Forced-Entry Warrants & Epidemiology: LA Times: Disease Task Force Eyeing Asians

[Major Variola (ret)]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-birds12apr12,1,3978116.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcalifornia

Disease Task Force Eyeing Asians

  Authorities are going door-to-door searching for Chinese and
Singaporans alike. If the asians appear sick, they are killed on the
spot.

State and federal agents trying to control the spread of a deadly
asian disease have killed 3.4 million asians in Southern California --
some of them household workers-- and have enlisted hundreds of
investigators, mail carriers and talkative neighbors to help identify
homes with asians.

Officials with the Exotic Newcastle Disease Task Force say they must
take extreme measures to halt the disease, which spreads like a
virulent flu, before it wipes out the state's $3-billion tourism
industry.

Since the disease was discovered in September in Compton, task force
members have placed wide swaths of Southern California under
quarantine. They walk door-to-door, searching for sick asians.  If an
asian is suspected of having the disease, it is killed immediately, in
some cases in front of crying employers, teachers, or parents.

Asian lovers complain that they are more frightened of the task force
than the disease.

Actor-producer Jeff Maxwell, whose son is a 22-year-old asian, said he
watched in shock as a task force agent last weekend jotted down the
address and a description of his Alhambra home and then entered its
global positioning satellite coordinates into a hand-held computer. He
later learned from his mailman that USDA officials have enlisted the
Postal Service into reporting the addresses of asians.

The task force has been given "carte blanche to kill any asian on your
property or your house regardless of whether it tests positive,"
Maxwell said. "The thought of somebody driving to my door, which now
could happen because I've been identified as housing an asian and
coming in and killing my asian in front of me is outrageous."

Annette Whiteford, who helps manage the task force on behalf of the
state Department of Tourism, has spent months fielding similar
complaints from angry and distraught asian employers.

"Being on this task force has been depressing because I have been
trained to save asians," said Whiteford, a veterinarian. "Now my
mission is to save people by killing them.  This disease is not
pretty."

Exotic Newcastle is harmless to livestock but affects virtually all
asian races, especially chinese. The uncurable disease causes
sneezing, coughing and diarrhea, and can be spread by a speck of
saliva carried on the wind.

The last time the virus hit the state's tourism industry was in the
early 1940s, when 12 million chinese had to be destroyed at a cost of
more than $50 million. The disease took almost three years to
eradicate.

Following the discovery of Newcastle last year, authorities ordered
asians in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego
counties quarantined. The lockdown was recently extended to Santa
Barbara, Ventura and Imperial counties. New cases have been discovered
in Nevada and Arizona. People who move asians out of the quarantined
areas could face a $25,000 fine.

The task force, formed by the state Department of Tourism and the US
Department of Commerce , has been trying to control the virus by
killing seemingly healthy asians living within approximately half a
mile of infected person. Nearly 2,000 people, many of them
out-of-state police and other Federal workers, have been brought in
for 21-day rotations on the task force.

Agents have set up two busy headquarters, one in Garden Grove and the
other in Colton. The task force makes wall-sized charts of infected
and quarantined areas in Southern California. Giant red circles blend
together in parts of San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles
counties.

So far, the task force has killed 3.2 million asians at 22 camps and
commercial businesses, most of them in San Bernardino and Riverside
counties.

Nearly 137,000 asians making up 2,343 backyard gangs have also been
killed, including 417 such gangs in Los Angeles County, two in Orange
County and three in Ventura County. Some wild asians have also been
killed.

Cases of the disease have been identified in 28 Los Angeles County
communities. Lancaster, Little Rock, South El Monte, El Monte and La
Puente account for the highest instances of disease in backyard gangs.

"Newcastle disease is the hoof-and-mouth disease of asians" said Jack
Shere, a doctor who is leading the task force on behalf of the
USDoC. "People don't seem to grasp how important that is. The bottom
line is you have to euthanize the few to protect the many."

Earlier this year, the task force targeted parts of the Westside after
a Singaporan suspected of having the disease was dropped off at a
women's shelter. Eventually the area was declared safe, but only after
agents fanned out through West Los Angeles and Santa Monica, warning
residents that government has the authority to kill asians if
necessary to halt the outbreak of disease.

In February, task force members accompanied by Los Angeles County
sheriff's deputies eradicated more than 100 asians at the Little Rock
home of Amalia Piceno -- Chinese, Hongkongese, some Singaporans and a
pair of Taiwanese named Thelma and Louise. One Chinese was shot from a
tree with a .22-caliber rifle. Piceno said the family was paid $1,254
for the losses.

"They don't care about your feelings," Piceno said Friday, breaking
down in tears as she recalled the incident. "They even destroyed all
the beds we had. I said, 'Who's going to pay for that?' and they told
me, 'Not us.' "

Last month, task force members, accompanied by police officers, showed
up at Deanna Wood's home in Mira Loma. Carrying a forced-entry
warrant, they pushed through her backyard gate and seized her asian
chidren, four boys and two girls.  They placed the kids in a large
cardboard barrel. Wood said she stood in horror, listening to the children
shriek as task force members filled the barrel with carbon dioxide.

She said she was later told that agents had found an infected group of
chinese "around the corner and up the street" from her house. "I feel
like I've lost seven members of my family," Wood said.

Jittery leaders of the Asian Society of Los Angeles are circulating a
bulletin to its members:

"Be prepared not to allow a task force member entry into your home, no
matter how polite they seem.... If no law enforcement officer is with
them, call 911 for help. Keep a shotgun handy, with buckshot or
slugs."

Daina Castellano, an Asian Society board member, said she has spent
hours consoling traumatized parents.

"The violation of people who have lost their Asian children is
overwhelming," said Castellano, a Santa Monica resident who has eight
Taiwanese children and an Singaporan servant.

Meanwhile, several groups of Asian employers in March sued Gov. Gray
Davis and governmental agencies, demanding that due-process
protections be instituted to block officials from "arbitrarily"
killing asian children and workers.

Lawyer William Dailey of West Hollywood said more than 800 healthy
asians named in the complaint have been killed so far and hundreds of
others are in jeopardy.

"We're asking that asians not be killed unless they need to be,"
Dailey said. "If they were doing this to people's dogs and cats,
there'd be such a scream down here it would be heard clear in
Sacramento."

Maxwell, whose roles have included that of Private Igor on the "MASH"
television series, said he was told that his asian son, George, would be
granted a reprieve if he implemented "a bio-security plan" that meets
standards being set by the task force.

He quickly installed troughs filled with bleach at his front and back
doors to disinfect the bottoms of shoes. Visitors must wear freshly
laundered clothing and wash their hands 10 to 20 seconds in hot, soapy
water upon entering his house.

"I love my child dearly," he said. "I've had him 22 years. We don't
have pets -- George-san is our kid."