good thing he didn't have a dog...
Posted on 03/25/2012 7:48:03 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
There are few people less likely to sell drugs than Fred Skinner.
The 76-year-old lives alone on Mc Neeley Road in Victory, getting by with help from neighbors. Much of his home has been quietly abandoned because he can’t get up and down the stairs; his son, also named Fred Skinner, said his mind “goes in and out.”
Since suffering a stroke last July, he speaks haltingly, sleeps with an oxygen tank and has a pacemaker in his chest.
Skinner doesn’t hear as well as he used to, but there was no missing the pair of crashes he heard late in the morning on March 13.
The first was at the outside door to his front porch and the second was at the inner door from the porch to his living room. About eight uniformed police officers burst into his kitchen, finding him at the table with a plate of breakfast crumbs.
“I was just setting there at the table,” he said. “They busted in and said, ‘Don’t move,’ so I didn’t move. I didn’t know what to do — I didn’t know why the troopers were running through the house.”
The officers spread out into the basement and second floor then quickly returned. Someone was handcuffing Skinner’s arms behind his back when they looked through the mail on the table and saw his name.
“They said, ‘Is this your name?’” Skinner said. “I said, ‘Yes.’ Then they said, ‘Wrong house.’”
The officers left as quickly as they came, leaving his doorknob on the porch floor and the two doors broken open. The whole incident took five minutes.
Once they left, Skinner called Barbara Bailey, his neighbor across the street. Bailey saw five or six patrol cars at the house next door to Skinner’s and went out to them.
She asked who they were and what they were doing; they told her they were conducting a drug raid from Rochester, she said.
“I said, ‘What about Fred Skinner’s house?’” Bailey said. “And he shrugged like he wasn’t telling me a damn thing.”
No one was home at the other house, either -- Bailey said the man who lives there is often out of town. The officers left without an apology or information about how Skinner might get reimbursed for the damage.
The raid was conducted by the Rochester Police Department and the Finger Lakes Drug Task Force, which is led by the Auburn Police Department and, in this case, also involved the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office.
No one involved would specify the purpose of the raid or say why the officers broke into the wrong house. No arrests have been made in the original drug case, which is still active.
The Rochester Police Department was the lead agency. Department spokesman Stephen Scott declined to comment but said there is an investigation into the incident.
“We haven’t determined there was a mistake yet; the investigation is still ongoing,” he said.
I am actually kind of amazed that some honest person who had been horribly wronged, maybe with injury or death, in such a raid, or more likely a drug criminal, has not set up a “booby trap” house designed to kill a large number of raiding police at once.
Eventually someone is going to shoot back. And the blood will be on these Jack Booted Thugs.
And nothing will happen to them. NOTHING.
This is another good reason I moved out of the Rochester hell hole.
I will never live there again.
good thing he didn't have a dog...
I thought I was touched.
The problem is not the training these cops get when and if they are in the military.
The problem is the military training, tools, and tactics all cops receive.
Too logical, constitutional and makes too much sense = never happen.
You fail to realize that the reason for The War on Drugs these days IS the militarization of our local police forces. There has been preparation underway for a very long time for something that will involve the LEOs and their high tech weaponry and armor. And it ain't about drugs.
I can’t help but think that this is going to happen more frequently than we would like. Since they put that socialist scum in the western Kremlin we have seen things we all thought would never happen here. I think Nov - January will be most enlightening.
Suddenly wiretapping possible terrorists seems like small change.
Might have been too many trying to read feed.
It never timed out, but tried to download the html for over a minute.
The SWAT team explosion is insanity. The militarisation of the police in the U.S. is an invitation for disaster.
Thankfully Mr. Skinner was not practicing his putting when the dymanic entry was executed....holding a long shinny object is almost a certain death sentence with these JBT’s
In America’s early days, certain people would be tarred, feathered and strapped (naked) to a wooden fence rail ... before being ceremoniously carried out of town.
In my neck of the woods...we are required to stake out the house...get a written description of the residence...verify everything...take it to supervisor...before even applying for a search warrant...been in law enforcement for 20 years...never had a wrong residence hit....
Good ideas but they come to nothing on an internet forum. Contact the town’s newspaper, their city hall, their representatives. Maybe have a look at your own community and ask some questions, then make suggestions.
Besides, you don’t know how much longer you’ll have internet access.
In 1955 there was no “War on Drugs(TM)”, and this kind of **** never happened. Nobody should need to be Albert Einstein to figure that one out.
Wouldn’t be surprised to find that the cops used google maps street scene to find the address.
We all know how reliable that is...
What could possibly go wrong?
And by the way, between this kind of crap and Katherine Sebelius' daily tyrannies, the Bill of Rights has ceased to function. The Fourth Amendment states clearly:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
How hard would it be for the entire force that made the entry come back and apologize and make the person whole?
Friggin Retarded Asshats. WTF???? They can’t weed Engrish.
They are such tough thugs they have no feelings?
Completely insensitive to what they effect of their actions might have on a completely innocent and elderly man?
Wouldn’t surprise if several of them drown themselves in alcohol and abuse drugs to assuage their guilt for being men of slight integrity and embarrassed for having such small zibs ...
I’m guessing the old man didn’t have a dog for companionship.
Luckily.
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