Keeping The World Safe From...
2008-01-15 16:41:46
By:
Gene Bromberg
As if we needed further evidence that lunacy reigns here in the U.S. of A., yet another
story about police raiding a poker game. According to the article in the San Jose Mercury News, police had this "illegal gambling operation under surveillance for several months". What was the nature of this nefarious "operation"? Well, 20 people were in a private house playing poker. The police confiscated 3 poker tables, chips, and...wait for it...$1,300 in cash.
Twenty people. Thirteen hundred bucks in cash. Do the math and you get a whopping $65 dollars apiece. For this, THIS, the police came a-crashing through the doors. The people who hosted the game were arrested and their 13-year-old taken into custody by the city's child protection services. Why were they arrested? Because they held tournaments with buy-ins between $25 and $65 and, in addition, they DARED to collect five bucks a head for food and drinks.
Some people complain about blogs because there isn't an editor double-checking what the reporter writes, but what's the point of an editor when they allow a ludicrous statement like this one to appear in their paper--"
A background check on the house's residents led officers to a Web site advertising weekly poker games. The Web site was used to lure "unwitting" participants to the tournaments..."
How, precisely, could one be an "unwitting" participant in a poker game? You see a website offering a poker game. You arrive at the house and find...that there's a poker game going on. If you're so "unwitting" that you can't grasp there's a POKER GAME going on at this point, how could you be "witting" enough to drive a car over there? I mean, if I see an ad for a place offering poker, and I "unwittingly" show up and instead they have cockfighting or--worse--karaoke, I leave. But if a poker game is advertised, and poker is being played, there's nothing "unwitting" about it. Maybe newspapers should stop publishing unedited press releases from the police.
Maybe they should talk to someone who was actually there during the raid. He titled his post "Reno 911 (The home game)" and lists a number of interesting facts about that night. To wit:
- Ten cops with guns and riot gear conducted the raid. To deal with twenty people playing in a freeroll tournament.
- Two of the cops who conducted the raid (including one wearing a riot shield over his face) actually used to PLAY IN THE GAME. In fact, the author of the post nicknamed the one cop "Moolah Muerta", meaning "Dead Money". This may have been part of the sting, or maybe they just liked playing poker.
- The newspaper article said that one reason for the raid was the the neighbors complained about all the cars and people walking around during the games. Yet after the raid, several neighbors watching the scene outside talked to the blogger and expressed amazement that the cops bothered with such a "crime". A few even wished that they'd been invited to play
From the blog post it sounds like a bunch of people got together to play poker every week or so, had some fun, made friends with each other...and THIS is something that needs to be broken up by law enforcement? This makes sense?
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