Armed federal police raid local T-Shirt seller over colors
Oklahoma City local News 4 reports,
The staff at Hi-Performance on N. May Ave. said they were surprised when agents came in the store on Wednesday and took all of its Thunder t-shirts.
“They just came in and kind of bum rushed us,” employee Chadd Hook said. “Six guys came, one was Homeland Security and his gun was exposed. The others said they were NBA officials. They said they were going to confiscate all our shirts now or sue us.”
The store allowed local artist to create their own Thunder inspired shirts and the store agreed to sell them.
Owner Jake Shelton said, “As a store owner who sells other sporting goods, I was careful to make sure we didn’t sell anything that had a logo, a trademarked image or players names or anything like that. So I was confused about why they were here.”
While they loaded up a stack of shirts Hook, said the agents gave him a letter that basically says the NBA owns all the images on the material they were selling including the word “Thunder” and the use of the “Thunder’s trademark blue and orange colors.”
A real issue here is the increasing role of armed federal police in local matters. Wasn’t Homeland Security created to protect us from terrorism?