If you think the Drug War only harms "druggies"...
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 10:59PM In the last 14 months, the astonishing and tragic story of this small town mayor has helped to put certain aspects of the "War on Drugs" into perspective for a lot of people. Seriously, how would you feel if a SWAT team raided your house, shot and killed your family dogs, and you turned out to be completely innocent of any crime?!?!
How would you then feel if the police refused to even admit they had acted wrongly? Believe it or not, this nightmare actually happened to the author of the article, Cheye Calvo, who is mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. Calvo explains:
In the words of Prince George's County Sheriff Michael Jackson, whose deputies carried out the assault, "the guys did what they were supposed to do" -- acknowledging, almost as an afterthought, that terrorizing innocent citizens in Prince George's is standard fare. The only difference this time seems to be that the victim was a clean-cut white mayor with community support, resources and a story to tell the media.
What confounds me is the unmitigated refusal of county leaders to challenge law enforcement and to demand better -- as if civil rights are somehow rendered secondary by the war on drugs.
Reader Comments (9)
Look at the example of Amadou Diallo, police were in a dangerous area chasing a known armed and dangerous criminal. Amadou was in the wrong place and the wrong time. He fit the description of the criminal and police asked him to ger down. Rather then comply with their orders he made a sudden move that was viewed as him reaching for something. Police acted correctly putting their own safety first and shot him dead.
The example you give here doesn't have enough details for me to know for sure but the first question I had was what lead police to raid his house? If there was valid reason for them to pick his home (enough to gain a search warrant) then while tragic as it is the police aren't in the wrong here.
Assume for a moment that the search warrant was justified, when the police storm the house they have to assume that it is the home of a drug dealer (read in this case as possible dangerous criminal). Many drug dealers do train dogs to guard and protect their stash so if the dog confronted the police when they stormed in the officer has to put his own safety first. If he could not safely subdue the dog then killing it is really the only option.
The part of the story I think needs more focus here is what lead the police to his door in the first place.
Now this raises a larger moral question which I've asked in regards to our law system. As it stands now, if as in this case a package with drugs is addressed to your home and you accept it you've by default become a criminal. The same problem occurs with other crimes too. As a radio host once put it, if you walk down the street or randomly surf the internet and someone runs up and hands you a picture (or you click on the wrong link and download a picture) of a nude child, well now you're in possession of child porn even if you had it thrust on you. Against your own will you've been made a criminal.
We see this all the time with drugs, people are given a package or an object with drugs inside. Heck I recall reading about a girl who bought a car in auction that had belonged to a dealer. When she was pulled over for speeding they found tons of drugs in the car and arrested her.
We have militarized our police in the last few decades for exactly one reason: to fight the drug war. SWAT teams are rarely needed for a situation involving an actual crime where an innocent person is being harmed. Do you feel safer knowing somebody could send you a box of weed, and this could be the result?
Matt
We have SWAT teams invading homes in the middle of the night, without knocking, based on tips from informants (some of whom will say anything to avoid going to jail, including "Richard Barnes sells weed out of his basement"). More than one innocent person has reached for a gun in self defense and been shot to death by the intruders, who happened to be police and happened to have the wrong house.
By contrast, with every "real" crime, there is an actual victim. Everybody in polite society wants to see thieves, murderers, rapists, etc. get caught, so people generally cooperate with the police. Drug "crimes" are a different story altogether. Since most people don't care if their friends or neighbors smoke a little weed, the Drug War relies on surveillance, sketchy informants, cops in classrooms trying to get kids to snitch on their parents, and SWAT raids to achieve its goals... which of course are never defined.
So let's look at the details.
-The police were tracking a package of drugs. (it could be any illegal substance even bombs for sake of discussion)
-The package was address to the mayors home.
-The family accepted the package into their home.
Based on the above facts the police were able to obtain a search warrant as pointed out in the Washington Post article ("High said this week that county narcotics officers, who were tracking the shipment and who had obtained a search warrant...")
Once obtaining the warrant they have followed their Constitutional obligation. They presented enough proof to warrant a search of the families home. Now I've never had my home searched so I'm not aware of different types of warrants, if you claim there is a no knock warrant vs a knock warrant I can accept that and since the article doesn't distinguish there is no way of my knowing. All I can do is assume that a warrant is a warrant.
So that technicality aside if a court after seeing the evidence used to justify the search gives the ok via a warrant then the police should do everything they can to conduct that search putting their own safety first.
Look at it the other way as we unfortunately see far too often. I police officer stops someone or shows up on a door step to serve a warrant and they are shot and killed in cold blood. One of my fraternity brothers, who was a cop, was shot and killed like this just a few months ago. Police officers are not the bad guys here, they have families to go home to and should be able to put their own safety first.
Change the story slightly and say instead of drugs the package contained explosives and police had evidence that the bomb was going to be used on a local school. That eliminates the victimless part of this crime which you and I agree on.
Maryland law allows for no-knock warrants to be issued, but a judge would most likely require a higher standard of proof before authorizing what amounts to a home invasion (very dangerous, if you happen to believe citizens have a right to defend themselves in their own homes). The warrant in this case was a regular search warrant.
This version of the story clearly mentions the key point you bring up:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/05/AR2008080502664.html
I think the sole fact that there are different forms of warrants does demonstrate the absurdity of the drug war. When I think of police serving a warrant, in my mind I assume that police have reason to fear for themselves because I picture the person they are going after as someone who poses a threat to others. Clearly that is not the case when it comes to marijuana. Because of this preset assumption in my mind that criminals are dangers to others I would assume that any warrant be a no knock warrant as police was have reason to suspect they may be placed in harms way going after the person but as is shown here I am wrong.
It also has me thinking about the different types of warrants now. Obviously we do not want cops to be put in unnecessary danger when confronting a dangerous criminal (key word being dangerous) but we also do not want homes destroyed and pets killed of someone who hasn't been proven guilty. I hope you write further about this topic as I think it will continue to make for interesting and educational discussion.