Raid, Search, Seizure & Arrest of Homeowner Who Refused Consent to Warrantless Search

FREDERICKSBURG, Tex. — The Rutherford Institute is challenging a warrantless raid carried out on a rural home by the Gillespie County (Tex.) Sheriff’s Department, which allegedly resulted in the homeowner being seized by police officers, placed in handcuffs, thrown to the ground and subsequently arrested for refusing to consent to the search of his home. In coming to the defense of Huntly and Susan Dantzler, Rutherford Institute attorneys are investigating the extent to which the Dantzler’s constitutional rights were violated by law enforcement officials.

“As SWAT teams and SWAT-style tactics are used more frequently to carry out routine law enforcement activities, Americans find themselves in increasingly dangerous and absurd situations,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “What we are witnessing is an inversion of the police-civilian relationship. Rather than compelling police officers to remain within constitutional bounds as servants of the people, ordinary Americans are being placed at the mercy of law enforcement. In the process, Americans are rendered altogether helpless and terror-stricken as a result of these confrontations with the police. Indeed, as the Dantzlers can attest to, ‘terrorizing’ is a mild term to describe the effect on those who survive such vigilante tactics.”

Read more at https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/rut...