Saturday, April 19, 2014

If True, A Very Bad Sign

From WND:
Armed fed raid prompted by safety rules

Critics of the way federal agencies in Montana handled a recent raid on a company that recycles brass for ammunition are calling for an investigation.

Government officials have declined to respond to allegations that armed officers with weapons drawn locked up USA Brass employees, confiscated their cell phones and otherwise violated their rights.

The incident in Bozeman, Mont., drew little attention from media.

To protect against lead contamination, USA Brass had installed filters and added training. The company had passed a subsequent inspection before officers from the Environmental Protection Agency and FBI arrived, apparently with guns drawn....

...[S]ome have explained the event as an “audit,” but then the question is why it escalated into “a full-blown, armed raid.”...
Read the rest HERE.

Now, I'm wary of WND as a reliable source. But the same is true of mainstream news sources.

So, does anybody here at IBA know if the above story is true?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I have been saying over and over. We live a police state. Not in the future, NOW. There is absolutely no reason for government agencies to be serving subpoenas and warrants by heavily armed paramilitary goon squads.

Pastorius said...

Let's call them.

Always On Watch said...

Call USA Brass?

25 Evergreen Dr, Bozeman, Mt 59715
(406) 586-2474

Always On Watch said...

The company's last FB entry = March 19.

Always On Watch said...

I don't see anything particularly alarming in the NBC Montana report. Note comments, though.

Always On Watch said...

correct link

Always On Watch said...

From this source:

Missoula, MT --(Ammoland.com)- Most of you will be aware that armed employees of the EPA and FBI recently conducted an armed raid on a company in Bozeman that recycles used cartridge brass.

This article is to give you additional information that was not in the news about that, to tell you what I’ve been doing concerning the raid, and to prepare you to help with the next step.

Several months ago, OSHA visited the business, USA Brass, because of allegations of workplace safety issues, notably lead dust in the air from tumbling fired brass (the lead dust would be from fired primers). There were two employees who had lead levels above what is acceptable. As a result, USA Brass invested a lot of money in expensive air filtration and ventilation equipment, and upgraded employee training and practices. As a result, USA Brass passed a subsequent inspection by OSHA.

However, upon OSHA’s first visit, I’m told, USA Brass managers didn’t kneel quickly enough to OSHA inspectors and offended them by not being subserviently cooperative. So, the subsequent raid by EPA, FBI and others was conducted to teach them a lesson about federal power and proper cooperation.

I have yet to learn if the federal entry was conducted with guns drawn, but that will come out. Many, if not all, of the federal employees were visibly armed (thanks to the local TV station for covering this). The federal employees were aided and abetted by personnel from the Bozeman Police Department and the Gallatin County Sheriffs Office.

Upon arrival, the federal employees forced all the employees into a room or rooms where they were isolated and held for hours. The employees cell phones were confiscated so they could have no communication out of the building. The feds disabled all of the security cameras in the building so there would be no video record of the federal deeds or misdeeds. The feds confiscated and took away all laptop computers and external hard drives, and copied all desktop hard drives, including USA Brass’s contact information for 10,000 customers....

Always On Watch said...

Also from the above link:

One additional tidbit: Lawyers for USA Brass have persuaded the principals that they should hunker down and make no waves, for fear of triggering more Draconian and punitive federal actions.

I'm guessing that the above means that phoning the company will get us nowhere.

Pastorius said...

I guess you're right.

That's fucked.