[VIDEO] Man’s Wife Hospitalized After Town Launches 24 Man SWAT Raid Against a 75 year old man who owed them $80,000 in fines

28 Oct, 2014 by McGuire

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This is just too much. I guess if you are 75, and choose to go into debt with the city of Stettin, Wisconsin – a SWAT team will show up at your door. Ridiculous.

From the article:

The tiny town of Stettin, Wisconsin, is home to fewer than 3,000 residents, and one of those residents, 75-year-old Roger Hoeppner, has been engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the town over how he uses his land, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Saturday.

Hoeppner, a retired paper factory worker, runs a tractor- and pallet-repair business on the 20 acres of land he owns in Stettin, the Journal Sentinel reported, and for years the town has been trying to get him to clean up the parts and pallets strewn across his property.
The city has won a series of court cases against Hoeppner, and contends that the septuagenarian has not abided by prior agreements to clean up his land, leading a judge to impose $500-per-day fines on Hoeppner in April 2013.

On Oct. 2, Stettin obtained a writ of execution to collect the more than $80,000 Hoeppner owed, the newspaper reported, and the sheriff’s SWAT team made its move, bringing 24 armed officers and an armored vehicle, the Marathon County Response Vehicle — or MARV — to Hoeppner’s house.

In the wake of violence in Ferguson, Missouri, the nation may be turning a critical eye towards militarized police forces, but Stettin’s law enforcement defended the use of the MARV to collect money from an old man.

“I’ve been involved in about five standoff situations where, as soon as the MARV showed up, the person gives up,” Sheriff’s Capt. Greg Bean told the Journal Sentinel, arguing that deployment of the vehicle can save time and money and promote safety.

Bean seemed to be right in Hoeppner’s case: the man reportedly didn’t come out of his home to talk to deputies until the MARV pulled onto his property.

VIDEO OF SWAT VEHICLE UNVEILING:

In all fairness, he didn’t come out until this monstrosity rolled onto his property. But at 75, I would think he does what he wants. If he wants to leave junk everywhere in his yard and die in debt to the city, so be it. No need for a giant military vehicle to roll onto the property. Probably took a few years of life out of him to see that coming. His wife was hospitalized, poor thing. I wonder how much money was wasted in deploying this VS the $80,000 owed? I bet pretty close to even. The police shouldn’t even need to have equipment like this at their disposal. They are not at war with America. We have fine service men and women to protect us with that sort of thing. Militarizing police forces is going to far. What do you think?