Guess the bigger question here, and not knowing the local politics, why did the supervisors in the Virginia State Police, and whatever local police or Sheriffs office agree to have their officers participate in this raid?
I have been involved in the decision making process in the past where a state agency similar to Virginias ABC agents wanted to raid an establishment for an administrative matter, and wanted local police to run interference with the local population that would get riled up. Our Chief who I rarely agreed with on anything decided that their warrant was chickenschidt and told them they could do it by themselves. They didnt go through with it
Betting the ABC wouldnt have gone through with this hairbrained operation if their agents would have had to do it themselves.
The Governors office should be seeing who in the Virginia State Police approved their participation.
If local Sheriffs participated, same question should be asked by the elected Sheriff.
When ABC goes to do enforcement action, they always talk to state and local LEO to notify them of their intentions. Unlike other state agencies, ABC agents will absolutely raid a place without local support, but it has only happened twice since their inception, to my limited knowledge.
I completely agree that questions need to be asked of the supporting LE agencies as to who and why they were ok'd to support the operation. It is entirely possible that the additional agencies involved were just told by ABC "this place is selling alcohol without a license, we need to go shut them down", and that was that.
