SWAT Team Sent to Collect Student Loans

Don · Jun 8, 2011

It's 6AM on Tuesday. Fifteen armed officers break down your front door, swarm your home, drag you outside in your boxers, cuff you, and hold you face-down while your three children (3,7, 11) are hustled into a police car, barely awake and frightened.

You and your children sit in that police car for six hours.

Then the SWAT team discovers the person they're looking for isn't there.

It's your ex-wife.

What happened?

The U.S. Department of Education issued the search and called in the S.W.A.T for his wife's defaulted student loans.

And what do they have to say for themselves?

According to the Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General, the case can't be discussed publicly until it is closed, but a spokesperson did confirm that the department did issue the search warrant at Wright's home.

WTF? A SWAT raid over defaulted student loans?

Made your payment lately? You've been warned...

I can hardly wait to hear "the rest of the story" after it's been through the spin cycle a few times.

Hat tip to Radley Balko at The Agitator.

robeiae · Jun 8, 2011

Wait, whose SWAT team was it? Not Stockton's. FBI's?

regdog · Jun 8, 2011

So about those overdue library books...

CARas · Jun 8, 2011

Glad I am making timely payments on my student loans

Diana Hignutt · Jun 8, 2011

I've said it before and I'll say it again...everyday life gets a little more like the movie, Brazil.

Don · Jun 8, 2011

robeiae said:
Wait, whose SWAT team was it? Not Stockton's. FBI's?

I'm guessing from this that the Department of Education has their own. Isn't that a comforting thought?

robeiae · Jun 8, 2011

A shotgun makes a SWAT team?

rugcat · Jun 8, 2011

Here's a video of the victim recounting the raid.

I can guarantee that there's more to this story than what's being alleged.

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/06/swat-team-busts-into-house-over-student-loan-default/

veinglory · Jun 8, 2011

The agency in question seems to deal with things like fraud rather than just unpaid loans.

"The Office of Inspector General does not engage in the collection of student loans. Our mission is to conduct criminal investigations related to the programs and operations of the U.S. Department of Education, which include the student financial aid programs. We can confirm that we executed a search warrant at the residence, however our policy is not to discuss details of our on-going work."

Maxinquaye · Jun 8, 2011

Doesn't anyone, to begin with, find it a little bit strange that a department of education has their own police force?

veinglory · Jun 8, 2011

They don't, it is just one of the things the OIG does. Specifically they looks for fraud in health and human service programs by the government. Hence it is highly unlikely a single defaulted loan is behind this.

Don · Jun 8, 2011

Maxinquaye said:
Doesn't anyone, to begin with, find it a little bit strange that a department of education has their own police force?

Apparently not. Those who once would have are so jaded it's no big surprise anymore.

Maxinquaye · Jun 8, 2011

I have a theory of echo chambers. I'll describe it sometimes. People don't talk about things they're used to, even if the things are crazy. Because they live in an echo chamber.

Don · Jun 8, 2011

Maxinquaye said:
I have a theory of echo chambers. I'll describe it sometimes. People don't talk about things they're used to, even if the things are crazy. Because they live in an echo chamber.

Just like they never notice the elephants pooping in the room. And to cover US politics, you have to expand the metaphor to include the incontinent jackasses, too.

robeiae · Jun 8, 2011

rugcat said:
Here's a video of the victim recounting the raid.

I can guarantee that there's more to this story than what's being alleged.

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/06/swat-team-busts-into-house-over-student-loan-default/

The end of the video I saw has the reporter saying that the DOE denied breaking in the door and holding the guy against his will. And I find it hard to believe that some judge signed off on a no-knock warrant for defaulted student loans.

Definitely more to this story.

William Haskins · Jun 8, 2011

Wright noted to the local press that, despite the violence and intimidation, it was still a breath of fresh air compared to bill collectors.

.

veinglory · Jun 8, 2011

People certainly aren't letting the truth get in the way of a good story.

The DOE is not doing the policing, they are being policed.

darkprincealain · Jun 8, 2011

Sounds like a good thing to be estranged from this particular wife.

Don · Jun 8, 2011

I thought when you got behind on loans, they just sent one guy, named Vinnie usually, around to have a discussion about kneecaps. I didn't know about the whole 15 guys and busting down the door thing. It seems somehow uncivilized, compared to Vinnie and his calm discussion.

CARas · Jun 8, 2011

When my loans were in default Vinnie never visited me but i got many annoying phone calls. At the time I could not make the payments they eventually seemed to understand that. When I was able to I started to pay again and now I am almost finished. i think about 6 more months is all I have.

Ink-Stained Wretch · Jun 8, 2011

Give a kid a toy, and of course he'll want to play with it. Give cops military surplus equipment -- and even encourage them to think of non-cops as "civilians" rather than "citizens," let alone "the people we're ostensibly here to serve" -- and of course they'll behave like an occupying army keeping a recalcitrant population under control.

SWAT teams were originally supposed to be used for immediate life-or-death matters -- "That man has hostages and is threatening to kill them!" But few people are considerate enough to stage such life-or-death crises, so more and more you see SWAT teams used for utterly non-violent "crimes," such as serving warrants for suspected marijuana use.

And for all that I admire Radley Balko's work, I've said more than once "A career like his has no damned business existing in an ostensibly free country."

veinglory · Jun 8, 2011

I am not convinced that the people who made the raid were a "SWAT" (special weapons and tactics) team. I doubt that OIG even has a SWAT team.

Ink-Stained Wretch · Jun 8, 2011

Something else occurs to me: they're looking for a woman -- who may or may not be a terrifying threat to the commonweal and all that is decent and good, I don't know -- so to find this woman they handcuff her husband, terrorize her children and make them all sit in a police car for six hours? What, the American legal system is now in the habit of taking innocent hostages?

Ink-Stained Wretch · Jun 8, 2011

robeiae said:
And I find it hard to believe that some judge signed off on a no-knock warrant for defaulted student loans.

If you were a regular reader of Radley Balko's work, and knew about the "isolated incident" atrocities he covers on a daily basis, you would not find it difficult to believe at all.

robeiae · Jun 8, 2011

Ink-Stained Wretch said:
Something else occurs to me: they're looking for a woman -- who may or may not be a terrifying threat to the commonweal and all that is decent and good, I don't know -- so to find this woman they handcuff her husband, terrorize her children and make them all sit in a police car for six hours? What, the American legal system is now in the habit of taking innocent hostages?

Yeah. Well, everyone up in arms here is just taking the guy's word for it, with regard to how it all went down.

Ink-Stained Wretch said:
If you were a regular reader of Radley Balko's work, and knew about the "isolated incident" atrocities he covers on a daily basis, you would not find it difficult to believe at all.

Not true.

Because again--as Emily has also noted--the evidence that there was a "SWAT" team here is nothing but a poorly written and researched article.

Balko is a tad better than that.

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