festivals & drug busts

remember that old adage about "shooting ducks in a barrel"? what that means is you group your victims together and they are a lot easier to take down. well, for some reason (and i could go off about that but i'm on a mission here so bear with me a minute) it has been declared open season on hippies. and festivals are getting really, really nasty. i just got this sent to me about wakarusa.

so be really, really careful and know your rights. there is no such thing as a safe festival anymore, especially the venues like smilefest and wakarusa that are known to be "shooting ducks in a barrel".

to all you leo's out there reading these posts, fuck you. i love you, you have a belly button, but look in a mirror and rethink your life.





Hidden cameras helped in drug busts

By Eric Weslander (Contact)

Friday, September 15, 2006

Hidden, high-dollar equipment helped police crack down on drug dealing at this year’s Wakarusa Festival.

A new article in a trade journal, Government Security News, describes the roughly $250,000 worth of hidden-camera, night-vision and thermal-imaging equipment used by police throughout the festival grounds. The equipment was courtesy of a California company that agreed to give a free demonstration of its wares for marketing purposes.

The company estimated that they were able to cover 85 percent of the festival grounds with about a half dozen hidden cameras. One camera, for example, was mounted atop a light tower and used on “Shakedown Street,” a bustling area viewed as a problem spot for drug dealing.

“It’s hopefully a win-win for everybody except the crooks,” said Mike McRory, vice president of business development for NS Microwave Inc., of Spring Valley, Calif., which markets security and surveillance equipment and is owned by the defense contractor Allied Defense Group.

The company builds “covert” cameras disguised as everything from electrical boxes to birdhouses. They’re capable of seeing at night as long as there’s some ambient light nearby such as a lantern or fire.

‘Nobody knew’

Four of its cameras were “consistently deployed” throughout the festival, and at least two others were there to be used as needed, according to the company. The cameras were controlled by a computerized command center in a 21-foot trailer that was parked atop a hill in the middle of a Frisbee golf course inside the park.

“Nobody knew,” said Kevin Danciak, the company’s Midwestern sales representative. “It just looked like parabolic dishes on top of a trailer.”

The plan to use the cameras came about when Danciak ran into Clinton State Park manager Jerry Schecher at a Kansas narcotics officers’ meeting early this year or late last year. Danciak was there to promote his equipment. Schecher was looking for answers to growing concerns about drug dealing at the festival, which was heading into its third year and was growing in popularity.

Had there not been a strong move this year by law enforcement to control the situation, Schecher said, the state would not have allowed the festival to continue.

“This is a crowd that has a high expectation of privacy and freedom, and I respect that, within limits,” Schecher said. “I struggled with this a little bit, but I felt like we were doing it for the right reasons. If it was meant to be Big Brother and spying on people, I wouldn’t have done it.”

One festivalgoer said the hidden cameras were “a shame and kind of embarrassing.

“I feel like it was really a big mistake because people at a festival are trying to have a good time and let loose. I would be willing to bet that most people wouldn’t be OK with that had they known,” Ali Mangan said.

She said law enforcement should have at leased publicized the hidden cameras. The surveillance was conducted at the expense of the privacy of people not selling drugs, Mangan said.

The main things the cameras captured, Danciak said, were hand-to-hand drug transactions and drug use. After zooming into an area where drug sales were happening, police could then send an officer in to make an undercover buy that was caught on camera.

“We could see if there was a problem and then address it rather than just having to focus all of our foot patrols or enforcement in that area all of the time,” Schecher said.

Danciak said the result was a safer way of busting drug deals.

“No fighting, no running, no guns drawn, nothing,” he said. “It was just, ‘You pop around the corner, you’re there, you identify yourself and you see people just deflate.’”

He declined comment on whether the cameras covered the festival stage areas or campground areas outside the festival.

At least a month before the festival began, Schecher said, promoter Brett Mosiman was notified of the plan for security cameras. Mosiman did not return phone calls Thursday seeking comment.

The cameras’ presence was not publicized in the Lawrence area before or after the festival.

The article in Government Security News said the images produced were so good that some alleged dealers entered pleas based on the strength of that evidence. But Dist. Atty. Charles Branson, whose office is charged with prosecuting the cases, said he did not know of any cases in which that happened.

Many of those arrested at the festival were allowed to plead to lower charges in a massive docket call a few days after the hearing.

Police seized more than $11,000 in suspected drug money, but some of that came outside the festival grounds in a Kansas Highway Patrol checkpoint.

Lt. Kari Wempe, of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, the lead agency at the festival, said the camera system worked well.

“It gave a good overall aerial view of the grounds, which we would not have had otherwise,” she said.

But so far, she said, the sheriff has no plans to buy any of the company’s equipment. Schecher said he would like to use a similar system at the park in the future, perhaps for catching people who try to break into pay stations, but not necessarily for next year’s festival.

“Kevin has nice toys, but they’re expensive,” he said.

— Staff writer George Diepenbrock contributed to this story.

 

hmmm, tome this sounds like they could fight it on the grounds that its unconstitutional, (yea iknow..bushis screwing up the constitution..all the more reasonto fight the injustices of our gov) they violated the privacy of thousands of innocent folks, inthe hopes of catching a relatively small percentage in some sort of crimes..that just aint right...it does highlight though 1 of the reasons id rather goto a gathering then a fest anyday..

 

Well...they better not start hiding those cams in the bathrooms or in my tent. Anyway, doesn't this belong in Events and Festivals?


lovin you

 

you should never take anything for granted when in babylon

 

we are in natziville, so what do you expect?

 

I'm in Psychoville and Finkels the mayor

 

This is so sad. Rainbows should start a fund to buy their own country/island. When it happens invite me PLEASE.
*begs*

 

Understand this brothers & sisters-in the original post, again the "LEO" is blamed for what is taking place. The LEO's are simply doing their jobs, enforcing the laws that WE'VE ALLOWED to take hold! The impetus of my point here is that in many recent conversations i've had, it was revealed to me that only a fraction of americans, particularly those involved in subcultures such as ours, even vote. Shame, shame, shame. Want the leo's to stop enforcing laws? CHANGE 'EM! Vote; don't give me the old "my vote isn't going to make any difference anyway, it's all prearranged" or the "if I vote 3rd party it's throwing my vote away"...if everyone i've heard say either of those things got off their duffs and voted, the outcome of recent elections would be totally different. Take advantage of our system and vote to change the laws you don't feel are reasonable...sorry for the rant! Lovin' y'all...

 

The nerve of those dickhead cops... what pigs.

 

^^^Now there's the Rainbow spirit...



But anyways, I wish I could say I can't believe this. But I can.

Recently a man came into our store where I work and came behind the counter with a newspaper and was in total shock that CEO's at walmart steal money from the corporation and I was in shock he was shocked. It's similar to that.

I am not happy with the government, but I don't think too many people are.. It does seem unconstitional, but Northern Sun has a tshirt I love.. It has a picture of gravestone with "the constitution" written, the date it was written-the date of the patriot act.... rest in pieces.

 

Was this a paid event to get into? Was this a true rainbow event?

The rainbow world keeps up the front thats its not all about drugs but time and time again I hear more and more older people that even the rainbow world is going to hell and alot of it goes back to drugs and drug related issues.

We all know that any event will have its share of drinking and drugs so is the rainbow family just getting picked on or does the law just figure its a sure thing?

I had a friend get busted at a bonnarroo at a drug checkpoint.....yep go figure, a drug checkpoint at a paid? hippie event.......the mail in fine was $2660 one year unsup probation, that will teach ya.

What the hell do you expect from the gov? A free pass.

Why are you crying over a system we all know is fucked and when you go out into that (system) world you are subject to the mainstream worlds rules and now want to bitch about it.

 

This doesn't signal things getting better, it proves that things are getting worse. They're pumping out propaganda at an alarming rate, and are getting a tighter grip on the free-thinking people of America. Hell, this is more like fascism than freedom, so screw this. I'm leaving the country the day I turn 18 unless something dramatic happens, because an attempt to start a revolution with the government controling the media to make sure that everyone is so brainwashed that they're on their side would be basically impossible. How could we have another Woodstock with a bunch of fascist pigs breathing down everyone's necks? that would be anything but peaceful. In a few years there might not even be a Rainbow Gathering without the bastards waiting at the entrance and searching everyone's bags. In other words, no Rainbow Gathering. God. Does anyone know how much law enforcement pisses me off?

 

HAHA

Good Call

Mellissa its Ace!

----Ace where are you???

 

wow take a chill pill before you pop a blood vessel....

 

I can't get into calling people pigs and being all "down with authority". That is totally different from saying I support random drug searches or searches at gates, or searches at all. It just means that cops are people who, honestly, just are doing their job and the jobs they are given. They may really really really believe in what they're doing too, it's at the opposite of what we believe just as passionately. I am not a fan of abused authority, of drug laws, or of soooo many things we have in this country, I've just met too many nice cops to say they are all pigs. Some hate their job.

I live about an antiauthoritian lifestyle as possible, but I do so quietly. It comes naturally, I don't get up in their face about it. I've always done things subtly, I feel that's where the change really happens.

 

Wakarusa is not a Rainbow event but there are a lot of Family in the Lawence KS area.

WoodstockChild: Do you really think it's much better in other countries? Some countries have looser drug laws but there's always some kind of trade-off to be made.

All we can say about the cameras at Wakarusa is that we're sure glad we don't camp at that campground anymore...before we bought our land, we 'lived' at the campground during the week & vended on weekends...there didn't used to be hidden cameras at the festivals there but times they are a'changing....

 

-sigh- Now I want to listen to Dylan. Only, at this time things were changing for the better, but now they're taking a turn for the worst.

 

Things weren't necessarily better then, Woodstock.... Let us not forget that there was a draft and a war that killed half a million American soldiers not to mention countless Vietnamese.... Yes today's world has bad points, but the 60's weren't exactly a Mecca.

 

Seems like there is no where to escape the hidden spys any more, unless it's in your own home... I was picking apples way up an old overgrown road at an abandoned farm. Middle of nowhere. A couple weeks later my neighbor told me he had some real nice pictures of me..... hidden GAME CAMERA! Damn.

Trouble with alot of cops is that it takes a certain type of individual to want to BE in that position. And like it. And those are not necessarily the type of folks that you might want to associate with... Just not a particularly respectable job. I think they send all the worst ones to poor and underpriviledged areas...

 

So let me get this straight; if you were being mugged, or worse, and the "pigs" were closeby, you wouldn't allow them to help you out because of your quixotic world view, right? I hardly believe that. Most of the cop-bashers I know are the first to run and hide behind them when things get a little hairy. There's always room for improvement when dealing with law & politics, but name calling, stereotyping & making generalizations about the "pigs" is just as bad as when bad police stereotype we "hippy freaks". Dig?