The small Wisconsin town Stettin is evidently is very scared of the elderly. After police were sent to collect an $86,000 debt from a 75-year-old man they heard ‘rumblings’ inside the house, and because their knock at his door didn’t receive a reply they paniced and called in an armored vehicle along with 24 armed cops.
The little down has sent their armored vehicle onto their streets 53 times since they acquired it back in 2011.
Quite a lot for a small town – they certainly seem to be enjoying their new war machine.
A lot of alarm at all the weapons of war being deployed at our local law enforcement. When you militarize police you can expect a more war-like posture from cops. Is that what we wnt?
In 2008, the town sued Hoeppner over claimed violations of ordinances about zoning, signs, rubbish and vehicles. The two parties settled a year later, but Stettin officials felt he reneged on the deal and filed for a motion for contempt and enforcement. In September 2010, a judge ordered Hoeppner to clean up his land. The property owner didn’t comply, and so the judge then authorized the town to seize assets, which officials did in summer of 2011, selling the tractors, pallets and other items for “pennies on the dollar,” Lister said. Hoeppner was then issued a $500-a-day fine in April 2013 for his previous non-compliance.
“This has been a long outstanding problem between the resident and the township and it’s been contentious. We’ve had deputies go to town board meetings to do security. We know we’ve had our staff involved to mediate this over a number of months trying to calm the situation and it never got any better,” Billeb said.
By October 2, that daily fine amounted to $86,000, which the town sought to collect that day. When Hoeppner failed to open the door, deputies called in the Marathon County Response Vehicle (MRAV) and began inventorying the items on the property.
That brought the 75-year-old then out of the house, but he soon got “pushy” and tried bowling past them, police said, according to the Daily Herald. That’s when a lieutenant handcuffed the property owner.
“I’ve been involved in about five standoff situations where, as soon as the MARV showed up, the person gives up,” saving the county time, money and increasing safety, Bean said to the Journal-Sentinel. “People may not always understand why, but an armored vehicle is almost a necessity now.”
The department obtained the armored ‒ but not weaponized ‒ vehicle in 2011, and it has since been deployed 53 times.
The 75-year-old and his wife have filed a claim for damages against the town in the amount of $4.5 million, according to WSAW.
“It’s a long-running, heavily litigated dispute over his use of his property,” another of Hoeppner’s lawyers (on an unrelated matter), Jeff Scott Olson, told the Journal-Sentinel. “They’re trying to collect in a very heavy-handed manner.”
Stettin officials agreed to drop $6,000 from his bill, in exchange for Hoeppner paying the bill that day without the town needing to haul away and sell the equipment from his property.
“The $86,000 figure is enough to shock most men,” the 75-year-old said. “And they wanted it now, today.”
Source: rt.com
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