In the early morning hours of Tuesday, the eighth of July, a band of more than fifty masked bandits, armed with machine guns and other assault weapons that are banned in the United States, broke down the front door to the home of a disabled American veteran. If they had tried the doorknob, they would have found it unlocked. A former Master Sargent in the Green Berets, with five tours of duty in Viet Nam to his credit, the victim of this brutal attack still holds the distinction of having made that rank at the youngest age on record. His wife and he were home alone when the masked gunmen invaded their home.
The couple was held at gunpoint, face down in the dirt, desert scrub brush and prickly pear cactus for more than an hour. They were terrorized, kicked, verbally abused and poked and prodded obscenely with gun barrels by more than a dozen of the jack-booted thugs, while the rest of the bandits ransacked their home. A distinguished combat award, two purple hearts, a bronze star, a silver cross and the congressional medal of honor were stripped from the living room wall and desecrated. All the homes windows were broken out, all the furniture ruined, and a great many personal possessions stolen. Fortunately, when the gangsters left, the couple were left scraped up, bruised, dehydrated and publicly humiliated before all their neighbors, but they were relatively unharmed considering the ordeal they had been through.
That this was a crime is not in doubt. Aggravated assault, armed robbery, destruction of property, theft, conspiracy and even terrorism come readily to mind; but this was a hate crime, too. The reason - the only reason - that this couple was singled out of all the homes in their suburban Tucson neighborhood, was that the husband, the highly decorated American war hero, belongs to a club of gentlemen who like to ride motorcycles.
The most frightening and disturbing aspect of this entire, day-long crime spree is that the perpetrators, the vicious masked sociopaths filled with hatred and violent intentions, were each and all sworn law enforcement officers of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. No illegal drugs or firearms were found, although the veteran's legal firearms were taken along with his completely legal Harley Davidson motorcycle and other personal - and perfectly legal - items he may well never see again. No arrests were made.
Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the state in Chino Valley, a squadron of assault helicopters circled overhead while an armored vehicle and another fifty to one hundred bandits with badges, all heavily armed with semi- and full-automatic weapons, and all wearing masks like the criminals they truly are, invaded another home, this one in my own neighborhood.
Everyone in Chino Valley was awakened at the crack of dawn by what seemed for all the world like a full scale military invasion. More aggravated assault, armed robbery, destruction of property, theft, obvious conspiracy and unquestionable terrorism took place in plain view of my own front porch. Again, all the home's windows were broken, American flags were desecrated, legal firearms and legal motorcycles were seized without probable cause and personal property was destroyed or stolen. Of the five single men who reside in the home, one was arrested - probably for telling the cowardly bullies who hid behind masks what he thought about them.
Again, this was a hate crime committed by local, state and federal law enforcement against honest, hard-working neighbors of mine for no other reason than that they belong to a motorcycle club.
Arnold Schwartzenegger, Jay Leno, and scores of other celebrities and professional athletes all belong to motorcycle clubs. Why were these people singled out? Was it because, as veterans and heroes, they were allowed to ride first, in a position of honor, in the recent nation-wide motorcycle ride to the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington D.C? Was it because they named their club after a squadron of the famous Flying Tigers, whose aerial combat record has never been equaled? Maybe it was because theirs is the single largest motorcycle club in the world, with members throughout north and south America, Europe and Asia.
Whatever the reason, it cannot possibly justify the wanton destruction and hatred expressed by a veritable army of more than five hundred vicious thugs, ostensibly assembled to serve a mere forty search warrants when less than ten percent of that number could have performed that duty. No. This is America. We don't do things that way here.
Each and every local, state and federal officer involved in this massive conspiracy of hatred has got to be arrested and tried in a court of law for the crimes they have committed. Our law enforcement cannot, must not and will not ever be allowed to run roughshod like storm troopers over the People of the United States of America. Write to your representatives, write to Attorney General Ashcroft, write to the President - let our government know that such abuses are not to be tolerated, and that those responsible must be dealt with as the criminals they have revealed themselves to be.