Man Gets SWAT Visit For Illegal Basement

[anarch]

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/blotter/entries/2010/05/11/east_austin_home_discovered_wi.html

City code enforcement officials are assessing what to do next with an East Austin home after a man built an extensive bunker below it that drew a team of emergency personnel to the site Saturday morning, a city official said Tuesday.

Jose Del Rio, a Vietnam War veteran, built a “multi-level” underground structure about 20 to 25 feet below the home, said Doug Matthews, director of communications for the City of Austin.

Matthews said code enforcement officials visited the home at 2006 Canterbury in East Austin early last week after receiving a complaint of possible excavation there. Del Rio, a retiree, was cooperative and showed the officials the underground structure, Matthews said.

“The code officers went out to investigate it and the individual was fairly cooperative and showed them what he had been working on, which turned out to be a multi-level underground structure,” Matthews said.

There were two levels, and a third hole below those levels, Matthews said.
They “had some concerns about the structural integrity of the building and the contents of what was down there,” he said.

The officials said the visit triggered plans to execute a warrant at the home and have Austin police and fire personnel, including members of the police SWAT team, police bomb squad and Austin Fire’s search and rescue operations team, do a full sweep of the home, Matthews said.

The warrant was executed shortly after 7 a.m. Saturday. Neighbors were asked to leave and the home was searched for more than four hours as emergency personnel staged units at nearby Metz Elementary School, Matthews said.

Among the items recovered were several weapons, two inert grenades and several 55-gallon barrels that turned out to be empty, Matthews said.
Matthews said officials are working with Del Rio to figure out whether the home is salvageable, and current living arrangements for him through Adult Protective Services since he is a senior citizen, Matthews said.

It’s not immediately clear whether Del Rio will face any charges, or at the least, code violations, which could result in fines, Matthews said. He said that Del Rio built the bunker by himself, but he did not know how long it took him to build it.

A code enforcement official said Tuesday that several departments would be meeting about the case Thursday to assess what would happen next.


It seems to me that city governments are targeting the elderly more and more these days in quick home grabs. This guy may be guilty of code violations but that is no reason to send in the swat team and then kick him out of his home till he dies and they can just auction it off...

What I see here is just another Vet from the Nuclear era...doing his thing in his old age and building a kick ass bunker basement. He may of violated some building codes but the swat team?!?!? An old man putters on his home in his retirement years and this is reason enough to condemn his home and search his place for illegal contraband.

And what did they "recover" (steal)? Some weapons (presumably legally purchased since the article made no mention of them being illegal weapons) two dead grenades and Dangerous 55 Gallon barrels full of nothing that had to be "recovered" for some reason..(those barrels are not cheap).

Sigh... bad signs of the times

[hp]

I can understand if code violations place other homes at risk. Other than that, the stuff of raiding people's homes is out of hand. Glad they got those empty drums, I feel safer. I bet their manual suggested he was using them to create foogas.

I would rather they just declare everyone except right wing, bible thumpers as terrorists and we get on with restoring the country.

[Royal]

CT'rs should take the community into consideration.

That home, if sold, can be turned into a meth lab or a serial killers homebase. It's not what he's doing with it now, it's what other people will do with it.

[hp]

it's what other people will might do with it

[anarch]

CT'rs should take the community into consideration.

That home, if sold, can be turned into a meth lab or a serial killers homebase. It's not what he's doing with it now, it's what other people will do with it.


God forbid the next buyer Sublets and makes a quad plex outta the thing.

[guinnessford]

Complete and utter bullshit, there should have been more in the process....like removing his C.O., and then taking him to court.

Police state? Yeah.....

[1972]

Fuck the "what if's", this shit is fucked up. Adult Protective Services? Is he pissing in his pants? Welcome to the Lord's Country, where you can never, ever leave. I agree that there are code violations but WTF! Please mister, don't attacks us with your empty 55 gallon drum! Ohh no not the drum!!!

So if he would have gotten the proper permits this would never have happened? why can't a guy build a bunker? How is it anyone else's business? What have we become when everything is pre-emptive bullshit? Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Again fuck them and their what if's.

But hey, the fuckers who put us in this mess will surely clean it up right?
RIGHT?

[hp]

But hey, the fuckers who put us in this mess will surely clean it up right?

Of course. They will get around to it after another 100 rounds of pork spending.

[1972]

Of course. They will get around to it after another 100 rounds of pork spending.

Everything is better with bacon!

[theeindiee]

Too much going on today for anyone to care about some old man building bunkers.

What's that "too much" that's going on, though? A whole lotta organized chaos. It's a big machine meant to use as much energy as possble to make as much useless noise as possibe before it destroys itself and the world along with it.

It's documented fact that cars can be built to run ridiculous amounts of miles on a single gallon of gas (not to mention a plethora of other materials) but with this fact in place, and having been in place pretty much since the car was invented, people still operate as though there was no solution to the energy crisis anywhere in sight.... but the solution is everywhere and has been for longer than anyone alive today can remember.

What do energy crises have to do with an old man building a sweet ass bunker basement? It's quite simply the fact that the answer lies so plaily in front of our faces that we all shold know what to do, but we don't. The answer? It's the old man's property. Anything done on his property not in violation of other people's rights is his business. Until he has been identified as an al quaeda operative running an underground terrorist facility or a dangerous drug runner of some sort, nobody should be able to touch him until he has been a proven threat to the safety of the community. Now, I do not have a law degree, but I don't need one to know the fundamental rights of man. All I need is a little time to think things out logically for myself.

When I'm consistently barraged by media telling me what to think for my first 25 years of life, it becomes an almost (if not definite) automatic reflex to attune to the general consensus of the status quo. It's a matter of stress. When communication becomes difficult, stress builds up, and that stress distorts the brisk informational processing units of our brains, and we become irrational thinkers, and inturn irrational actors. We're like robots with buggy CPUs. We aren't with the program, and we can't fix our bugged CPUs because we've not been allowed the time nor the space to just sit and tinker until we get it back in order. One reason things like this happen is because we now rely much more on the major media version of "reality" and "truth" than our own interpretations of it.... and we see stories like this in passing, and we may go "Yeah! That'll show him right!" or "arrrggghh! That's a travesty what they did to him!", but we're not gunna do anything about it. We're stuck with our own convoluted reality tunnels. Should we have to do something? Isn't it the community he's involved with that should act? How could they allow a member of their community be ousted like this by outsiders?

Because they all relinquished their individual and local common sense for the industrial and informational age's global version of common sense, mass produced and sold to each and every one of us every second we're alive today.

What can we do about this? Can we overcome the tidal wave of useless noise of jumbled logic and untrained hammerfalling whch we have created in order to hear our own common sense, and take back our common control from federal robotic arm of a massive supercomputational and unfeeling unthinking unloving insatiable global revenue behemoth?

Yes we can. It is happening today, and it cannot be stopped because it is the unseen silent revolution, the one taking place in an area beyond temporal control, in complete secrecy.

Maybe it's good enough that we notice things like this... these little outrages of our own personal sense of liberty and justice. I don't think anything more can be done until a critical mass of the public feels the way we do here at amkon dot net, and has the mental clarity to enact their senses.

Nothing can be done about the lack of true communication until the true source of confusion is identified. Indeed, each and every person has at his access an entirely liberal and natural set of laws which no government can ever repeal, and no lawyer can ever find a loophole around.

The founding fathers of america were well aware of these laws, and I believe that their ultimate goal has not been accomplished yet. America was not meant to be the fruit, but the seed.

We have not seen the tree of life sprout yet. Remember that the "Elites" think in terms of centuries, not years or even decades. Perhaps... we are exactly where we should be.

[anarch]

We're stuck with our own convoluted reality tunnels. Should we have to do something? Isn't it the community he's involved with that should act? How could they allow a member of their community be ousted like this by outsiders?

Because they all relinquished their individual and local common sense for the industrial and informational age's global version of common sense, mass produced and sold to each and every one of us every second we're alive today.

What can we do about this?

It is happening today, and it cannot be stopped because it is the unseen silent revolution, the one taking place in an area beyond temporal control, in complete secrecy.




The founding fathers of america were well aware of these laws, and I believe that their ultimate goal has not been accomplished yet. America was not meant to be the fruit, but the seed.

We have not seen the tree of life sprout yet. Remember that the "Elites" think in terms of centuries, not years or even decades. Perhaps... we are exactly where we should be.

Yes yes yes and yes. Star flag applause plus 1.

How did we get to this fucked up state? The seduction of the industrial revolution and exploitation of those that steered its beginnings.

What can we do about it? We are doing something right now. Every moment is a moment in action. We watch, we voice our thoughts, and when the voices reach a cacophony and we can no longer stand the ignored sounds of our collective voices we react. And we silently pray that the reactions will be good enough and right enough to find the solution for good. It is why I am an anarchist.

I too believe the U.S. is not the fruit of the founders labors but only their seed. They were a masonic ruling body back when being a mason meant something and they did think long term. When the articles of confederation failed they knew their dream had died. The constitution was nothing more than a stop gap measure meant to preserve the fledgling U.S. until such a time when her great grand children would rise up and realize the dream they desperately and passionately sought after.

Absolute Personal Liberty but not at the expense of another.

I think we are where the suspected we would be. Further more , I think the bill of rights were penned not so much as a safe guard of our freedoms but as a reminder of what our freedoms are ...what should never be infringed upon. Despite the fact that they are all infringed upon today the original words are still there to remind us how far we have fallen short of the dream and when we have grown tired of suckling from the fat teet of our electric tyranny we shall struggle again to correct the evils of over bearing demigogs and seek out self reliance and personal liberty once again.

It is my cry to god,my hope, my everything I have to give, that when that happens...after the next civil war is fought and lost (for civil wars have no real winners) that when it comes time to restructure the powers of government ,I pray with all of me, that some authority over the laws that will govern us will be decided upon and agreed upon by us. Anything short of trusting the citizens themselves to legislate the laws that will govern them will always lead back to tyranny on a long enough timeline. It is only when the people themselves have some control over what laws are necessary to them and their neighbors that we shall truly overcome the chains of bad government.

Only When we the people have a say over how much we should be taxed and where that tax should go with the ability to see that our tax went there, When we the people are allowed to make laws regarding what we should be allowed to put into our bodies and in whos bed we shall lay, When we the people are included into the equation of government rather than an outside body to be ruled by it, Only then shall we be free.

And I think that day is soon to come. It did not happen in a parents time. It did not happen in my grand parents time. But that was then. This is now. The entire world has changed and we have the power to ask anyone in the world about it. I believe in my life time stupid shit like this story will come to an end in these United States. I believe that because I believe that was the plan all along since 1776.

[hp]

This all fine and dandy talk but the truth is that the majority of people do not have the guts and the will to change it. That is why a minority runs and controls the resources. The thinking has become that those who are not with the plan are bad citizens.

[anarch]

Something to remember HP... todays kids were born with online with cellphones in hand.

It's a vastly different world than the one I was born into and nothing at all like the one you were born into... The game changed..and before the powers that be knew what happened the revolution began... and it was not televised.

Them slags twitter.

[Ima Nasshole]

I dug one of those once, I barricaded myself in the house with an ounce of blow and dug a bomb shelter. Damn good thing the cops didn't come, they would have been dispatched with extreme prejudice. lol

Drugs... make you do silly things.

[hp]

Of what revolution do you speak?

[anarch]

Of what revolution do you speak?


The information revolution but of course.

20 years ago I did not have the ability to keep a phone/camera/ video recorder on me at all times. 20 years ago I could not get a replacement CD for my broken CD at no cost other than the cost of my connection. 20 years ago I did not have the ability to find out accurate information on any subject I want to know more about. 20 years ago I could not tell all of my facebook friends that we need to meet up at our old hang spot so I can tell them what I learned online and how we can use it to attain our goals.

Todays world is not the one we were born into. It is the world they are born into... and them 4cahn lulz loving pyschonuts are growing older just as we have. They will be the ones....I am lucky enough to be young enough to join them as this thing moves forward...

[hp]

This information should only make it easier for people to find the truth. The truth has always been there, just maybe not as easy to find.

Knowing you are being done wrong and doing something are two different things. All we can hope is that the obvious, in your face truth, will cause critical mass to be reached.

[hp]

My take is that those with power know it is almost always just talk. They occasionally make an example of those that talk to make sure it just stay as talk.

[anarch]

In austin

http://www.londonphotos.org/archives/bunker.jpg

This is a crime that will get you a swat visit.

[Hazelnut]

The message sounds like we don't have the right to protect our own future, security, or property. And if we get old, we're screwed.

[anarch]

Do not let the youngsters know your old... or else surround yourself with youngsters of your own to protect you from the other predators...

[anarch]

BUMP TREK Seeking the rational on a night of stupidity. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LET THEIR BE INTELLECTUAL POSTINGS AGAIN!!!!

[iwanthalf]

Another example of the SWAT team overreacting to trivial matters...

:police:

[WhispersInTheDark]

Another example of the SWAT team overreacting to trivial matters...

:police:


Good use of under-rated smilie.

[FancyFree]

Time to go underground, i guess.....sigh, it's so dark down there.