One Saturday night, in the evening, I accepted the invitation of a friend to go to a party at the house of a fellow we knew.  I spent perhaps 20 minutes that evening socializing, though I was out for 9 hours.  
     When I first entered, I noticed several people I knew, including my friend K. who was renting there.  I also noticed a few people who seemed out of place; generally older than those who I knew, and just not...right.   I got a bad feeling, and soon the fellow that brought me came over and said "There's some weird stuff going on here, but I don't know what it is."  We both dismissed our worries, as everyone seemed peaceful and there was nothing illegal occuring.
     For the next ten minutes, we continued to listen to a friend play some blues guitar and drank beer that we later learned was provided by the police. (Two of the three undercover cops there weren't known to any other attendees, and used the few cases of Budweiser to be quietly accepted and kindly treated.)       Suddenly, there was a loud crash as half a dozen of the Putnam County Sheriff's Narcotic Task Force broke down the door.  The first thing I heard after the crash was a shout of "Look, faggots" and then "don't anybody fucking move." My fellow Wiccan, K., was holding hands with his boyfriend in the kitchen.  I think, knowing all too well the bigotry of many cops up here, that it is no coincidence that out of three people who were badly beaten up that night, two were homosexuals who didn't resist arrest (though they were charged with it ).  (The third was urinating in an adjacent yard not covered by the warrent, alone in the woods, when a cop pressed a gun into his neck and told him to lie down on the ground, without identifying himself.  This officer was hospitalized; the person in question is nearly seven feet tall and 300-odd lbs.)
     K.'s boyfriend was slammed into the wall, and yelled "wait", then I heard the police yell "Get him, boy, get him"-they were encouraging their German Shepard to attack this fellow-photos have been taken to document the extent of the dog bites on his body.  He fell on his back on the floor as he crashed into the living room where I was, the dog jumping on him.  He was screaming "Stop!
What did I do, What did I do?!" almost hysterically by that time, and the police were standing there saying "Want us to take him away?" over and over while allowing the dog to stand on top of the nineteen year old kid.  They cuffed him and took him away, though by that time he was literally shaking and screaming, unable to stop.  They had a moment's trouble cuffing him because he was so hysterical and slippery with blood, so he was charged with resisting arrest.
     When the dog and its victim came into the room I was in, I yelled "Hey, you're not putting the dog on him!"  and stepped forward to stop the dog.  I got about two feet before I was told "Get the fuck back over there or you're next."
      I retreated, and we remaining ten were searched, though Kenny refused to
kneel "not in my own home" and was consequently beaten.  Nobody but Kenny
and the owner of the house was made to kneel.  The search produced a small amount of marijuana in one guy's pocket (I believe less than a gram), and my matches were confiscated along with two lumps of Frankincense I had in my pocket.  The officer thought this was crack, and when I tried to explain he said "shut up; I don't want to smell that shit" and put it in an evidence bag.
     Eventually, somewhere hidden in the house they found a paper bag containing
marijuana.  None of us knew it was there, except I assume the owner of the house, but we were all arrested at the moment of that discovery.  We were taken outside, our hands cuffed behind our backs, and left to sit on the ground in the thirty-odd degree weather long enough for me to develop a nasty cold or flu; I could not zipper my jacket without hands.
     As I sat there, I saw the cops loading their cars with candle holders and candles from the house, along with some other boxes of who knows what.
     Eventually we were taken to the station, searched again, booked, printed etc.  K.s boyfriend was offered a copy of "Woman's Day" by a laughing young rookie.  He said nothing, but when I said "He doesn't look like a woman to me, officer"; the cop was suddenly serious, "Shut the fuck up, fucker!"  They really exercised their limited vocabulary that night.
     The cops said that they had found cocaine, too.  Suspecting that they were actually thinking of my Frankincense, I asked where it was found.  The officer said "on the coffee table,"  to which I responded "I sat right by that table; there was no coke there or anywhere I could see."  
     "No, we found it pushed down in a chair cushion.  That uh, gold chair.  Who was sitting in that chair?"
     "I didn't check"
     Eventually after lots of police sarcasm, involving mostly the words "fuck", "faggot", we were released on our own recognizance, charged with criminal possession of marijuana (they claim 14 ounces) and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the 7th degree, specifying cocaine.
     Never during the course of the evening were we read our rights.  We were not allowed to use the phone.  When Kenny asked to call his sister, he was told "You don't have any reason to call anyone now, who knows if you're even getting out."  This was soon followed by another cop saying to him "They're gonna love you in there, hahahaha!"
     One of us was made to wait well over forty minutes after his first request to use the bathroom.  As we sat cuffed and cold on the ground outside, their German Shepard drug sniffer was allowed to roam among us unleashed, and though the cops said "don't worry, he won't bite," they also were heard by several of us to express doubt about their ability to control the dog with 3 prisoners in the car.  (there were 11 of us arrested, and we had to be crammed into cars)
     The cop's attitude at the station can be summed up by the following quoted exchange:
"Hey, can I have a drag?" Mike said, referring to the officer's cigarette.
"No, shut the fuck up"
"Why not?"
"Because I fucking work here!"
     So, the conclusion to their six-month undercover investigation was a bust when there was no drug use, and two misdemeanor drug charges against each of the arrested.  This does not look good for the cops.  They claimed that we were Satanists, their evidence consisting of a few candles, a book, a crucifix or two (very satanic to own a crucifix!), their videotape footage of some tarot cards and some stones in the yard arranged in a circle in the pattern of Stonehenge and K.s Wiccan altar, which was painted with a pentagram and Futhark runes
spelling "Peace to all."  Other evidence was what they called, and I quote from the police press release, "hexagon and pentagon graffiti."  Gosh, what evil parallelograms!
     One witness, who arrived a while after the bust as the house was being ransacked (imagine the feeling, these foul-mouthed, fat bigots tearing through all of your personal possessions, rending books, removing wallpaper...a not subtle form of rape.), and who was not arrested, saw the cops taking several hundred dollars in cash and assorted small objects, referring to it as "our pay for the night" and telling him "you didn't see anything...we'll let you go if you don't say anything."  Due to this, the FBI claims to be investigating the Putnam County Sheriff's dept.
      
     The preceeding is from a letter I sent to Dr. Leo Lewis Martello (Witches anti-defamation League) a year or so ago.  Some interesting points have come out since then.
     The Sheriff who took credit for this 'drug cult bust' was re-elected a few days after the sensationalistic articles appeared in the local papers...what a coincidence.  Also taken from K. were statues of X-tian saints and Pagan goddesses-the cops later said that these items must have been stolen from a church...they said the same about the candleabras.  I can't imagine a Christian church would have much use for a three foot high statue of Artemis.  The only book they got was a library book, and Ken has reciepts for all the other items...yet they held them until they got a court order to return them months later.  These pigs (please do not get me wrong; I know there are good, intelligent, honest cops out there, but none were there that night) pawed through K.'s Tarot cards, spread them out on his altar and videotaped them as evidence.
     They ransacked his oils, decorated the walls of the house with the former contents of the refrigerator, and made a good attempt at taking Ken's cauldron...fortunately, it proved too heavy and was left in the yard.  They also dragged a two foot high Buddha shrine from the house and smashed it on a rock.
    
This was in November of 1989.  Since then, we have tried to get a lawyer willing to press a suit against the police, and were told the same thing everywhere: no lawyer would do it.  The cocaine charges were dropped, and the police could produce no coke; there was none there.  They told the papers (who published our names and addresses) that they confiscated LSD; they produced none and charges were dropped.  After the election, of course.
     Nearly every one of the defendents was harassed by the police constantly after some statements about the true nature of the raid were made o Gannett and local papers (two of which I worked for-they never connected that Pete the photographer was supposedly also "pete the satan druggie").  Those not harassed were living in another county.
     After I told Gannett papers some of the true details, two undercover Putnam county Sheriff's deputies (who were present at the 'bust') came to my place of employment, in Westchester county, and dragged me out of work without telling me why until they had dragged me through the whole mall in cuffs and thrown me into an unmarked car.  On my way to the sheriff's HQ, I was told that I had missed my court date the night before.  I produced a letter from the court stating that I was not to report back until the day after this arrest, but they took it and put me in jail.  I was in county jail for twenty hours before the court clerk was able to verify that the arrest was in error.  Demoralized and denied sleep, I took the advice of my lawyer and copped a plea of guilty to possession of about one and one half ounces of pot.  Mr. helpful attorney told me that I didn't have enough money to fight it, and that if I chose not to accept the plea bargain that I could end up back in jail pending the next court date.

     I am now on 3 years probation, Sheriff Bob Thoubboron is serving another term as Sheriff of rural Putnam county, and I and the others have given up trying to fight back, because it seems useless.  I tried to tell the story to a grand jury at a voluntary hearing, and the DA read from a newspaper article saying that I was a Satan worshipper.  I was not allowed to rebuff this statement, and the jury, none of whom were under 30, decided that I needed to be punished.  I had newspaper articles published listing my name and address which said that I was involved with marijuana, cocaine, and LSD dealing and Satanic worship.  Though all charges (including satan worship) except marijuana possession were later withdrawn, there was no press release saying so.  I was denied at least one lucrative job because my name was recognized as one of the ones in the papers.
  
     Watch out, you could be next.  And doubt what you read in the papers.

Pete Bergin, 7/91, Brooklyn NY