Posted on 04/05/2006 12:57:02 PM PDT by JTN
In the course of researching paramilitary drug raids, I’ve found some pretty disturbing stuff. There was a case where a SWAT officer stepped on a baby’s head while looking for drugs in a drop ceiling. There was one where an 11-year-old boy was shot at point-blank range. Police have broken down doors, screamed obscenities, and held innocent people at gunpoint only to discover that what they thought were marijuana plants were really sunflowers, hibiscus, ragweed, tomatoes, or elderberry bushes. (It’s happened with all five.)
Yet among hundreds of botched raids, the ones that get me most worked up are the ones where the SWAT officers shoot and kill the family dog.
I have two dogs, which may have something to do with it. But I’m not alone. A colleague tells me that when he and other libertarian commentators speak about the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco many people tend to doubt the idea that the government was out of line when it invaded, demolished, and set fire to a home of peaceful and mostly innocent people. But when the speaker mentions that the government also slaughtered two dogs during the siege, eyes light up, the indifferent get angry, and skeptics come around. Puppycide, apparently, goes too far.
One of the most appalling cases occurred in Maricopa County, Arizona, the home of Joe Arpaio, self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America.” In 2004 one of Arpaio’s SWAT teams conducted a bumbling raid in a Phoenix suburb. Among other weapons, it used tear gas and an armored personnel carrier that later rolled down the street and smashed into a car. The operation ended with the targeted home in flames and exactly one suspect in custody—for outstanding traffic violations.
But for all that, the image that sticks in your head, as described by John Dougherty in the alternative weekly Phoenix New Times, is that of a puppy trying to escape the fire and a SWAT officer chasing him back into the burning building with puffs from a fire extinguisher. The dog burned to death.
In a massive 1998 raid at a San Francisco housing co-op, cops shot a family dog in front of its family, then dragged it outside and shot it again.
When police in Fremont, California, raided the home of medical marijuana patient Robert Filgo, they shot his pet Akita nine times. Filgo himself was never charged.
Last October police in Alabama raided a home on suspicion of marijuana possession, shot and killed both family dogs, then joked about the kill in front of the family. They seized eight grams of marijuana, equal in weight to a ketchup packet.
In January a cop en route to a drug raid in Tampa, Florida, took a short cut across a neighboring lawn and shot the neighbor’s two pooches on his way. And last May, an officer in Syracuse, New York, squeezed off several shots at a family dog during a drug raid, one of which ricocheted and struck a 13-year-old boy in the leg. The boy was handcuffed at gunpoint at the time.
There was a dog in the ragweed bust I mentioned, too. He got lucky: He was only kicked across the room.
I guess the P.R. lesson here for drug war opponents and civil libertarians is to emphasize the plight of the pooch. America’s law-and-order populace may not be ready to condemn the practice of busting up recreational pot smokers with ostentatiously armed paramilitary police squads, even when the SWAT team periodically breaks into the wrong house or accidentally shoots a kid. I mean, somebody was probably breaking the law, right?
But the dog? That loyal, slobbery, lovable, wide-eyed, fur-lined bag of unconditional love?
Dammit, he deserves better.
Radley Balko is a policy analyst with the Cato Institute.
Sounds like a safe place to live. Unlike the south side of Chicago where, every so often, we are treated to the story of some teen murdered for his Bulls jacket or his Air Jordan shoes.
Both legal, by the way.
Well?
Ping!
Check out RP's comments on this thread.
Cry me a river.
You want less crime, then let's see you advocate [Like I do]]for more machine gun carrying cops on every street corner -- more intrusions, more searches, less freedom. Yeah, just what I thought, you gutless wonder.
And stop your God-awful whining.
96 robertpaulsen
That post is completely out of line, rp. It deserves a response, but not one appropriate for these forums.
109 TKDietz
paulsen wrote:
Personally, I don't think your bleeding-heart-liberal posts about the poor, disadvantaged, misunderstood criminals belong on a conservative forum.
You are, by far, the biggest apologist for these scumbags on this forum.
But, this is a free country and you are entitled to your opinions. Just as I am entitled to respond.
Yep indeed bobby, just as you are entitled to hear, -- that you are the biggest apologist for these machine gun toting scumbags on this forum. - You advocate more intrusions, more searches, less freedom. -- Eat your own words.
Whoa!
First of all, I'm simply agreeing with what the poster said. Second, why didn't you jump all over THAT poster when THAT poster said it back at post #112? Third, it's a moot point since we're not sending the average matijuana user to prison.
Save your "intolerance of freedom and expression" for a real cause, not recreational drugs.
Actually, Russia is far from safe, and I wouldn't go back there even to visit. All I alluded to was the basic economics of black markets. If Chicago bans Air Jordan shoes and Bulls jackets, there will still be a demand as kids will want to wear them to underground parties, and there will be even more violence associated with their smuggling.
You want less people incarcerated? Is that the goal? Is that what you want? Well, c'mon, counsellor. Let's hear your plan.
You want more cops with machine guns on street corners, as in Russia or China, countries with lower incarceration rates? Or, as in the UK, just give a "caution" to those engaged in the kiddie porn business?
Let's hear your solution, Mr. Bleeding Heart.
First of all, I'm simply agreeing with what the poster said. Second, why didn't you jump all over THAT poster when THAT poster said it back at post #112?
Gotta love it when bobby whines only a post or two after calling someone else a whiner.
What irony.
Pointing out blatant hypocrisy is not whining.
The most ready example is the most effective. You advocate 'freedom' as a gubermental decision and gift.
I read the thread start and responded, and then I read and responded to the post from you that landed around the same time. There may have been some good points between hither and yon, but I suspect its mainly the same drivel.
Paulsen, you are without a doubt the biggest whiner on FR. -- We've all seen you do it time after time when pressed. -- And its a rare day when someone doesn't press you.
The line between DU and FR continues to blur.
Exactly.
And stop your God-awful whining.
Are you having a bad morning? You're usually a lot more civil than that and TKD is certainly one of the more civil, articulate anti-WOD people.
More of a case of financially supporting murder and rape. What's a man that goes to a whore house full of women that were forced into prostitution guilty of? If society treated drug use with the scorn it deserves, then kids wouldn't think, "its just a joint".
No. Its because they don't have the money. Brain dead druggies will never have the money and they'll kill for the fix, they don't care if its $5 or $100.
You are the only one bringing up the idea of "free" drugs.
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