hadn’t been a lock down and just a large police presence and a warning about dangerous wounded individual, I bet they would have noticed when they went outside in the morning. Everyone in close proximity had to have been awakened by the gun fight and explosions nearby, so were definitely listening for information.
The FBI’s explanation for releasing the pictures of the Tsarnaev brothers as provided by the Washington Post doesn’t make much sense to me.
I get the point that the FBI didn’t want the media and the online vigilante detectives to again ID the wrong people. But other than that point, the rest of the FBI’s reasoning falls apart.
By releasing the pictures of the Tsarnaev brothers, the FBI did not preclude “a chaotic free-for-all, with news media cars and helicopters, as well as online vigilante detectives, competing with police in the chase to find the suspects”.
In fact, I would think that the FBI release of the pictures of the Tsarnaev brothers would do just that.
No, the FBI’s explanation sounds more like poorly thought out CYA for coming up stumped with all of their “sophisticated facial-recognition software”.
@Snoopdido:
“No, the FBI’s explanation sounds more like poorly thought out CYA for coming up stumped with all of their “sophisticated facial-recognition software”.”
If true, that would be some good news for the rest of us.
In listening to the MSNBC interview with the Watertown Police Chief, a key point was made which only adds more to the confusion surrounding the firefight.
The Watertown Police Chief states that they were able to track the carjacked Mercedes SUV by pinging the cellphone the owner left in the car.
The Watertown police were pinging the cellphone? What about the FBI and the Massachusetts State Police? Were they not in the cellphone pinging loop? If not, why not?
Did the Watertown police not notify the FBI and the Massachusetts State Police that they were tracking the carjacked Mercedes SUV whose owner had reported on his 911 call was in the hands of the self-acknowledged Boston Marathon bombers?
@P J Evans: He’s awake now and responding to questions in writing.
@phred:
just read about htat. I dunno what’s going on…
Are the authroities playing games, lying, or just not talking with each other?
@pataphysician: Thanks.
That point about lockdown possibly delaying it is right. Though having been in a soft lockdown (in a ridiculously fancy neighborhood, albeit one with only one exit road, so we were stuck), I would stick inside until I knew the cops were gone.
@Snoopdido: Yeah, but what happened Wednesday was pretty fucked, with thousands of media at the courthouse, which led someone to call in a threat.
Basically they needed to tell the media to chill the fuck down. But you can’t do that very easily.
@Snoopdido:
It’s possible that this was before the state police came in. I think there was a lot of confusion going on, also. Maybe their radios aren’t on the same frequencies? (I know that I think their brains aren’t, and we won’t get into the national reporters and networks.)
@Ben Franklin: One of the ways to defeat facial-recognition software is simply wearing sunglasses. From what I understand, one of the primary things that facial-recognition software uses is measuring the distance between the eyes.
From what I understand, the US government has a picture database of all travelers to and from overseas. Tamerlan Tsarnaev would likely have been in that database due to his 2011 trip to Russia, but his brother Dzhokhar apparently did not travel overseas after that picture database was developed.
If one is wearing sunglasses as Tamerlan Tsarnaev was in the released pictures taken at the Boston Marathon, then the facial-recognition software may not have worked.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wasn’t wearing sunglasses in the released pictures taken at the Boston Marathon, but if the US government doesn’t (yet) have pictures of student IDs, then Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wasn’t likely in the US government picture database.
@emptywheel:
Good. Hadn’t heard. (I’m trying to have a life besides the computer. Or at least away from the media.)
@Snoopdido: Damn. Those are some good questions.
I’d really like to see a timeline how why it took longer for any but the Watertown cops to make it to the scene. Because it sounds like they did great with what they had, but they didn’t have what you’d expect them to have.
My guess is there was a delay to get to the SUV owner, and therefore a delay to start pinging the phone in the SUV.
I’m also wondering when Tamerlan got the Honda.
@Snoopdido: They have different levels of collection for US persons and citizens for that database. So in any case there would be more from Tamerlan, not yet a citizen, than for Dzhokhar, if all his travel was after he was naturalized.
@P J Evans: At the final press conference after the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, each different law enforcement organization speaker made a specific point to state how much cooperation there was between the organizations.
When I was watching that press conference, I was thinking how strange it was that each needed to specifically emphasize that supposed cooperation.
In fact, my conclusion at the time was that there was far less cooperation than they stated, and my opinion has only been reinforced in the aftermath as more details are reported.
@Snoopdido:
Sounds like hogging information to enable glory-seeking and glory-hogging.
A story on the Transit Police officer, who is very lucky to be alive. One of the shots severed his femoral artery.
MIT police must have been corresponding with at least other university police if not state police right away.
Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) sent my cell phone a text alert
Thursday 4/18/13 at 11:37pm
“Shooting with injuries near MIT campus at 10:45pm. Suspects at large. Police searching area. No impact on Harvard. Stay out of area.”
I had driven through that area of Cambridge around 10:30pm that night on my way home.
HUPD alert April 19, 2013 12:42 am
“12:35 PM. MIT shooter situation remains active; avoid area. For further updates go to http://www.emergency.harvard.edu.”
April 19, 2013 2:04 AM
“Harvard Alert-MIT reports it’s [sic] campus safe.
Shootings reported in Watertown. Avoid the area. HUPD monitoring the situation.”
April 19, 2013 4:46 AM
“Harvard Alert:Police urging residents of East Watertown to stay indoors while they search for armed and dangerous suspect. Avoid the area.”
April 19, 2013 5:53 AM
“HARVARD ALERT- The University is closed due to public safety concerns. Please watch Harvard.edu for updates.”
Obviously these texts would trail the information coming into the HUPD. But it gives a rough timeline of unfolding events.
@emptywheel: To add even more confusion, why would the Watertown police be pinging the cellphone in the carjacked Mercedes SUV? From what I understand, the Tsarnaev brothers killed MIT police officer Sean Collier over in Cambridge and that wouldn’t have been in the Watertown police jurisdiction.
It may be that the owner of the carjacked Mercedes SUV was let go over in Watertown so then the Watertown police began the cellphone pinging.
It also may be that some other law enforcement organization was doing the cellphone pinging, and when locating it in Watertown, notified the Watertown police.
I don’t know which occurred, but still it seems strange that there were too little reinforcements sent to the location of the carjacked Mercedes SUV given that its owner was stating that the people who carjacked him had admitted to being the Boston Marathon bombers.
@Snoopdido:
I am more interested in the narrative which accepts the mainstream explanation of all things not known, empirically. Why is his medical condition a secret? He is talking now, in writing. Shall we wait for the transcript as we have for the ‘kill list’?
@Ben Franklin: I would like to simply think that it is no more than the reflexive government secrecy these days or even HIPAA Privacy Rules, but I suspect it is something more.
A slightly different timeline from the Harvard Crimson:
“In a statement released early Friday morning, the Cambridge Police Department wrote that they received a report around 10:20 p.m. Thursday that shots had been fired on the MIT campus. When they arrived on the scene at 10:30 p.m., CPD found an MIT officer with multiple gunshot wounds in his car. He was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was declared dead, according to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office.
CPD launched an immediate investigation and “determined that two males were involved in the shooting,” the statement said.
Cambridge police also received reports of an armed robbery at a 7-Eleven in Central Square at 10:30 p.m. Shortly thereafter, they said, an armed hijacking occurred around Third Street in Cambridge, when two male suspects held the owner of the car, a Mercedes SUV, at gunpoint. The car owner was released roughly a half hour later at a gas station off Memorial Drive.
When the stolen Mercedes was spotted in Watertown by police in that area, Alben said, a mass chase ensued as CPD, Massachusetts State Police, and the FBI joined the effort. It ultimately resulted in a firefight between law enforcement and the two suspects, who threw explosives and traded gunshots from their vehicle.
One suspect was shot and taken into custody in the East Watertown area. The other remained at large, and heavily armed, at press time. Davis would not confirm if the suspect was dead or alive. One MBTA Transit Police officer was shot an gunfire exchange and was believed to be alive as of press time early Friday.”
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/18/gunshots-report-mit-campus/
This quote confuses me:
“The car owner was released roughly a half hour later at a gas station off Memorial Drive.”
MIT’s campus is not a 30 minute drive to get to Watertown. More like under 10 minutes to the Watertown Mall if driving at high speed at that time of night.
There are two gas stations near each other on Memorial Drive in Cambridge. The Shell and the Mobil gas stations, 700 Memorial Drive and 816 Memorial Drive, respectively. The city/town of Allston/Brighton and Watertown are just across the Charles River from those gas stations, about a 5 minute drive, due to traffic lights that slow down the commute.
@pdaly: The confusion may be as a result of the Tsarnaev brothers driving the Mercedes SUV owner around and hitting several (3?) banks to get the $800 they got out of his account.
@Snoopdido:
Ok. That would add time. Thanks. I was just looking for a first person account by the hijack victim.
@pdaly: They hit several ATMs trying to get cash from the SUV owner’s account, with some success and several rejects.
Also reported is that driver’s license photos didn’t get a facial match on either of them. Looks like after all the hi tech, they came up dry every time. At every turn it was liveware, a citizen providing the critical information.
@P J Evans: Rumors have been rampant. Just got back from a dinner with a bunch of friends where we were collectively trying to work out the details, some of which still don’t make much sense. Which is simply to say, that just because something is reported doesn’t mean it actually occurred. I think it will be awhile before all the dust settles.
@phred:
I’ll buy that. Considering the number of people who are still spreading rumors (or at least not-quite-truthful stories), we may be lucky to have as much information as we do. What with the anti-Muslim white guys and the wanna-be Rambos and the anti-police people and the anti-government people … oy, vey!
@lefty665: You’ve given me an opportunity to further explain some of my comments from yesterday.
I said that I didn’t think this was “great” police work as the media is insisting upon. Don’t get me wrong. As Emptywheel has said in this post, I agree that the law enforcement personnel were brave and courageous.
Just not a cast of thousands of Sherlock Holmes who can infer solutions that us mortals would miss. Instead, the law enforcement personnel are mostly average people just like all of us.
It may be that both the leaders of the law enforcement personnel and the media find it necessary to cheer on the “great” work of the law enforcement personnel for morale purposes of both law enforcement and the general public and I don’t really have a problem with that.
For those who really need to analyze the effectiveness of how the law enforcement operated however, I would think that objectivity is the best approach.
@pdaly: As far as any of us at dinner could work out, there is no public information directly from the hijack victim, which seems odd. Like you, I was puzzled by the 30 minutes of milling around in Cambridge, but trying to get cash would account for it I think.
Clearly, these guys weren’t the brightest bulbs in the box, but one thing we still don’t understand is why would two guys whose pictures were plastered all over the internet and MSM out of nowhere decide to attract so much attention to themselves? And why shoot the MIT cop in his cruiser??? We don’t get it…
Old Charlie Pierce has a good piece up at Esquire…
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Midnight_On_Franklin_Street
Can I tell you that Lindsey Graham is a dick
@phred:
I agree. The story and timeline are strange.
Why draw attention to themselves? That’s a good question. I don’t have any good theory.
On the emergency website I linked to above, there was at one point Friday morning a report of a suspicious package in Cambridge at 500 Memorial Drive. If the authorities thought the two suspects had been planting more bombs, maybe this figured into the decision to have people stay off the streets. Never heard more about this incident later Friday, however.
“Update 4/19 4:55am
MIT reports a suspicious package being investigated near 500 Memorial Drive. Avoid the area.
There is currently a heightened security presence on the Harvard campus, and the Harvard University Police Department will continue to monitor the situation closely.”
@Bay State Librul: I love Charlie Pierce : ) Thanks so much for that link BSL. It buoys one’s spirits in an era of chattering televised stupidity.
@Snoopdido: Pleased to have been of service. I agree.
With all those schmoes like us wielding real assault weapons and lots of adrenaline, it is to law enforcement’s profound credit no innocents got shot. The biggest utility of the lock down may be that there were no targets larger than squirrels and cats to shoot.
One picture of a group in black with assault weapons looked like several were about to have heart attacks, and a couple of more going WTF are we doing here. Not exactly crack stormtroopers, and that eased my paranoia a bit.
My biggest fear is that with all the adulation, this model will become entrenched as policy everywhere. People need to be saying loud and clear “Thanks for everything, but remember, we got resolution despite what you did, not because of it. Please don’t do it this way again”.
@pdaly: I hadn’t heard about the package. 500 Mem Drive isn’t that close to Main and Vassar though, and Collier was in his car. Ah well, as we have seen, internet sleuthing under these conditions isn’t likely to get us very far. I’m hoping more information will be forthcoming…
@Bay State Librul: Lindsey may more likely be an asshole.
@phred:
Best guess is that they were staying quiet until their pictures were plastered all over the internet. Remember the authorities didn’t (publicly) have them positively identified until Thursday afternoon. I don’t know what they were doing at MIT, but I think shooting the cop there was really stupid (and possibly an act of panic).
@lefty665:
He needs to be disbarred and be censured by the Senate. I expect better from someone who claims to be a lawyer.
@pdaly: Which is interesting bc the FBI release was at 3AM, claiming to still not know WTF was going on.
We didn’t have to shut down Boston because of residual Whitey Bulger issues, did we?
@Snoopdido: Mercedes have tracking devices (like OnStar for GM, but their own version). So they could have been pinging that, as opposed to the phone. It’d be much quicker and more accurate.
if a 19 year old armed & violent black kid was running from the law in a city like detroit, chicago. or st louis, would they bring in troops & shut the whole city down?
@rjs Dorner in Great Bear. Nearly same scenario. Activities of police and military personnel in New Orleans after levee failure in wake of Katrina: precedents. I do not think 9,000 Police, FBI, and National Guard personnel were heroic or competent in the siege of Boston to capture two suspects. It appears the FBI lost control of two perps before Marathon. Knew who they were all along(visit in 2011).
Local police performed two bombing sweeps before Marathon and one hour before bombs went off. There were National Guard throughout Marathon maintaining security. A massive security failure that, through media alchemy, turned negligent authorities into golden heroes after a glory hounding shut down and manhunt like a “Cops: Boston Strong Manhunt” live feed provided courtesy of every Cable News Network.
Media served as obedient claque for Authorities throughout which led to several embarrassments that all made people blame them and not the hapless Authorities leaking info.
Huge cock up, aggressive cover up, and now, after so much bullshit strewn, Authorities are free to play down confusion and serve as “serious” types an obedient media let down. Sound familiar?
All ruminations before gossamer of sleep is washed away by coffee.
@lefty665: “Thanks for everything, but remember, we got resolution despite what you did, not because of it. Please don’t do it this way again”.
Yeah, that’s how we need to work. Thank you.
Sounds like you’ll be staying glued to your TV like all the other sheeple who stepped aside for the storm troopers to search their houses.
I’m amazed at how the author and everyone commenting here are so obsessed with trivial details and arent seeing the forest–the fact that a city was so quickly, effectively, and easily shut down and placed under martial law. Is no one disturbed by scenes of swat teams, US armed troops, regular cops and armored personnel carriers having total control of neighborhoods and entire cities? Behaving as if they were doing urban warfare in Iraq? Of people sheepishly leaving their own homes so their houses can be searched? Just to find ONE GUY? I’m ashamed to be living among such fearful obedient ignorant sheep. What happened to the cocky gun rights and anti-government types? Silence is all I’m hearing.