Another Oregon town is safe from...(read on)

My friend (anonymous) is a police captain in the Oregon town of (anonymous). Without further preamble let's dive into his account of a recent serious event. In his own words:

I thought I had a good grasp on the multitude of different law enforcment agencies in this country, but I was wrong. I was summoned into a briefing several weeks ago by the Feds. If you were to guess which Federal Agency would come calling to a local police department, you would guess the DEA, the FBI, maybe the CIA, or possibly the Secret Service.

It was none of these. This time the USDA, as in the United States Department of Agriculture, requested my presence. The..huh? What would they want with me? Aren't these the people who inspect fruit in California?

I was greeted by eight Federal Agents who had flown in from all parts of the country. The SAC (Special Agent in Charge) introduced himself with a gentle southern accent and handed me his prepared briefing agenda.

I couldn't help but notice the symbol on the first page. It was a cartoon character of a rooster wearing boxing gloves in a fighting stance, with a circle and slash through it. yep, I was about to learn all about Cock Fighting Law Enforcement.

As soon as the briefing started, it became clear that we were in the midst of a Federal Cock Fighting crackdown. The wanted to use our SWAT team to do the entry. The only problem was, Federal warrants have a 30 second rule. This means when doing a search, after you knock you have to wait 30 seconds before you enter. This might work with chickens, but in (anonymous) this gives the bad guys time to get their weapons loaded and aimed at the door.

Having this in mind, I told the Feds our SWAT team would spend our 30 seconds hiding behind our armored car.

The feds were interested in arresting one of our local "frequent flyers." That's a technical term for "repeat offender". This bad guy deals meth and had firearms ready the last time we did a search warrant at his house. I didn't see any chickens then.

I shared this information with the Feds. They looked at each other, then quickly waived the 30 second rule and requested we do the entry.

Good decision, I thought. The more I talked with these agents, the more I suspected their normal day was very different from mine.

One agent looked like the mom from the Brady Bunch. Another was a tiny Asian gal with a big smile who giggled a lot. The SAC looked like a Sears catalog model. Then there was the guy who looked like Adam Carolla and the woman sitting at the end of the table could have been Wynonna Judd. Orville Redenbacher, or his close relative, rounded out the crew.

We did the search at 5 AM before the roosters could wake up the bad guy. It went well, and (anonymous) is safe and chicken-free. Sears catalog models apparently make good SACs.