Example of so much that is wrong with drug policy, and really law enforcement in general.
1. Well the general policy of don't the cops have better things to do? You know, like tracking down violent criminals? The Swat team happened to find a "a small amount" of pot, but even if the guy had pounds and pounds of pot, there was still no justification of storming this house. 2. Cops first instinct is to break down doors and storm a house. Why not at least try to resolve the question calmly? You have the damn house surrounded. Knock, or call them before acting like you are military. Any consideration that there may be children or pets around who may be innocent? 3. Horde of armed men storm into a house late at night. Dogs, as they instinctively do, start to bark - so the cops murder them. Again, no escalating levels of force? No sticks? No tasers? No rubber bullets? Just start murdering dogs? And you can see from the video, that it wasn't just one shot. It was 7. And it wasn't all at once. They shot immediately, and then as it was wimpering they executed it later.
This happens much more than you'd realize (since there are upwards of 150 of these types of raids every day in America http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476). SWAT teams break down doors and have the wrong house/apartment, or use excessive force, and they never apologize. They never say "yeah, we were wrong",
These SWAT busts need to go because the risk of collateral damage against innocent people is way too high compared to the benefit of stopping these dangerous criminals who pollute our streets with a naturally occuring, non-addictive substance like pot.
Last edited by Curtis Pride on Wed May 19, 2010 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Curtis Pride wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbwSwvUaRqc
Example of so much that is wrong with drug policy, and really law enforcement in general.
1. Well the general policy of don't the cops have better things to do? You know, like tracking down violent criminals? The Swat team happened to find a "a small amount" of pot, but even if the guy had pounds and pounds of pot, there was still no justification of storming this house. 2. Cops first instinct is to break down doors and storm a house. Why not at least try to resolve the question calmly? You have the damn house surrounded. Knock, or call them before acting like you are military. Any consideration that there may be children or pets around who may be innocent? 3. Horde of armed men storm into a house late at night. Dogs, as they instinctively do, start to bark - so the cops murder them. Again, no escalating levels of force? No sticks? No tasers? No rubber bullets? Just start murdering dogs? And you can see from the video, that it wasn't just one shot. It was 7. And it wasn't all at once. They shot immediately, and then as it was wimpering they executed it later.
This happens much more than you'd realize (since there are upwards of 150 of these types of raids every day in America http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476). SWAT teams break down doors and have the wrong house/apartment, or use excessive force, and they never apologize. They never say "yeah, we were wrong",
These SWAT busts need to go because the risk of collateral damage against innocent people is way too high compared to the benefit of stopping these dangerous criminals who pollute our streets with a naturally occuring, non-addictive substance like pot.
Personally, I'm very much pro-legalization and all that. One of my best friends is also a former SWAT cop, and we've had a bunch of discussions about stuff like this. Unfortunately, you're leaving a lot of things out of this "analysis" (if you want to call it that).
1. The job of the police are to enforce the laws. Bitch about the laws all you want, but as long as the laws are on the books, it's their job to enforce it. You're also not privy to the information they had, that led to the judge giving them the warrant they had which led them to storming the house. 2. The "first instinct" of the cops isn't to storm the house. That's ridiculous. When there's enough evidence for a warrant, part of the analysis will determine if it's a high-risk serve, and if it is, then SWAT is required to serve the warrant. And if that's the case, protocol is that they don't just "knock on the door." It's called "high-risk" for a reason. 3. Again, protocol. If you're serving a high-risk warrant, you don't have time to determine if the dog is a German Shepherd that's about to destroy you or a little puppy. (Note: I didn't bother watching the video.) Yeah, it's crappy that there's collateral damage and all that, but these guys are trained to do a very specific job and they do it well. They take out the threats so they can get to and apprehend the person/people that they're targeting.
Again, if you want to get mad at someone, don't get mad at the SWAT guys. Get mad at the judges who sign the warrants or the cops who do the surveillance and gather the evidence. SWAT just shows up on the scene to do what they do. If they had the wrong house, it really isn't their fault and they honestly have nothing to apologize for (that's not to say that there wasn't someone somewhere that screwed things up though).
And unfortunately, as much as I'd like to see them just legalize everything, the reality is that it's probably not happening any time soon. They government makes way too much money to give it up by legalizing drugs.
I know what the info says on the video, but do we actually know they only found a small amount of drugs nothing on the video indacates anything?
1. But to your points, being a drug dealer and being a violent criminal are often one in the same (though not always). In this situation we do not know what the circumstances are sorrounding the raid on the house. I agree drug laws are draconian.
2. The police did knock. The guy was clearly in the living room watching TV (lights were on and the so was the TV). Why did he open the door fully when they knocked the first time? Do you think they are going to wait around for a long period of time while a suspect flushes the drugs down the toilet? Not saying this guy did, but the cops would not wait because the destruction of evidence was a real possibility in their minds.
3. We do not know what occured inside that house. Is it not at least possible the dogs were attacking the police officers?
The police could have done many things wrong here, just the video doesn't show enough.
"I do not think baseball of today is any better than it was 30 years ago... I still think Radbourne is the greatest of the pitchers." John Sullivan 1914-Old athletes never change.
I haven't read the video, and stopped reading the original post when you said they "murdered" the dogs, but I pretty much agree with BP here. Our legal system is severely flawed when it comes to drugs, but in most cases (there are plenty of exceptions, but I'm not convinced this is one), the blame lies with any number of people, but generally not those who are actually serving the warrant.
If I'm not mistaken the dog in question happened to be an English Corgie. The English Corgi is a favorite breed of the Queen of England. She has 20 of them. It's a wonder that her face has not been eaten off yet. Corgies are 8 inches and 15 pounds of pure intimidation and ferocity. Tribes in Africa (the parts fond of genocide) breed the Corgie and raise them on a dietary mixture of human flesh and gun powder. Their 4 inch legs have been known to decapitate with a single kick. They are short and long for burrowing. Puppies are used to burrow into the anus of adult humans, crawl through the intestinal track, and pop out of the belly - like a devil's jack-in-the-box.
Was it really worth sending the storm troopers in over some pot?
Sometimes the people in charge over there don't seem to understand how much force to use in which situation. I totally understand if it was a house with a dirty big corrugated iron fortress fence and the Swat team bounced half a dozen gang-looking guys, but to break out the jackboots on one guy who seemed to live in a normal non-gang house with his wife and kids?
GTFO.
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I know it's fun to rant and rave and come down on the police for this, but you'd think people would know how to use google by now. It's not that hard.
COLUMBIA, MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com) - An internet video showing a Columbia, Missouri drug raid in which two dogs were shot has angered some people to the point of making telephone threats against officers. The video, shot in February by police, appeared on the internet on YouTube several days ago. It shows police raiding the Columbia home of Jonathan Whitworth. On the tape, you can hear a dog barking, then shots fired. The officers killed the suspects pit bull, and unintentionally also hit the family's other dog, a Corgi. The Corgi was hit in the paw and recovered.
"The dog was aggressive towards the officers (so) the officers shot at the dog " said Detective Jeff Westbrook. Police also say reports that the pit bull was locked in a crate when shot are false. As a result of the video posting, the department has received hundreds of angry calls.
The man they were after is Jonathan Whitworth, a small business owner who lives in a middle class neighborhood with his wife and 7 year old son. Both were home during the raid. But police claim Whitworth had another business--- dealing drugs.
The raid, however, turned up only a small amount of marijuana and some drug paraphernalia, a fact which has only further aggravated those upset by the shooting.
Columbia Police are making a policy change as a result of this incident, but it's not about the dogs. It's about executing search warrants quickly. In this case they waited 8 days and they say that may be the reason the drugs they thought they were going to find were no longer in the house.
The cops didn't do everything right here, but if you're going to whine about them, at least know what your whining about. Don't rely on hysteria.
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by Curtis Pride » Fri May 07, 2010 2:31 pm 
