The FBI raided a Minnesota family home twice in 2021, even flying a drone into the chicken coop. One family member called the raids ’strict intimidation.’
LINDSTRÖM, Minn.—The knock at the door came before sunrise, but the men outside didn’t wait for an answer.
Robert Westbury, 64, had barely made it halfway down the stairs from his bedroom when he heard and felt the shockwave. BOOM.
A battering ram wielded by an FBI SWAT team blew the hinges off the front door on this cool April morning in 2021. Tactical officers poured into the tri-level home, aiming their laser-guided M4 rifles at anyone in their path.
On the home’s lower level, Aaron James sat up in bed and scarcely had time to throw on some clothes before his bedroom door flew open.
“This guy came in hot with a rifle pointed at me,” Mr. James, 37, told The Epoch Times. “I put my hands up like, ‘I’m not going to move but get that rifle off me. Stop pointing that rifle at me. I’m not going to move. I’m not going to do anything.’
“The guy came up to me to put his hands on me to cuff me, and he’s shaking, like trembling,” Mr. James said. “I’m thinking, ‘Dude, get the rifle off of me.’”
Mr. James recognized the special weapons and tactics from his years of training for close-quarters battle in the U.S. Navy. He served as a fleet marine force corpsman with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“They used those same tactics and those same weapons on us that we’ve used overseas in a combat zone,” he said. “They brought that to this neighborhood.”
“This guy was kitted up like he was in Iraq or Afghanistan,“ Mr. James said. ”They were stacked up, lights on the rifle. He had the EOTECH sight on it. He was ready to go and do a close-quarter combat clear in our house. Kick a door and clear the door. Move on. Kick a door and clear the door. Move on.”
The agents demanded to know the location of Jonah Westbury, 28.
“When they’re asking where he was, I was like, ‘He doesn’t live here.’ They start grabbing furniture, tipping it over, throwing sh*t. I’m like, ‘Stop, stop!’ And they’re like, ‘Where is he?’ Like, we’re gonna f**k your house up if you don’t tell us where he is.”
Jonah Westbury lived in an apartment in the same structure, but it had its own entrance and a separate legal address.
