Oh, no! It's RAID!

From the Fayetteville Observer, Published on Saturday, April 07, 2007

Oh, no! It’s RAID!
By Gene Smith

I used to play poker, a game of skill, math, money management, psychology and luck. A couple of Fayetteville businessmen I know could clean my clock at poker, and one regularly did. My theory is that he sold his soul to the devil at The Crossroads circa 1971, when he was living in a mobile home park near Erwin. But I won’t name names because they may still have suckers to fleece, and it would be wrong to interfere with the shearing.

It’s all illegal, of course. You can read about it right there in the General Statutes. But this isn’t about law. It’s about law enforcement, and it begins with a question: Should the U.S. Department of Defense throw its great bulk into local law enforcement operations meant to bring people to justice for civil misdemeanors that might net them a fine and, maybe, 60 days in jail?

That’s what happened with the big gambling bust in Cary on March 23. And after running down a few details, I’m left wondering how many law enforcement agencies were NOT casually called in — no, not just “the feds”; the National Guard, acting under a federal law tightly focused on weapons of mass destruction and Hazmat situations.

Maybe you already know all about the National Guard Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection program. I didn’t. So, after breaking my nails on a few bureaucratic walls (Cary PD, governor’s office, Crime Control and Public Safety, Alcohol Law Enforcement), I Googled it and quickly discovered that it’s all over the place — spotting marijuana from the air, interacting with kids at school, routine law enforcement stuff. Problem is, it’s not a law enforcement agency. It’s the military.

OK, you can pop the snap, but keep that posse comitatus argument holstered for a second. Our state does in fact give the Guard a law enforcement role, and I’m sure they’ll invoke it here. But unless you rip the words out of context, that role involves natural disasters, riots and insurrections. You know: the kinds of things for which governors have traditionally called out the National Guard. So try again: Should the military be involved in routine (which is not to “penny-ante”) local law enforcement operations?

Big-stakes poker could be used to launder money for terrorists, so I’m sure they’ll test that rationale, too. But the total take from more than three dozen people nabbed in the raid (four of them from our region) was about $20,000. I’ve seen that much change hands on one card aboard a cruise ship, where gambling really is gambling and poker really isn’t poker. And the only person looking at a stiffer charge than gambling was said to be the guy who leased the building and owned the six tables and the booze, along with whoever owned that disappointingly small quantity of marijuana. So let’s try it one more time: Should the National Guard, operating under a federal grant of authority to deal with terrorists wielding bombs and poisons, be helping the Cary PD contend with native-son misdemeanants wielding Aces and Jacks?

Ah, but they could have been armed! Ah, but they weren’t! They were there to play cards, not to foment rebellion. Now, what was it about this operation that demanded backup not only from the state Bureau of Alcohol Law Enforcement and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but also from the U.S. military? Ahem: What did the warrants say?

It’s only a guess, but I’d say Cary called for National Guard RAID simply because it’s available and it’s willing. Which leaves me wondering what other minutiae, personal vices and petty crimes are occupying its time, and where they’re occupying it. Coulda sworn somebody told me there’s a war on.

Until we get this sorted out, better not jaywalk. There could be a military helicopter overhead.