In 2020, it's estimated that the riots following George Floyd's death while in police custody caused $1 billion to $2 billion in damages.  That number doesn't even include the people killed and the long-lasting fallout from destroyed businesses and communities.  The FBI made almost no effort to investigate that portion of the damage that took place on or against federal property.  However, when a few hundred people walked through the United States Capitol on January 6 (apparently after Capitol police waved them in), the FBI went into hyperdrive.  Writing at the New York Post, Miranda Devine has the heartrending tale of how the FBI went all-out to destroy the life of a man who never entered the Capitol.

Devine explains that, before the FBI went full Stasi on 69-year-old Joseph Bolanos, a resident of New York's Upper West Side, he was "a pillar of his community":

President of his Upper West Side block association for the past 23 years, he looked out for his neighbors during the pandemic. He dropped off masks and kept extra heaters in his rent-controlled apartment for seniors. He raised morale with a weekly street dance to show his support for essential workers. 

A Red Cross volunteer after the 9/11 attacks, the 69-year-old security consultant once received a police commendation for heroism after saving a woman from being mugged. 

Unmarried, and caring for his 94-year-old mother, he was a well-loved character in the quiet residential area. 

However, in a very Democrat-heavy region of New York City, Bolanos, who is also a registered Democrat, was that rare thing — someone who liked Trump's policies.  On January 6, he was in Washington, D.C. to hear Trump's rally.  He never entered the Capitol, though.  Instead, he had video proving that he was some ways away from the events that unfolded there.  That didn't stop the FBI, though:

Nonetheless, he was raided in February by the FBI anti-terrorism task force, handcuffed, paraded and detained for three hours while his apartment was ransacked and all his devices confiscated. Four months later, he hasn't been charged and doesn't have his devices back, but his neighbors are shunning him, and he's had two strokes from the stress. 

"It's destroyed my reputation," he says. "I'm not a violent invader … I do not condone the criminality and violence on [Jan. 6] whatsoever." 

Although Bolanos was low-key about his political preferences in the election, one of his neighbors called into the FBI tip-line (something never set up for the George Floyd riots) to say Bolanos had boasted about entering the Capitol.  That's all the FBI needed.  Despite Bolanos's telling the FBI about his day in D.C. and giving them video proof that he never went inside the Capitol, that didn't stop the Feebs:

The next Thursday at 6 a.m., he was awakened in his mother's apartment by loud banging. "I opened the door and there's about 10 tactical police soldiers and one is pointing a rifle at my head. [They had] a battering ram and a crowbar." 

They also had a search warrant, issued by District Judge Gabriel Gorenstein, which named Bolanos as the "target subject." The front door of his empty apartment was being broken down in a simultaneous raid. 

The warrant authorized the federal agents to seize his property as evidence relating to crimes including "obstruction of Congress," "civil disorders," "conspiracy to impede/assault federal agents," "interstate travel to participate in riot," and "unlawful entry on restricted buildings or grounds." 

The FBI ransacked both apartments, upending drawers, trashing his mother's bedroom. 

He was handcuffed and taken outside to an FBI car to be interrogated for four hours. 

An NBC camera crew had been tipped off and was there to film his shame. NBC quoted "sources" saying charges against him were imminent. The story would be repeated in two local publications. 

The stress from the experience was so terrible that, on that very day, Bolanos suffered a stroke.  Since then, his Progressive neighbors (remember "love trumps hate"?) have shunned or attacked him, with one person who had been a friend the year before writing to say, "I hope Antifa gets you."

Please read Devine's article to get the full feel for the FBI's Stasi-like conduct (bolstered by leftists who cheerfully turn on people they once befriended).  This is a law enforcement agency that is way too big for its britches and that badly needs to be reined in.  If it's not, there will be nothing to distinguish a once-constitutional America from a true police state.

Image: FBI logo (with the word "integrity" in it, which ought to inspire some serious reflection at the agency).  Public domain.

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