Anonymous Call to New Animal Abuse Hotline Leads to Raid on Colorado Woman’s Rabbit Farm
by Bob McCartyDebe Bell will probably never forget Thursday, July 21. It was the day she found herself surrounded by people from her local law enforcement agency, and they weren’t there to help.
Unlike John Dollarhite of Nixa, Mo., and several magicians across the country who’ve been hounded and threatened with massive fines by agents from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Bell had to go face to face with her hare-brained local sheriff.
An anonymous Crime Stoppers hotline tip led animal control officers from the Jefferson County (Colo.) Sheriff’s Office to descend upon Bell’s one-acre farm at about 10:30 that morning and, before the day was over, remove nearly 200 rabbits from the property. The 59 year old was being accused of 24 misdemeanor charges of cruelty to animals, including charges that she somehow mistreated two meat rabbits already inside her freezer. More on the hotline later.
Bell had purchased the 1.01-acre property 12 miles north of Denver nearly 40 years earlier with plans to raise as much livestock as she wanted. After all, it was zoned for agricultural purposes (“A-2”) and had everything she needed, including a four-bedroom, tri-level home and a 600-square-foot barn. It looked like a great place to raise a family.
About 15 years later, Bell formed Six Bells Farm Candle Company and Rabbitry as a licensed farm business. Launched as an offshoot of a 4-H project via which she taught her four children how to take care of something other than themselves, it grew into an operation that involved raising more than a dozen varieties of rabbits, primarily for personal meat consumption but also for use in educating children — including kids involved in 4-H — and members of the general public nationwide.
As the years passed, Bell’s expertise and reputation grew alongside her rabbit farm. Not only did she become president of the local Long’s Peak Rabbit Club, but she became known as the go-to “resource person” for 4-H kids in Colorado who were interested in rabbits. Her reputation as a top expert when it comes to understanding and caring for rabbits spread throughout Colorado and across the United States. But that was before the raid.
The Day of the Raid
When Bell, 59, woke to begin that day almost three weeks ago, she had no idea government agents would soon swoop down on her tiny farm and effectively put an end to the pursuit of happiness in which she had been engaged for more than 25 years.
An instructor and lab coordinator at Metropolitan State College in Denver, Bell was in Boulder doing research when she was interrupted around 1 p.m.
“My neighbor called and said, ‘They’re seizing your animals! You need to get home!’” Bell recalled.
When Bell asked for more details, the neighbor explained that animal control officers and deputies from the sheriff’s office had arrived around 10:30 a.m. and were preparing to seize her rabbits.
About 45 minutes from home, Bell wrapped up her research as quickly as she could and drove home to find out more about who was taking her rabbits and why. She wanted to save the rabbits, each of which she knew by name, breed, tattoo and sex.
Upon arriving home at about 1:40 p.m., she found the animal control officers being unreasonable and milling about on her property — without a search warrant. The “salt in the wound” that the situation had become was the fact that the sheriff’s office officials were accompanied by volunteers from the local branch of the House Rabbit Society — a nationwide group comprised of people who, according to Bell, think rabbits need to be raised like small children.
Much “discussion” took place during the day and, when the animal control officers told Bell she had “too many animals for your zoning,” she begged to differ.
“No, you need to check your zoning regulations,” she told them. “I moved in before you changed the zoning. I can have as many animals as I want. I have more than an acre. I’m zoned A-2.”
Apparently stumped by her knowledge of the local zoning, she said they told her they would set the zoning issue aside.
When she told them her business was a livestock operation, they told her they disagreed and began to push the proverbial envelope.
Bell said one officer told her, “We found a dead rabbit,” and acted as if that was the “nail in the coffin” for his case. She responded bluntly, saying, “Rabbits die” — a fact she learned while growing up in Central Texas, where everybody is aware of that fact.
That prompted the officer in charge to tell Bell her rabbits were going to be seized, spayed or neutered, and then put up for adoption.
“What for?” Bell asked.
Instead of answering her directly, the officer responded to her question with one of his own.
“When was the last time you were in the barn?”
“This morning at 5 o’clock when I watered them,” Bell answered.
“Well, they have no water,” the officer countered.
“They’re fine,” Bell replied. “They have a swamp cooler and three fans.”
What’s a swamp cooler? According to Bell, it’s an air conditioning device that blows air over moist pads to lower temperatures in environments such as barns. More on this later, too.
At that point, Bell said, the officers had been in her barn for more than three hours, had opened up the doors, messed with the barn’s water system and had, effectively, turned off the water to the swamp cooler.
When their often-heated conversation turned to the temperature inside the barn, Bell said she told the officer that her barn’s cooling system could not keep up if it had to air condition the back yard where the outdoor temperature was 94 degrees. That prompted more than one officer to literally scream at her, saying, “It’s 84 degrees in there!”
“Yeah,” Bell replied, stunned that the officers were apparently concerned about rabbits suffering in 84-degree heat.
When the officer asked if she had any idea how many animals she had, she answered, “One-hundred sixty-three and probably 19 or 20 babies.”
Bell said she went a step further by telling the officer she could tell him the location of every animal in that barn. In addition, she told him the cages were tagged, numbered and sexed — with either pink tape or blue tape on them — and that she knew each rabbit in that barn by name.
Though officers couldn’t have overlooked the fact that the rabbit enclosures were clean and the barn was equipped with cooling, fly-control and watering systems, Bell said they seemed intent on making sure she didn’t do anything crazy to get in their way.
Bell said she wasn’t allowed to move, was threatened with being arrested at least four times, could not go inside her barn and, if she wanted to go anywhere else, had to ask officers for permission.
When Bell told one of the four sheriff’s deputies on scene that she wasn’t comfortable with House Rabbit Society members being on her property, she said the deputy looked her in the eye and said, “It is what it is.”
Hoping to document her experience, Bell said she took three photos — two of which appear above — of the area around her barn. Soon after, she was told by a sheriff’s deputy, under threat of arrest, that she had better stop.
“They told me four, five or six times (that) they were taking the animals no matter what,” Bell said, noting that she pointed out to them several times that there was nothing wrong with the animals or the conditions in which they were living.
When an officer told Bell the rabbits were living in “deplorable conditions,” she told him he was wrong.
“They are not living in deplorable conditions,” she said. “Their cages are clean. The trays are underneath them. We’re cleaning this weekend.”
Bell went on to explain to the officer that kids from the local 4-H organization who are involved in raising rabbits come out every weekend to help clean cages and do other things related to the care of the rabbits.
$24,000 Per Month
Several times during the day, animal control officers approached Bell and asked her to sign the rabbits over to them. When she asked what it was going to cost her if she didn’t, their reply stunned her.
“They said, ‘Five dollars a day per rabbit,’” Bell recalled, “and I said, ‘That’s $815 per day. Take ‘em! I can’t afford that.”
As a result of recently putting two boys through Colorado State University, Bell said, she told the officers she has a “mountain of debt” already and could not afford more than $24,000 per month — for a minimum of one month. The entire herd of rabbits was worth only $17,000.
At approximately 4:30 p.m., Bell said, a sheriff’s deputy arrived with the long-awaited search warrant and, within a half hour, the assembled animal control officers and volunteers began hauling out the rabbits in an effort that lasted about four hours.
The ‘Official’ Story
When I contacted sheriff’s office spokesperson Mark Techmeyer by phone early Tuesday afternoon, he explained how an anonymous tip led to his agency obtaining a search warrant.
“They reacted on a Crime Stoppers tip and went out there, and they saw what they believed to be some issues,” Techmeyer said. “Then they were able to take that information back to the judge and get a warrant issued.”
Thanks to a new Crime Stoppers program launched in June 2011, he said, individuals can call a statewide animal abuse hotline and, while remaining anonymous, can report cases of suspected animal abuse.
Rabbit Experts?
While I had him on the phone, I asked Techmeyer if any of the employees at the sheriff’s animal control division were rabbit experts, Techmeyer never answered the question. Instead, he quibbled, saying, “That depends upon how you define ‘experts,’” and then changed the subject.
None of the animal control employees — or the volunteers accompanying them — knew much about rabbits, according to Bell. In fact, she said the rabbits were severely mishandled during their removal.
For instance, 10-day-old babies “still in a nest box with their mommy” were wrapped in a towel and placed inside a cat crate and stood their mother on top of them.
“I looked at ‘em and I said, ‘You just issued a death sentence for those babies,’” Bell said, explaining that the mother would stomp the babies.
In response, the sheriff’s office employee said, “That’s their mom. Why would she do that?”
“Because they’re rabbits,” Bell replied.
“They loaded them in cardboard boxes, put them in a horse trailer and hauled them off to the fairgrounds,” Bell said, “where they housed them in a concrete, non-air conditioned horse stall barn.”
In addition to being placed in a hot environment, Bell said, her rabbits were placed in dog and cat crates with solid-bottom floors, meaning, “The minute they urinate, they’re standing in their own urine.”
The Next Step
Asked what her next step might be, Bell said her attorney, Elizabeth Kearney of Burthoud, Colo., has written several letters on her behalf, trying to get a meeting with Scott Storey, the district attorney for Jefferson and Gilpin Counties, but “keeps hitting brick walls.”
“They don’t want to return her calls,” she said. “They don’t want to talk to her.”
In addition, Bell said, sheriff’s office officials will not provide any information to Bell about the condition of her rabbits and will not allow her veterinarian of nearly 25 years to examine them.
Why might that be? Bell thinks she knows the answer.
“I think, honestly, they dug themselves a deep hole,” she said, “and they don’t quite know how to crawl out of it.”
“They’ve destroyed me emotionally, socially and professionally,” Bell said, listing numerous ways in which local animal rights activists have publicized information about the case in an effort to make her and her four children — all adults who haven’t lived under her roof for several years — look bad. But that’s not all.
“They’ve made 4-H kids all across Colorado just sob,” she said, “because I am their 4-H connection.”
Bell noted that 12 of the seized rabbits belong to 4-H kids who were planning to show them at upcoming fairs — two at the Jefferson County Fair that begins Thursday and the remaining 10 at the Colorado State Fair which runs from Aug. 26 to Sept. 5 in Pueblo.
Rabbit raisers in Colorado are so scared they might suffer the same fate as Six Bells Farm, Bell said, that many are not going to show their animals at the Colorado State Fair. The shortage of participants at this year’s Small Animals Show is so severe that officials extended the deadline for entry and, in order to prevent animal rights activists from collecting the names of rabbit owners, officials are planning to not display the names of rabbit owners alongside their rabbits.
“I would hope the entire United States would get involved in this,” Bell said, “because this is a group of people that have gotten away with this crap once or twice and they’re just continuing.
“Because they’ve been given the power erroneously once, they’re taking it more and more,” she continued, “and they’re gonna chase farmers out.”
Closing thought for the day: Bell said she learned through a third party familiar with her case that the people caring for the displaced rabbits at the fairgrounds eventually bought a cooling device to improve the rabbits’ living conditions at the fairgrounds. What did they buy? You guessed it! A swamp cooler.
More to come.
311 Comments
"Upon arriving home at about 1:40 p.m., she found the animal control officers being unreasonable and milling about on her property — without a search warrant."
I wonder, does Colorado have a Castle Law?
Probably shouldn't have started the day with this article, I'll be in a foul mood all day.
Too many Government bureaucrats trying to justify their existence enforcing nanny state policies and FAILING. Simply appalling!
All I have to say is WTF?! I could say this proves animal rights guys are morons. Or I could say this proves the government takes too much power but in the end this is just screwed up all over and I don't know how you can put a positive spin on this for the authorities.
SUE, baby, SUE. Hire a high-power lawyer. THIS is COMMUNISM and SOCIALISM rolled into one.
Despicable.
Same here, lucky for me it's the END of my day so eh.
Yet one more example of why public unions are anathema to liberty.
Agreed, it is a clear reminder of intrusive Government, and the larger picture that our malignant Govt is invading our individual rights. The Dem Socialist mentality will always be fought by the American individual Rights mentality. Chop the size of Government, including all of their restrictive law, in HALF.
Interesting that when we have a Republican President, news agencies report to expect trampling of civil liberties and fascist tactics.
Waco, Elian Gonzalez, takeovers of financial and auto industries, raids on natural dairy farms, and now rabbit farms as well….. I guess our last 2 Commucrat Presidents must have really been closet Republicans… *Rolls Eyes*
rabbit police strike again. shall we say a idiot covered in activist clothing?
Add this to the Amish man who was raided for selling milk, and the guy who had his home invaded in the middle of the night b/c his ex-wife owed student loan money, and we may be looking at a trend as opposed to individual incidents.
"Bell noted that 12 of the seized rabbits belong to 4-H kids who were planning to show them at upcoming fairs"
Ahh yes, the benevolent all knowing state is watching over you citizens, they know whats best.
Just get in line and accept it.
Do you think this earns Debe Bell a spot on the no-fly list?
Turn everyone against their neighbor, that's what our laws are designed to do now.
"a nationwide group comprised of people who, according to Bell, think rabbits need to be raised like small children."
The above statement, and I say this with over three decades of animal research, amazement, and experience behind me, says all you need to know about animal rights folks. Says it all…every word…and two of those words are "emotional" and "issues".
My heart goes out to Ms. Bell.
<a href="http://www.slugbuddies.com” target=”_blank”>www.slugbuddies.com
Every single officer involved in this fiasco should be fired immediately and the sheriff subjected to recall. This is beyond ludicrous.
Is there any lingering doubt that we are living through a hard tyranny?
Sheesh, the next thing you know is that there will be a raid by FBI SWAT (the unofficial Army or SS squads of the Central Government) for killing a Roach in NYC. Government out of control!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are in such deep trouble. And we are waisting resources on something that tastes like chicken.
This guy sums it all up . . . bad words coming your way . . . NOT FOR CHILDREN!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/-McpNtHet3w
Yup.
Everyone is a citizen law enforcer now.
Anonymous enforcement.
I thought you have a right to know your accuser? Does this mean I can call from PA and report any farmer for animal abuse in CO?
Anonymous tipster my a$$, she was targeted by activists and the law did their bidding. Common sense and decency is gone in this country…
What are we to do when this type of fascism comes knocking on our door? How do we fight this?
Lets have a hot line for unnecessary police and Government intervention.
Once we receive the call we will inundate with calls to complain about such Nanny state intrusions on our privacy.
Please publish the Lets all call the police station and make clear our dissatisfaction with the local police who are acting so "stupidly"
I clicked on the link here for The House Rabbit Society.
Good Lord!
There sure are some do-gooders wandering around, with wayyyyy too much free time on their hands.
Debe Bell is not just the owner of a Rabbit Farm……Debe Bell is YOU and I…….
This is what it’s coming down to people…..
We only THINK we know how much power environmentalists and animal rights activists have……We TRULY have no clue. Read this article twice……it should sink in……
It is pathetic and a travesty that local law enforcement would treat this woman the way they did, with truly no regards to HER rights and the “salvation” of these animals…..the same goes for these PETA-sh!ts……
The only thing missing from this story was SWAT teams anchored at strategic points across Ms. Bell’s property just in case she made a life-threatening motion……
No warrant, trespassing, endangering livestock………GUILTY in the first degree FIRST, and Ms. Bell will have to fight a long arduous battel for her innocence at her own expense…..for WHAT? To prove they were wrong in trespassing and seizing her property? She’ll receive no restitution…….
It’s no surprise that un-constitutional circumstances such as this will tear an innocent person to shreds. This woman’s character has been blighted, her hopes and dreams ruined, her future is wrought with forced uncertainty……and most of all, kids have seen the hypocrisy of a bureaucratic system that touts the rights of Americans…..
Sadly, this type of story has yet to be told of other Americans enduring the same bullsh!t……
Colorado is a sister state to California with the attitude of "Don't have anything to hide, don't have anything to worry about".
Having no fence on your property in Colorado is an invitation for officers or anyone with legs.
"To Protect and Serve"
Dammit people, get with the program, these rabbits threaten the survival of the Republic, haven’t you heard of suicide bunnies. These bunnies are the next evil plot of the Tea Party, in the immortal words of King Arthur, to paraphrase, “these rabbits are dynamite!”
Or a beauroacracy justifying it’s existence? We have much work to be done America.
This is the new reality folks, the police and government will do whatever they damn well please and you have no rights. This is what happens when the feckless cowards in our society have positions of power. It is time to return sanity to our government and kick them out, police officers such as these should be prosecuted and fired. The FDA needs to be eliminated or neutered it has become an arm of PETA and other groups like them.
Why is it, that in the past couple of years, every time I see a cop standing along the road (as in these photos), arms folded across their pot guts, or resting on their weapon as in the second photo, that I get immediately mad, and start shaking?
I wonder, will the next Waco start over a fuzzy bunny?
I don't reckon that rabbit farmers are known for violence, or volatility, but one of these day, the long arm of the law, is going to get severed.
What else would you expect out of a government in a sanctuary State?
Instead of chasing Zeta members out of the country, they busy themselves rousting rabbits. I guess I can't blame them. When was the last time a bunch of rabbits ambushed a law enforcement officer? These cowardly backwater Barney Pfife's are just trying to justify their existence. Sounds like they just stepped in it with both feet.
This "anonymous" BS is going to have to stop, too. If you don't have the guts to identify yourself when making a report, then you shouldn't get involved in the first place…and shouldn't be given any credibility by law enforcement. This was obviously someone with an ax to grind gaming the system for revenge of something…either real or imagined.
Precisely.
Colorado was lost a generation ago.
A bunch of granola eating, Birkenstock wearing, Celestial Tea drinking grey haired old hippies.
The assault on any form of industry continues. Then blame the lack of GDP growth on those lousy "millionaires and billionaires".
They need to sue those rabbit housecat people for slander and the sheriff for everything they can including illegal search and seizure.
She needs to hire a real prick of an attorney and sue the crap out of the county, the sheriff dept, and the "house rabbit society". This is the kind of action that will drive decent, law abiding folks to take up arms and defend what is theirs, regardless of consequences.
Here's your positive spin…The residents of that County will soon be getting a new sheriff and a bunch of new deputies who will know going in that if they engage in such tom foolery they will also be looking for work.
Yup.
But that slogan is doughnut specific.
not Willie Nelson hippie though…more like Michael Moore when he gets old type hippie or Soros in flip flops. There's also plenty Capitalist hating young adults popping up especially since 2008.
The presence of the activists is galling. That the officers let them hang around, despite their having no official standing and, effectively, being trespassers, is unbelievable.
I will not state what I believe should happen to the "House Rabbit Society", particularly those who terrorized this poor woman.
From the sounds of it, this is Arvada or some place a lot closer to Boulder. Now Boulder is in it's own county and that's not a bad thing — it tends to isolate those tree huggers who don't like to buy shavers.
So this being Jefferson County would make this Sheriff Mink's jurisdiction. Now Sheriff Mink is a good conservative in a county which is FAR more liberal then is deserves to be. I'm not saying the situation is good or bad, just that it might be worth hearing the other side. No doubt Bell would have been better off on the South side of Jeffco — in Douglas County — but Jeffco doesn't swing too far left and I'm sure she would have been in deeper crap had she lived a little bit further North in Boulder.
What is the problem with the Sheriff's office in this county? They should know damn well that activists are usually wrong. They also should know the difference between rabbits sitting around in cages and rabbits dying around in cages. Rabbits in the wild live in holes, not in temperature controlled houses.
ONE incident I remember from childhood on the sheep ranch…we had a blind sheep in the flock. She was in about a 2 acre pasture with 20-40 others.The numbers changed. An activist called the sheriff to report our cruelty and we were forced to tie the poor animal to a tree. Sheep are herd animals. To be alone is to be alienated. She knew where everything was in the pasture. She should eat grass, find the hay or water by smell or check with the flock. She went from a nice peaceful life to being tied to a tree in the front yard. (My dad is pretty funny to choose the front yard tree. The rest of the farmers could mack the sheriff that way.) These people are dangerous, stupid and are wasting their lives and the lives of others. If they want to find real animal abuse which is heartbreaking and enraging at once, then they should go for it. Let's discuss cruelty to animals. These human vermin have used the force of law to remove a happy rabbit colony from its home and stuck them into dark HOT crates with the WORST conditions other than just putting them all in an open pen to kill each other. I hope those stupid activists are providing free food and labor to care for those beasts instead of charging the county or state. They are despicable humans and I hope they are reading this. No you are NOT right, you are vicious and stupid. Some of you are pawns, some of you know what you are doing. I was just at the El Paso County Fair looking at the cute and beautiful rabbits, thinking how lucky they are to not live in holes. Now all of those beautiful breeds are frightened in dark crates, away from what they have known all their lives. Who is the animal here?
It's the arrogance in this story that pisses me off Cowboy (as I'm sure does you too)…..
A local….seemingly typical of a hard-working individual with likely many-many references to her credibility, it treated like sh!t, as if she abused these animals…..she had no rights, no consideration to her expertise, and NO benefit of the doubt……
There has to be a line drawn with the credibility of annonymous tips…..
This to me, is parallel to being WRONGLY accused of child abuse……
Here they are. The House Rabbit society
The House Rabbit Society.
Contact Us
You can reach in many ways!
You can email us at rabbitinfo@rabbitsinthehouse.org
You can leave a message on our voicemail 410-889-4104. A volunteer checks this box every 24 to 48 hours and notifies the appropriate person to respond.
or you can write to us at
HRS
P.O. Box 50311
Baltimore, MD 21211
Now, I am off the complain to the Sheriff. I might just drive down to Pueblo today to take some pictures. Those bastards.
Sounds like there a bunch of numbskulls who missed the memo that Thumper is food as much as he can be someone's pet. Let the House Rabbit Society go to Europe and try to pull that crap. They eat their rabbits in Europe.
This is completely out of control. Do these same people weep because the native cottontails in Texas and Oklahoma are even now living through triple digit drought conditions? Maybe we ought to bus the lot out to middle of the wide open with nets so they can catch those poor, suffering bun-buns and bring them in out of the heat and dry. I don't think anyone will be upset if I forget to go pick these people up.
Rabbits acclimate to heat and cold to a point. They are farm animals.
You have to remember, cops have as many idiots in their ranks as any profession. The ones with little or no common sense usually are the ones with an inflated ego from the badge and gun. They're the ones that don't give straight answers to honest questions, they're the ones that threaten you with arrest for no reason.
Not all cops are good people, and it's a mistake to assume that when a guy pulls up in a black and white that he's the voice of reason.
Heil Hitler!
Sherrif.
You are a Nazi Bastard!
Heil Hitler!
District attorney. You sniveling little creep. You should have your license to practice pulled.
ok, I'm no lawyer or anything, but how were the cops and activists able to come on to private property with no warrant and go through buildings and search the premises? I thought that they needed a warrant to perform any sort of search; you know, a "Search Warrant" is called that for a reason.
It is, therefore, a fact of law and of practical necessity that individuals are responsible for their own personal safety, and that of their loved ones. Police protection must be recognized for what it is: only an auxiliary general deterrent.
Because the police have no general duty to protect individuals, judicial remedies are not available for their failure to protect. In other words, if someone is injured because they expected but did not receive police protection, they cannot recover damages by suing (except in very special cases, explained below). Despite a long history of such failed attempts, however, many, people persist in believing the police are obligated to protect them, attempt to recover when no protection was forthcoming, and are emotionally demoralized when the recovery fails. Legal annals abound with such cases.
Warren v. District of Columbia is one of the leading cases of this type. Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third woman, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed the police had finally arrived. When the two women went downstairs they saw that in fact the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers."
The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." There are many similar cases with results to the same effect.
I understand what you are saying.
I reckon I'll defer to you, you being the resident Colorado expert here.
Since you are, I want your take on Broomfield.
I know this.
Back in the early 70's, Broomfield started to boom.
The old Stearns-Roger Construction company was HQ'd in Denver, and a lot of executives moved north. They subdivided a lot of little 5,10, 15 and 20 acre ranchettes and ranchitos for the upwardly mobile professional, and catered to the horse crowd. That was one of the drawing cards there. Little did they expect, that 40 years later, there would be enough folks in Broomfield, for it to become its own county. I have seen some of the same problems there, as discussed in this article.
Frankly, I never thought we had any animal problems.
We do have some major people problems.
Yup.
The frustrating part, for all decent folks, is simply the frustration.
The helpless feeling of having ones hands tied, by an abusive system.
Nothing makes me more livid, or puts me into a rage, like Anonymous Tipsters;. I faced this for thirty years in the Oil and Gas industry. You stand accused, until you prove yourself innocent. Early on, I intentionally made a name for myself, as being radical, and unpredictable. I think it goes back to the day I threw an Oil and Gas Inspector in a drill pit. The only way I could fight bureaucracy, was to make it impossible for them to file all the necessary paperwork. I became a nuisance to them. They soon left me along, and went to cite others who were less volatile, and who would take their crap.
I agree… Now I'm in a piss-poor mood. Angry! Need to go to the range and vent some steam!
This is the type of crap that just gets under my skin!
No warrant… tresspassing!
Annonymous tip and no knowledge of what they were doing… police are acting like they do in child abuse cases, but for animals, and making you guilty until you prove yourself innocent…
She needs to sue the living CRAP out of them!!!!
What nanny state policies? It sounds like they had NO basis for what they did. THey made it up as they went along. They were just determined to take her property!
It's 100% EPIC FAIL!
Net they'll seize our votes because we didn't vote correctly…
Yes… that's what the Nazi's did in Germany… neighbors turned in neighbors…. !!!!!!!!!
Harry,
excellent article.
Awesome! Recall vote for the Sheriff! Just like Wis…
Are your eyes burning?
Red,
Please do that!
I would love to have a citizen activist from here do just that.
An FBI Denver Joint Terrorism Task Force handout being distributed to Colorado surplus store owners lists the purchase of popular preparedness items and firearms accessories as "suspicious" and "potential indicators of terrorist activities," instructing store owners to keep records on and report people who:
"Make bulk purchase of items to include:
Weatherproofed ammunition or match containers
Meals Ready to Eat
Night Vision Devices; night flashlights; gas masks
High capacity magazines
Bi-pods or tri-pods for rifles"
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/wp-content/uploads/Co...
"Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected." George Washington
You hit the nail on the head… terrorists! In this case it's the government!
Not anymore.
I'm really thinking about starting a blog, called "Stupid Government Tricks, to document only this kind of malignant silliness by our government overlords. I'll let y'all know. My biggest concern is that I couldn't post quickly enough.
I hate reading things like this. Now I'm going to be outraged for the rest of the day.
You are 100% correct!
There's just SO MUCH in this story that rings of stupidity on behalf of the police. They owe her a few hundred thousand dollars for EF'n with her! And deserve to loose their jobs.
She should have continued taking photos!
She should have some serious lawsuits against them for this.
To protect themselves from us, and to serve injustice to all us innocents!
Soviet Union, too.
Yes, they are.
The article got me so mad, I had to start cleaning my guns.
Now I got Hoppe's #9 in my eyes.
It really burns, but the smell is comforting.
Welcome to the USSR.
Just ask your friendly TSA agent.
The Constitution is all but worthless by now. I know people don't like to hear it but the facts are there.
The state basically does anything it wants.
Sic 'em, Red! I would love to see them try to take your camera away from you! Know any kick-ass lawyers? Take one with you!
Not to me, Harry.
Not to me.
If your bad attitude precedes you, they will normally leave you alone, and go pick on a less volatile victim. That is probably why these states are picking on Mom and Pop rabbit farmers. They are afraid to pick on well armed men.
None of these states want to host the next Ruby Ridge, or Waco, but believe me, it is coming, just over the horizon.
I can't see it yet, but I can feel it.
I've seen this in DEQ audits…….my previous employer received many that I had to deal with directly in my position……anonymous tips brought "wrong-doing" of our company to their attention. Their audits proved otherwise…..when I asked who gave them the tip and if they were doing something about being mislead on a bogus charge? They couldn't divulge names if they had them, they didn't have one for the triggered audits and they looked at these as a means to validate conformity anyway……
OSHA, on the other hand, doesn't always play that same game. I understand THEY get names of the accuser…..and should the accusation result in a bogus charge? They go after the accuser……Don't know if it happens all the time, but when it comes to the oilfield companies, they certainly don't play around with bullsh!t……
Nothing says EVIL like the Abuse of Power.
Yes CL we do have a castle law AKA make my day law <a href="http://whttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Doctrine_in_the_United_States” target=”_blank”>whttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Doctrine_in_the_United_States ,and I believe we were the first to implement it in 1985 . My fear is when this lady wins her lawsuit she will be damaged beyond repair and will never recover.She put 25 years of her life into this harming no one and helping many kids in the 4-H progam along the way.I've been following this story ever since the Jeffco thugs raided her property in July. I thank the Bigs and especially Bob McCarty for bringing this story national .An email to the Jeffco DA protesting this would be a small favor the readers could do to maybe make this horrible injustice go away with compensation for Ms Bell <a href="http://.http://co.jefferson.co.us/da/da_T99_R94.htm” target=”_blank”>.http://co.jefferson.co.us/da/da_T99_R94.htm
i would hope she is able to seek and gain a quite sizeable settlement from both the state and the meddlers/tresspassers, who had no permission to trespass on her property and slander/libel her to the LEO's.
I'm sorry, but if it were me, I'd make it my lifes' goal to put them all bankrupt. that is absolutely deplorable. People who live in shallow worlds where they've never kept animals or practiced husbandry simply have NO IDEA what it is like to care for hundreds of animals.
Rabbits will kill their own, wihtout even knowing it. They're RABBITS, not rocket scientists.. good god….
Of course, and not to many of us.
I note the topic in the next thread is about exactly this question; what is the state allowed to get away with.
And to believe it is going to be decided basically by one man, in a temporary position of power on the Supreme Court. That in itself is beyond bad.
If Obamacare is not thrown out and the state put in check on this issue then it's really over.
I am worried.
Yes, Colorado does, but it only applies to someone entering your house, not stepping onto your property. This is a perfect case to make Colorado's "Make My Day" law extend to the person's property.
That's exactly why I lik you!
Would be good to sit and have a beer with you, I'm sure!
"She should have continued taking photos!"
Have you seen what the cops did in Las Vegas to the guy who was taking photos of them?
They beat the hell out of him.
In this brave new Amerika, the greatest thing that Law Enforcement fears, is a citizen armed with a camera.
My only hope for her, is she is approached by a well-versed lawyer who will take her case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, pro-bono……because THIS IS something that needs to be front and center of every American…….
Exposure of the unconstitionality of the seizure along with laws broken and rights violated, including the false accusations IS in the best interest of the public good…….
Debe Bell is the average American citizen……the VERY PEOPLE this administration pledges to protect……
Her story needs to be told…..over and over again……
The milk police have already put a stop to some local farmers daring to sell raw milk in CO. This is horrible, but not surprising.
Sooooooo, my fellow Coloradans who voted Stupid in 2008, how do you like being a purple state now?
Better living through government's monopoly on the use of force.
They're government authorities, they don't need any positive spin. They have the right to use force.
Which means nothing more than the tax payers will get stuck with the bill.
"cops have as many idiots in their ranks as any profession."
actually quite few more. i'm pretty pro-law enforcement, but the plain fact is that any job that allows one to carry that much authority and a gun, with that relatively little education & accountability is going to attract more than its share of @$$holes.
We all love CL's way with words. Day by day it draws closer.
It's coming, that's no joke. Leftist are designing laws to infuriate and harass the people trying to provoke you so they have an excuse to rob and pummel you.
Maybe, but she would have won in court
Cruz,
You said something here, that is the most important fact.
"My fear is when this lady wins her lawsuit she will be damaged beyond repair and will never recover."
Many people overlook that, or do not understand it.
I have tried, and I have done a lot of things in my life. Years ago, the words "no", "I don't know" and "I can't' were not in my vocabulary. Age, and wisdom, tend to temper that mindset.
I have fought some major battles, and won some.
I have fought some major wars, and won a couple.
Today, looking back in hindsight, what did it matter? I was no more effective than Don Quixote tilting and windmills.
What those battles and wars did to me, was not worth it. It forever changed me. it forever changed my family, and those who were at one time near and dear to me. I have lost the respect, of some who mattered to me as a result of these things. What those things did to me, on the inside is irreparable.
A smart man once told me that being right means so what? I failed to learn this, until it was too late.
Read that this morning from a friend……thanks for posting this Washington76!!!
A timid, but worthy starting point!
Oh it's a trend alright.
http://reason.com/search?cx=000107342346889757597...
It's already scary, and getting scarier by the day.
She'll be luck if she doesn't get a $20,000 bill for the police man power used in the operation.
Imagine the hilarity that will ensue when some clown forms the House Cow Society!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/
"a nationwide group comprised of people who, according to Bell, think rabbits need to be raised like small children."
If necessary I guess I could eat a small child.
(That was a joke, just a joke, and nothing more than a joke)
I can't believe that crap like this is happening in our country. Did anyone call the hotline to report the conditions that the police were keeping the rabbits in?
Only if we allow it.
How do we fight this?
It all starts with political activism and at the ballot box. You want to change a police dept. you change the capt. If you have to replace the mayor to accomplish that, then work at it.
If we stoop to the level the left plays at, we become no better than them. We keep to the high road.
These people have way too much time on their hands.
Thanks, I too traveled that rd. Some folks don't realize money may make it easier to take, but the loss of ones life passion has no price.
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