We're from the government, and we're here to help you.
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.
If LEO’s lost their job and had to pay restitution for these “mistakes”, they would do their homework and make fewer wrong entries.
“We haven’t determined there was a mistake yet; the investigation is still ongoing,” he said.
Well I have! Go fix the old man’s door FFS. Darn good thing the old guy didn’t have a dog.
We're from the government, and we're here to help you.
How hard would it be for the entire force that made the entry come back and apologize and make the person whole? Not much.
Did we learn anything from Prohibition???
Yes we did. Prohibition apparently taught us how to create a more efficient Police state.
They can do anything they want to. Exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind?
The cops are reservists who learned this schtick from Iraq & Afghanistan.
Service is noble —I am a patriot.
BUT SOMETHING IS WRONG, and it’s NOT only the “War on Drugs”, although that is most of it.
We train them to be Door Kickers, then whisk them home, and express amazement when they just KEEP DOING IT.
SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG.
Another one.
I have three simple fixes for this nation-wide problem:
1. A police department posts a $500k bond on each single raid. If they screw up and go to the wrong residence....they lose the bond. Within seven days...it must be paid to the innocent folks affected. Once a police force has to add in the costs of a raid...and that the city or county will only allow one screw-up a year in most cases....then every raid after this one comes with excessive questions about the necessity.
2. The judge who signs raid paperwork? He has to accompany the officers to the location. He is held personally responsible for misbehavior, shooting of pets, and damaged property. Voters who see some idiot freely signing raid paperwork....will fire the guy in the next election.
3. Reduce SWAT training, cost and weapons on every police force. It’s become a joke across the entire nation. When you have a town of 30k residents and the cops have $100k a year for costs....it’s a total waste.
If we designate a Judge to sign-off on such searches, then he should have to take out an INSURANCE POLICY on failed raids:
He’d exercise greater caution in authorizing them, and if the team blew it, then his rates would go up.
It should be a, “Pay as you Pollute” market mechanism: currently the tax-payers have to foot the bill for failed raids, something that assures they’ll continue.
How about jail time. Restitution and never work again as a police officer. Additionally no shielding from civil judgments. Put these officers families in the poor house. That way Mrs. Police officer can panhandle for grocery money. Live on the “bad side of town” and be hassled by the cops. Sounds like a good deterrent. Make cops personally criminally and civil liable.
Problem. Solved.
GREAT MINDS..!
Click the link to be added to the "Whoops. Sorry, citizen. We thought you were someone else" PING list.
Linky no worky.
Here is one with pic:
“Warrantless”
http://auburnpub.com/news/local/warrantless/article_c0b6e83e-7621-11e1-a499-0019bb2963f4.html
I just don’t get how these kinds of task forces hit the wrong house so often. It would be one thing if they were operating in a foreign country, where they might not be familiar with the addresses, language, etc. But getting the wrong place in your own town? Especially when it is (apparently) a small burg like this one?
By best friend is a sergeant in a medium sized PD. He constantly joked about their SWAT and what a joke they are. They have a hero complex.
Funds that are payable from their pension fund.
Works fine for me. Weird.
Did he have a dog? Did they shoot it?
Upstate NY ping
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