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Soulhuntre -> RE: A Porn Primer (11/3/2005 11:00:45 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ExistentialSteel
However, from reading the reports of John Warren and, even, Soulhuntre, it seems obvious that the police went too far. That one raid carried out to see what was happening violated more constitutional tenets than all the “illegal” toys combined in the building. By the way, what is considered an illegal toy? Police enter a place in a raid mode because there are many cars in a parking lot?
There was no raid. The did not enter in "raid" mode. A small number of officers entered the location, made contact with the people in charge and politely and calmy inspected the vendor and play areas. No yelling. No guns.
Now, far be it from me to dispute Johns assertions of what happened to him personally, it is possible I suppose that a single officer acted in the way he describes. If it did happen that way what I can tell you is that his experience was unique and not at all indicative of the conduct of the officers as a whole, their attitude or their discussions with other attendies and the TES organizers.
As for what is an "illegal" toy the standards they applied were not at all unusual. Anything that violated NJ weapons regulations (some vendors were selling large, large knives) or was considered pornography. Now obviously the concept of what is "pornography" is an issue because it almsot always is a judgment call. However BDSM toys were passed by without a problem... the whips, cuffs, collars, paddles, candles, much of the medical toys, much of the books, videos and magazines and so on recieved no problems at all.
In many, many, many instances where the police could have caused problems they did not. They showed no interest in shutting down BDSM or BDSM play and made no attempts to do so.
quote:
ORIGINAL: ExistentialSteel
I would be willing to bet if a vanilla group had been having a meeting, things would have been handled much differently than pulling guns on those there. To think that police all over the country don’t do outlandish things to make political hay is being unrealistic.
It wasnt a "meeting" it was a convention. A convention the police had not been informed about and a convention that the managers of the venue (unknown to TES at the time) had not complied with local laws on. From the perspective of the police this was, essentually a "rave" or similar illicit / illegal event that commonly brings with it drug use a underage drinking. Their reactions, under the circumstances, were extremely mellow.
You want to feel that this was persecution your of course welcome to it - but the facts don't support the assertion.
quote:
ORIGINAL: ExistentialSteel
Give me a Sheriff Andy Taylor who uses common sense and says something like, “Y’all be good and keep things quiet so the church folk don’t get all riled up.” (Yeah, I know those damn cars in the parking lot were raising hell.)
The cars were not a problem. That the cars indicated thousands of people in the middle of the night in a venue that had filed none of the necessary paperwork and had not informed them about is an issue - and rightly so. Especially when the venue manager in a fit of stupidity had turned off all the outside lights in an attempt to "hide".
There were laws in that town, and those laws were absolutely being broken because the venue managment was idiotic. The Police were absolutely within their rights to enter and find out what was going on and they did so on a calm and professional manner. They informed TES of activity that was illegal or significantly deep in the grey area and then left us alone for the rest of the event. The did not return or harass us in any way.
People who want to feel persecuted will do so I suppose, no matter what the provocation. It's just unfortunate that at a time when there really is some persecution going on we get disctracted by things that aren't. It is a constant problem in activist communities.
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