Austin, TX seizes veteran's home
 

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...printArticle=y

This is tyranny.

So, the argument is that people who are military veterans should be exempted from having to follow the local building codes?

building codes are enforced with SWAT and interrogations?

To the best of my knowledge, building codes are enforced in the same manner as any other civil regulation- with whatever level of coercion is required to induce compliance.

The article is vaguely written in some points, however it certainly suggests that the homeowner had resisted prior efforts to obtain compliance.

If, hypothetically, I were to default on the mortgage of my home, and then resist efforts to evict me with force, then I would eventually expect an armed police response. Same basic idea here.

I am still digging for a better article, but in the attached video from this one the home owner states he opened the door and was rushed by police, taken to a command post and interrogated about "suspicious barrels" in his backyard. as well as the searched all of his personaly belongings and took his guns.

this all seems fine for a code violation? I understand your point that building code needs enforced by all means needed to get someone to comply but even the timeline from the first citation (08) to them destroying and confiscating the house ('10) seems alittle out of place. there is no mention of court subpenas (im not denying they may exist) which when ignored would result in a bench warrant for his arrest.

even then being the victim of a erroneous bench warrant I can tell you they have no right to enter ones property for any other reason but to secure the person.

I cannot find any local or otherwise news agency covering this. all other articles site back to this one. so I do have to question the lack of information on the other side of this story

I keep reading the article and I keep seeing:
A retaining wall was constructed and approved by an engineer
Only a privacy infringement can trigger awareness of his potentially un-permitted underground shelter.

For those who don't know Austin, the city has been foaming at the mouth to bulldoze that side of town and expand downtown and business there.

Precisely.

The purpose of that article is to inflame public opinion by presenting only one-half of a story, and including just enough facts to make it seem that the police / city / etc acted unjustly.


Also, I see no mention of them either destroying or confiscating the house. They took steps to rectify the code violations, and the held the house until the owner paid for the cost of said repairs. I'm pretty sure that if you check out the relevant statues in Austin, you'll find this to be legal.



Well, either that, or if the work he was doing underground was causing subsidances and sinkholes at the surface. This is what I read:

"According to city records, code compliance inspectors visited Del Rio's house in 2008 and 2009 in response to neighbors' complaints about holes."