A liquor license raid?


First time I have ever heard of a SWAT team being dispatched in a liquor license dispute
Radley Balko has a lengthy and detailed piece on a raid in Virginia.

On June 2, 2004, police in the the Washington, D.C. exurb of Manassas Park, Virginia brought in a multi-jurisdictional narcotics tax force and officers from several surrounding cities and counties to conduct a massive, 70-90 officer SWAT raid on the Rack n' Roll Billiards Club.

The raid took place on Ladies' Night, a Wednesday. Though the intent of the raid was to collect evidence of drug use and drug distribution by David Ruttenberg, the club's manager, it was conducted under the auspices of an Alcohol Beverage Control inspection. Because ABC is primarily a regulatory agency, the guise of an ABC inspection enabled the raid to take place without a search warrant.

After hours of scouring the club, searching every nook and cranny, and generally turning the place upside down, the only charges to follow against Ruttenberg were for two bottles of beer a distributor had left for sampling that weren't clearly marked "SAMPLE." The bar would later be charged with a few other minor offenses: one incident of serving alcohol to a minor, and with several incidents of flashing from customers during Mardi Gras.

Police arrested three people at the club on drug charges, the principal reason for the raid (though, again, the ABC facade enabled them to carry it out without a warrant). One was an undercover officer, who was of course immediately released. The other two were, by all indications, working for the police (the Ruttenberg's brief contains the specifics as to why it's safe to assume the arrestees were informants, one paid, and one cooperating in exchange for leniency on other charges). The paid informant was released. According to the Ruttenbergs all of the drug deals police say took place at the club were engineered by the police themselves, either through the informants or through an undercover officer (this too is laid out in the brief).

It's long and scary. Be sure to watch the security camera footage.

Maybe I just remember too many old Perry Mason shows, but the phrase "beyond a shadow of a doubt" keeps popping in my head. If this man was guilty, why can't the police produce evidence? That means that either he is innocent or the police are incompetent. Either way, I have to say it looks like harassment to me.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - February 21, 2006 at 06:39 AM  Tag


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