Police Helicopters and Snipers: The New Perp Walk

At the risk of sounding callous, I didn't read much past these couple of paragraphs. Were I to read every account of the Feds or law enforcement fitting up some ice cream salesman, hot dog vendor or other, I would have little time to study anything else.

But it was the ever increasing use of this shabby and utterly transparent tactic, designed at influencing a jury, that caught my eye. And of course you can add to the jury having to ''run the gauntlet'' every day, the fact that the jury has probably been sequestered each night, quite unnecessarily, in some poxy motel, for ''their own safety,'' is hardly going to endear the jury to the plight of the accused. Particularly if he's brown.

What a shallow, shitty and unjust society.

.....When morning broke, he was loaded into another car, bleary-eyed and weakened, and taken to the federal courthouse. As the vehicle moved through the streets, Aref was astonished by the sudden commotion. Helicopters swarmed overhead. There were scores of local and national news reporters, cameras angling to get his picture. He saw snipers.

During his three-week trial in 2006, he learned that he was the target of a controversial FBI sting, which involved a Pakistani informant with a history of crime. In the end, he was convicted of, among other things, conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Little Gitmo New York Magazine