“He hears a snap of a holster, turns around, and here’s this agent, both hands on a loaded pistol, pointing at the young man’s head.”
ALASKA-CANADA BORDER — A group of boy scouts on a back-country excursion were detained, searched, and threatened with arrest after one scout took a photograph of a border patrol agent. The Scoutmaster says that one of his scouts had a gun pointed directly at his head during the 4-hour ordeal.
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The incident occurred earlier this month, when Iowa-based Boy Scout Troop 111 took a drive up to Alaska to do some camping. Their passage through the American border left the scouts traumatized.
As the four van-loads of scouts and leaders went through a federal checkpoint crossing into Alaska, one of the boys, eager to document his trip, got out his camera. When a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent witnessed him taking pictures, things grew hostile.
Agents forced the occupants of the van to exit and submit to an extensive search. They seized the boy’s camera, deleted the pictures, and threatened the minor with imprisonment.
“The agent immediately confiscated his camera, informed him he would be arrested, fined possibly $10,000 and 10 years in prison,” said Jim Fox, Scoutmaster of Troop 111, in an interview with KCCI.
Meanwhile all of the occupants of the van were having their personal belongings shuffled through by federal agents. Hostilities peaked when one scout reached for his luggage without permission.
“[The boy] hears a snap of a holster, turns around, and here’s this agent, both hands on a loaded pistol, pointing at the young man’s head,” Mr. Fox recalled.
Besides having their rights and privacy violated, and facing a near-death experience, the troop had its trip delayed unnecessarily for 4 hours. Eventually, the 18 scouts and 3 leaders were allowed to drive off into Alaska and pursue their camping trip.
While there was no legal basis to threaten the boy with fines or imprisonment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is apparently defending the detainment, telling KCCI that the picture was taken at a port of entry, which is federal property and a place where pictures are not allowed. In other words, it was a place where the U.S. agents can ignore the constitution and suppress the freedom of speech. The agency is also attempting to deny that a gun was drawn, which should be interesting, given that they are going against the credibility of a troop of 2 dozen boy scouts.
It is a foregone conclusion that abuses like this will only accelerate as politicians prepare to further militarize the border and advance the scope and power of enforcement agencies. Be careful what you wish for.
……..aaaannnnd, nothing……move along please, nothing to see here.
There’s a show on NatGeo called “Alaska State Troopers”.
Watched it 2 or 3 times. Judging from the show there are only THREE crimes copfuks in Alaska go after;
—- 1) recreational drug users
—- 2) drunks
—- 3) people hunting or fishing shit they shouldn’t
Alaskan Gestappo, fuckem.
Two of those troopers we’re killed, shot.
“Two of those troopers we’re killed, shot. ” ————- Card802
What I like about you, Card803, is that you always have something POSITIVE to say. Nice job.
Card thanks for the lesson in karma.
You just couldn’t make this shit up if you tried to ! What the fuck is happening to everything ? Boy Scouts a security risk / threat ? Come on now, really ?
It’s as if the powers that be WANT these stories to get reported and they continue and in fact escalate these practices to keep people in fear. These tactics must be resisted somehow.
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson
Pull a gun on my kid and I’ll hunt you down….the kids didn’t know that the SCOTUS ruled you need a warrant to go into a cell phone .
As I see it, this is 1932 and we are living in NAZI Germany. We have two options: we can fight or we can flee. Given the strength of the FSA combined with the millions of Federal Workers that support our fascist régime, it may make more sense to flee. With that in mind, I’ve been working like mad to obtain a foreign passport so I can take my family, my business & my skillset out of the country and to a place where hard work and education (a real one) are appreciated. Eventually the United States, like NAZI Germany, will be defeated but the road to that defeat will make what happened to Germany look like a Sunday picnic.
Incidents like these just reinforce my thinking and my objectives. Of course, I may get caught in the maelstrom of chaos that is awaiting us in the USSA but I’m prepared for that as well.
God help us.
My cousin is a Scout leader, has about 15 Eagle Scouts to his credit, I asked him his viewpoint about this incident as he is known to speak out against the federal government from time to time.
“Well this is how it see it.
The scoutmaster looks like a bit of a bumpkin. So he probably didn’t have control of his scouts and it sounds like they were getting searched as the customs guys decided to do the deep dive and give them the treatment.
So the gear has to come down from the vehicles. Knowing my scouts as I do in a time of stress they all want to help, to comply, and to take charge a bit. One kid jumps up on the van to untie the gear and get suitcases or backpacks off the vehicle. Maybe they were told to do that or maybe they six it on their own.
But one kid is going out of his way to help or at least he thinks he is. The on alert customs agent sees simple chaos and a young man going his own direction and trying to get a large bag down from the vehicle. What if it was a 17 year old Iranian grabbing a bag with a weapon in it?
We just don’t know the conditions of the moment
I even had to read the story to understand what the troop was doing. Not many us troops take multi week journeys from Iowa into Canada. Attempt to enter Alaska saying they are headed home. The Scoutmasters description of the itinerary didn’t make sense. They weren’t headed home, they were headed to the next step of their trip, into Alaska, then headed home
So when you put it all together I sense the scene at the border might have been a bit of a Clarke Griswold moment
BSA is citing it as a good citizenship and civics lesson for the young men so they must also know more to the story
I think it’s a big misunderstanding and the only thing that bothers me is the Customs guys lying about the gun. They can easily explain it. I’ve had a gun drawn in me by an official both in and outside country. It happens. After four hours and after deleting their photos of the officials, the troop was released.”
My cousin is a big believer that our military keeps the world under control for our freedom, for our safety, and federal agents, even those that point loaded firearms at a kids head, do this to keep us safe, from Iranian scouts that must have weapons in their scout pack……..
Clarification, he speaks out against a democrat controlled federal government, his view is republicans are the country’s only hope and fantasizes about what a world we could have had with Maverick McCain as leader of the free world.
@RiseUp “It’s as if the powers that be WANT these stories to get reported and they continue and in fact escalate these practices to keep people in fear. These tactics must be resisted somehow. ”
I have started to think this way as well. Stories like this or a 6 year old getting suspended for pretending a crayon was a gun, or how many people were shot over the last weekend in Chicago…the same stories show up all over the place. Perhaps you are right and that they are intentionally spread to induce fear and mistrust. Perhaps TPTB see that they are losing the ability to maintain the status quo and are trying to light the tinder to get the ball rolling that takes the whole thing down in flames.
Card…sounds like your cousin is having flashbacks…..the Demorats And Republican’t want to dominate us. McCain would have the world in flames in 60 days if he were President….kinda like he did on the USS Forrestal .