I waver between favoring legalization of most drugs and not, but there's no question that the current War on Drugs is horribly harmful to our country and our erstwhile allies in whose countries the drugs are manufactured. Mostly-harmless people are harassed by law enforcement agencies and often thrown in jail for longer terms than rapists, and for what? Are drugs less of a problem now than they were 100 years ago when they were legal?
The latest outrage touches the War on Drugs tangentially and also involves an issue Clayton Cramer and Randy Balko have taken the lead on vocally denouncing: no-knock SWAT raids on drug suspects that needlessly endanger everyone involved.
The set-up, from Mr. Balko: Cheryl Lynn Noel is gunned down in her home by police officers after marijuana seeds are found in her trash cans.
The facts of the case are awful: A Baltimore SWAT team conducted a 4:30am raid on the Noel family home after finding marijuana seeds and "trace" amounts of cocaine in the family's outdoor trash can. After battering down the door, they deployed a flashbang grenade, then rushed up the steps to the bedroom of Cheryl and Charles Noel.Cheryl Noel's stepdaughter had been murdered several years earlier, and her son had recently been jumped by thugs on his way home. So the family had a legal, registered handgun in the home, and Noel had reason to be frightened. When a SWAT officer kicked open the bedroom door, Noel sat up in bed with the gun, apparently pointed downward, not at the officer. The officer, who was wearing a helmet, mask, shield, and bulletproof vest, and who came in behind a bulletproof ballistic shield, fired twice. Noel slumped over, and the gun slipped out of her hand. The officer then walked over to her and ordered her to move further away from the gun. She couldn't, of course. When she didn't, he shot her a third time, essentially from point-blank range.
The punchline? The police officer who shot Noel has been given a Silver Star.
On January 21, 2005, Officer Carlos Artson saved himself and his fellow officers from being shot. Officer Artson was confronted by a woman pointed a loaded handgun at him, during the service of a high risk, "no knock" search warrant for an ongoing narcotics investigation.
It's quite possible that Noel was pointing the gun at the officer and not at the ground, but what the heck were the police doing in her home unannounced at all? I'm a huge supporter of the police, but it's utterly insane that they can burst into your home and kill you because they found some seeds while they were rooting through your trash. Even if the police in this case acted entirely properly according to their procedures, the laws need to be changed to prevent them from being put into this kind of position.
A policeman's duty is often very risky, because they deal with life and death matters. Sometimes, they have to rely on their instinct, and that is why they may be wrong. Statistics say many police officers lose their life in their fight against criminality.
It may not happen often, but this time I 100% agree with you, MW.
What is the threshold for too much oppression?
It may sound like a rhetorical question but realize that the cost of employing police, and giving them guns to enforce laws is that sometimes the law will be enforced irrationally and irresponsibly. People will die for crimes not normally deserving of the death penalty. Some crimes will go unpunished for no good reason. etc. etc.
The question to answer is: With which policy does society benefit more? Grand juries that rubber stamp every police shooting or police afraid to their job for fear of prosecution?
I would hope there is a middle ground somewhere, but hope is not a valid management strategy.
Police officers have been granted too much freedom violating our Constitutional Rights. Where I live they are too young and immature to have this power.
SN is off his nut. The fact that criminals kill cops gives the police license to murder citizens? I've got news for you -- criminals kill people who aren't cops, too. That is why they are criminals.
Statistics say many innocent citizens lose their life as a result of police tactics.
Think long and hard about the circumstances that justify a no-knock warrant. There are some: when you have reason to believe that a hostage is being held; if you think the person inside may commit suicide--especially if the method might involve a bomb sufficiently large to be a hazard to others. But the vast majority of no-knock warrants are simply to prevent evidence from being flushed.
As a general rule, the only evidence that can be flushed while you demand entry from the inhabitants are drugs and financial transaction data. It's hard to flush a body, for example. The risks to both police and people who are being wrongly served with a warrant are enormous; it is really hard to justify these risks for the pursuit of drug crimes or economic crimes.
Amen Clayton. I completely agree with you. These tactics spoken of here are the extreme but this all stems from smaller violations by law enforcement. On the weekends my job hours put me on the road in the wee hours of the morning and I can't tell you how many times I have been pulled over for absolutely no reason at all by an officer fishing for a DWI. I must tell you, it's a huge inconvienience.
Such are the wages of moralism. A society that continues this tyranny is not worth defending.
Brett: You must have forgotten that there are degrees of tyranny.
I haven't forgotten Michael. I just don't think the drug war is of mild degree in a nation that is supposed to be free.
When the war for survival is ignored or resisted while the wars on vice continue unabated, I'd say that indicates a society of trivial minds who do not deserve defense.
No, it's no Gulag or Holocaust, but when people point that out to me, I certainly hear the veiled threat.
I also believe the founding generation would reject the levels of routine tyranny acceptable to the majority of today's Americans.
Oh, slavery? Those chickens came home to roost.
Brett: Veiled threat? If you think I was threatening you, you're nuts.
Not you perhaps, but many who use that argument are doing just that.
Brett: That's a pretty serious accusation to make. What proof do you have? Link to an article with such a "veiled threat". I think you make be clinically paranoid.
Why bother Michael? You know perfectly well that many think the problem with the War on Drugs is that it isn't prosecuted harshly enough; just being alive during the last thirty years should be proof enough. I don't have time to do your research for you.
This "you're full of it unless you have a link" is just away to ignore my observation. The Blogosphere should eschew it.
Brett: You appear to be hiding behind a non sequitur, unless I misunderstand your statements. Some people think the War on Drugs needs to be prosecuted more vigorously. Some people have pointed out that the War on Drugs is less awful that the Holocaust. Therefore, you claim, some people want to throw you in a concentration camp and/or kill you because you oppose the War on Drugs.
That's crazy.