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| -Land of the Free |
| Gold miners near Chicken cry foul over 'heavy-handed' EPA raids |
| 2013-09-05 |
| [Alaska Dispatch] When agents with the Alaska Environmental Did it really take eight armed men and a squad-size display of paramilitary force to check for dirty water? Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated. Others wonder if the actions of the agents put everyone at risk. When your family business involves collecting gold far from nowhere, unusual behavior can be taken as a sign someone might be trying to stage a robbery. How is a remote placer miner to know the people in the jackets saying POLICE really are police? Miners suggest it might have been better all around if officials had just shown up at the door -- as they used to do -- and said they wanted to check the water. Only a matter of time until one of these incidents turns into a bloodbath. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #6 Cops playing dress-up. Ask them to rush the real deal like Charles Whitman.... 2 cops, no armour, 1 crazy Marine with a Brain Toumor, no fucking around. Go up and do your job and if a redneck screaming at you worries you too much reconsider your line of work. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2013-09-05 17:51 |
| #5 I used to hunt bear and caribou out of Chicken Ak. It's a pretty remote place. The population was 7 according to the 2010 Census, but they did have a general store, a post office, a bar, a liquor store, a church, and a school, the last time I was there. They're all located in the same building if I remember correctly. Chicken is about a six or seven hour drive (280 miles) southwest of Fairbanks, which would be the only town in the area large enough to have a SWAT team. There is a State Trooper stationed at Tok, which is about 75 miles from Chicken, but to assemble a team of eight troopers they would probably have to be flown in from Fairbanks or Anchorage. There aren't any mines, that I know of, in the area that employs more than 5 people. You have to wonder how many thousands or tens of thousands of dollars it cost the taxpayers to have a SWAT team take a water sample. There are a lot of grizzly bears in the area and almost eveyone you meet has a firearm of some type close at hand. But I doubt there would be a blood bath, because no matter where the police team went they would probably still have the residents far outgunned as well as outnumbered. But you never know. They're some pretty tough, independent, and feisty people up there. |
| Posted by: junkiron 2013-09-05 17:09 |
| #4 And some people scoffed at that Green Police ad during a recent Super Bowl. |
| Posted by: Dopey Sinatra 2013-09-05 17:01 |
| #3 Where did the EPA find authorization to wear Police jackets? Are they allowed to make arrests or just file complaints? |
| Posted by: Mugsy Glink 2013-09-05 16:46 |
| #2 I don't know the facts in this instance, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess these were not unionized miners being harassed and abused by gummint jackboots... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2013-09-05 13:46 |
| #1 Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated. Might have that been the point...? re: Bloodbath - Besoeker is absolutely correct. Maybe Janet Reno can take herself away from strumming someone else's banjo and be available as a consultant....? |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2013-09-05 12:52 |