Off Topic · Police Raid House, Kill Family Pet, Discover Only Minor Marijuana Violation (page 1)

http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/11/a-...

A Drug Raid Goes Viral
A violent drug raid posted to YouTube catches fire online. But the only thing unusual about the raid is that it was caught on video.

Radley Balko | May 11, 2010

Last week, a Columbia, Missouri, drug raid captured on video went viral. As of this morning, the video had garnered 950,000 views on YouTube. It has lit up message boards, blogs, and discussion groups around the Web, unleashing anger, resentment and even, regrettably, calls for violence against the police officers who conducted the raid. I've been writing about and researching these raids for about five years, including raids that claimed the lives of innocent children, grandmothers, college students, and bystanders. Innocent families have been terrorized by cops who raided on bad information, or who raided the wrong home due to some careless mistake. There's never been a reaction like this one.

But despite all the anger the raid has inspired, the only thing unusual thing here is that the raid was captured on video, and that the video was subsequently released to the press. Everything else was routine. Save for the outrage coming from Columbia residents themselves, therefore, the mass anger directed at the Columbia Police Department over the last week is misdirected. Raids just like the one captured in the video happen 100-150 times every day in America. Those angered by that video should probably look to their own communities. Odds are pretty good that your local police department is doing the same thing.

First, some background on the raid depicted in the video: On February 11, the Columbia, Missouri, police department's SWAT team served a drug warrant at the home of Jonathan Whitworth and Brittany Montgomery. Police say that eight days earlier they had received a tip from a confidential informant that Whitworth had a large supply of marijuana in his home. They say they first conducted a trash pull, and found marijuana residue in the family's garbage. During the raid, police shot and killed the family's pit bull. At least one bullet ricocheted, injuring the family's pet corgi. Whitworth, Montgomery, and their 7-year-old son were at home at the time. The incident was written up in the Columbia Daily Tribune, noted on a few blogs that cover drug policy (including a post I put up here at Reason), and then largely forgotten for several weeks.

On April 28, I received an email from Montgomery. She had seen my post at Reason and read an account of some of my reporting on SWAT teams published in Reader's Digest. She said she was reading to her son in his bedroom at the time of the raid. Her husband had just returned home from work. Police fired on their pets within seconds of entering the home.

"I've never felt so violated or more victimized in my life," Montgomery wrote. "It's absolutely the most helpless and hopeless feeling I could ever imagine. I can't sleep right ... and I am constantly paranoid. It's a horrible feeling ... to lose the safety and security I thought I was entitled to in my own home. Nobody protected us that night, my son and I were locked in the back of a police car for nearly four hours on a school night while they destroyed my home."

According to Montgomery, when the couple's neighbors inquired about the raid, they were told that the SWAT team had merely conducted a drill, and no shots were fired. When neighbors learned from the family that this was a lie, they began writing to the department and the Daily Tribune to demand answers. When the couple discovered the police had videotaped the raid, they requested a copy of the video. Montgomery said in her email that the copy they were initially given had no audio, and the incriminating (to the police) portions of the video had been removed.

On February 23, the Daily Tribune published its first story on the raid. The paper made its own request for the SWAT video, which the police department initially denied. On April 20, Jonathan Whitworth pleaded guilty to a single charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. He wasn't even charged for the minor amount of marijuana in his home (marijuana for personal use has been decriminalized in Columbia). He was issued a $300 fine. On April 27, the Daily Tribune made a formal request for the video, which it received on April 30, with full audio and with no visuals removed. The paper posted the video with an accompanying article on May 3. On May 5, I posted it here at Reason, and the video went viral.

The police department has since conceded it was unaware that there were pets or a child in the home at the time of the raid. A spokesman for the Columbia Police Department initially said police had to conduct the raid immediately before the drug supply could be moved, a statement later shown to be false when police revealed the raid was conducted more than a week after the initial tip.

According to surveys of police departments conducted by University of Eastern Kentucky criminologist Peter Kraska, we've seen about a 1,500 percent increase in SWAT deployments in this country since the early 1980s. The vast majority of that increase has been to serve search warrants on people suspected of nonviolent drug crimes. SWAT teams are inherently violent. In some ways they're an infliction of punishment before conviction. This is why they should only be used in situations where the suspect presents an immediate threat to others. In that case, SWAT teams use violence to defuse an already violent situation. When they're used to serve drug warrants for consensual crimes, however, SWAT tactics create violence where no violence was present before. Even when everything goes right in such a raid, breaking into the home of someone merely suspected of a nonviolent, consensual crime is an inappropriate use of force in a free society.

The overwhelmingly negative reaction to the video is interesting. Clearly, a very large majority of the people who have seen it are disturbed by it. But this has been going on for 30 years. We've reached the point where police have no qualms about a using heavily armed police force trained in military tactics to serve a search warrant on a suspected nonviolent marijuana offender. And we didn't get here by accident. The war on drugs has been escalating and militarizing for a generation. What's most disturbing about that video isn't the violence depicted in it, but that such violence has become routine.

As horrifying as the video from Columbia, Missouri, is, no human beings were killed. The police got the correct address, and they found the man they were looking for. In many other cases, such raids transpire based on little more than a tip from an anonymous or confidential informant. Nor is it unusual for raids just as violent as the one depicted in the video to turn up little in the way of drugs or weapons. (Whitworth wasn't exactly an outstanding citizen—he had a prior drug and DWI conviction. But he had no history of violence, and there were no weapons in the home.) Surveys conducted by newspapers around the country after one of these raids goes bad have found that police only find weapons of any kind somewhere between 10-20 percent of the time. The percentage of raids that turn up a significant amount of drugs tends to vary, but a large percentage only result in misdemeanor charges at worst.

Shooting the family's dogs isn't unusual, either. To be fair, that's in part because some drug dealers do in fact obtain vicious dogs to guard their supply. But there are other, safer ways to deal with these dogs than shooting them. In the Columbia case, a bullet fired at one dog ricocheted and struck another dog. The bullet could just as easily have struck a person. In the case of Tarika Wilson, a Lima, Ohio, SWAT officer mistook the sounds of a colleague shooting a drug dealer's dogs for hostile gunfire. He then opened fire into a bedroom, killing a 23-year-old mother and shooting the hand off of the one-year-old child in her arms.

The Columbia raid wasn't even a "no-knock" raid. The police clearly announced themselves before entering. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must knock and announce themselves before entering a home to serve a search warrant. If they want to enter without knocking, they have to show specific evidence that the suspect could be dangerous or is likely to dispose of contraband if police abide by the knock-and-announce rule. As is evident in the Columbia video, from the perspective of the people inside the home that requirement is largely ceremonial. If you were in a backroom of that house, or asleep, it isn't at all difficult to see how you'd have no idea if the armed men in your home were police officers. The first sounds you heard would have been gunfire.

But because this was a knock-and-announce raid, the police didn't need to show that Whitworth had a violent background or may have had guns in the home to use the violent tactics in the video. They didn't need to show that Whitworth posed any sort of threat at all, other than the fact he was suspected of dealing marijuana. Though SWAT teams are frequently defended as necessary tools reserved for the most dangerous of drug offenders, the reality is that in many communities, all search warrants are served with forced entry and paramilitary tactics.

The militarization of America's police departments has taken place over a generation, due to a number of bad policy decisions from politicians and government officials, ranging from federal grants for drug fighting to a Pentagon giveaway program that makes military equipment available to local police departments for free or at steep discounts. Mostly, though, it's due to the ill-considered "war" imagery our politicians continue to invoke when they refer to drug prohibition. Repeat the mantra that we're at war with illicit drugs often enough, and the cops on the front lines of that war will naturally begin to think of themselves as soldiers. And that's particularly true when you outfit them in war equipment, weaponry, and armor. This is dangerous, because the objectives of cops and soldiers are very different. One is charged with annihilating a foreign enemy. The other is charged with keeping the peace.

how f**kin horrible.. the dog's whimper went straight to my stomach. ugh..

Im not as hung up on the dog as some of ya'll, but SMH @ this "war on drugs"...America has just dug in its heels and continued to move forward with this stupidity that has cost this country billions and ruined untold lives.

Man, if only Obama would get real about this shyt.

sebstar wrote:Im not as hung up on the dog as some of ya'll, but SMH @ this "war on drugs"...America has just dug in its heels and continued to move forward with this stupidity that has cost this country billions and ruined untold lives.

Man, if only Obama would get real about this shyt.

I'm offended by them killing the dog, and I'm offended that them destroying their home was in the name of searching for something so simple as weed.

this sort of thing rarely ever happens in our society... just ask arkrud.

Im gonna be an asshole here and take the side that can we really expect that police are gonna get it right all the time and when they don't it really does suck? We read about it but the video really does empower "the People" to insist they get it right but if we tip the balance in favor of criminals rights we lose the ability to police (to a degree of course).

How many "Busts" a day go right across the country vs. the media fueled ones that don't and get air time? Sharpton is not getting on a plane to parade this one, and nobody was hurt except the pit bull.

Question really is does this dude that got "invaded" really a model innocent citizen or his past and current reputation preceed him? Does he keep any weapons in the house? Was there cause to think weapons?

No doubt we need to keep "Keystone" cops in check but the flip side is how is that done without being too soft on criminals?

Weed bust seems innocent but its a felony and dealers got guns and dogs usually if they big enough.

You can't really defend the cops on this one. They were acting on week-old intelligence and they didn't know there was a child in the house.

kam77 wrote:You can't really defend the cops on this one. They were acting on week-old intelligence and they didn't know there was a child in the house.

Hey, Im not defending the cops on this one, but generically we read about bad busts but this one we got to see and hear the horror so its far more intense than the usual stories.

My point is that its more sensational than usual and........what % of busts go wrong? Cuz if its low, they are not going to do much. Make a parade of a bad seed and move on.

Pit bulls are a threat. Sterotypical Drug dealers have mean pit bulls. Its Phucked up they shot the dog, and the kid was in the house. If this famliy has no connections or history of felony activity then its a true abortion of justice and they are due some form or compensation-apology, but if they are "active" shame on them for doing it around a kid and bring it in the house.

Most of us are pretty conventional staying with the letter of the law and the cops ain't breaking down our doors.

Nalod wrote:

kam77 wrote:You can't really defend the cops on this one. They were acting on week-old intelligence and they didn't know there was a child in the house.

Hey, Im not defending the cops on this one, but generically we read about bad busts but this one we got to see and hear the horror so its far more intense than the usual stories.

My point is that its more sensational than usual and........what % of busts go wrong? Cuz if its low, they are not going to do much. Make a parade of a bad seed and move on.

Pit bulls are a threat. Sterotypical Drug dealers have mean pit bulls. Its Phucked up they shot the dog, and the kid was in the house. If this famliy has no connections or history of felony activity then its a true abortion of justice and they are due some form or compensation-apology, but if they are "active" shame on them for doing it around a kid and bring it in the house.

Most of us are pretty conventional staying with the letter of the law and the cops ain't breaking down our doors.

Lets focus on these wack ass drugs laws which are the root of incidents like this.

sebstar wrote:

Nalod wrote:

kam77 wrote:You can't really defend the cops on this one. They were acting on week-old intelligence and they didn't know there was a child in the house.

Hey, Im not defending the cops on this one, but generically we read about bad busts but this one we got to see and hear the horror so its far more intense than the usual stories.

My point is that its more sensational than usual and........what % of busts go wrong? Cuz if its low, they are not going to do much. Make a parade of a bad seed and move on.

Pit bulls are a threat. Sterotypical Drug dealers have mean pit bulls. Its Phucked up they shot the dog, and the kid was in the house. If this famliy has no connections or history of felony activity then its a true abortion of justice and they are due some form or compensation-apology, but if they are "active" shame on them for doing it around a kid and bring it in the house.

Most of us are pretty conventional staying with the letter of the law and the cops ain't breaking down our doors.

Lets focus on these wack ass drugs laws which are the root of incidents like this.

Dealing weed is a pretty bad felony. Not like Smoking it.

They can actually charge you with income tax evasion and tax your estimated sales. Its how they pay for it.

Im down for legalizing it. Personally I gave it up over 20 years ago. Just did not like it anymore.

My concern is if the weed dealers can't sell weed, what are they going to sell? Im guessing they need cash flow and what they replace it with maybe far more harmful. Its a big sales distrubution channel.

sebstar wrote:

Nalod wrote:

kam77 wrote:You can't really defend the cops on this one. They were acting on week-old intelligence and they didn't know there was a child in the house.

Hey, Im not defending the cops on this one, but generically we read about bad busts but this one we got to see and hear the horror so its far more intense than the usual stories.

My point is that its more sensational than usual and........what % of busts go wrong? Cuz if its low, they are not going to do much. Make a parade of a bad seed and move on.

Pit bulls are a threat. Sterotypical Drug dealers have mean pit bulls. Its Phucked up they shot the dog, and the kid was in the house. If this famliy has no connections or history of felony activity then its a true abortion of justice and they are due some form or compensation-apology, but if they are "active" shame on them for doing it around a kid and bring it in the house.

Most of us are pretty conventional staying with the letter of the law and the cops ain't breaking down our doors.

Lets focus on these wack ass drugs laws which are the root of incidents like this.

Well, then we wouldn't have an overpopulated prison system, and then we wouldn't have a need to give some contractor an assload of money to build new prisons now would we?

sebstar wrote:

Nalod wrote:

kam77 wrote:You can't really defend the cops on this one. They were acting on week-old intelligence and they didn't know there was a child in the house.

Hey, Im not defending the cops on this one, but generically we read about bad busts but this one we got to see and hear the horror so its far more intense than the usual stories.

My point is that its more sensational than usual and........what % of busts go wrong? Cuz if its low, they are not going to do much. Make a parade of a bad seed and move on.

Pit bulls are a threat. Sterotypical Drug dealers have mean pit bulls. Its Phucked up they shot the dog, and the kid was in the house. If this famliy has no connections or history of felony activity then its a true abortion of justice and they are due some form or compensation-apology, but if they are "active" shame on them for doing it around a kid and bring it in the house.

Most of us are pretty conventional staying with the letter of the law and the cops ain't breaking down our doors.

Lets focus on these wack ass drugs laws which are the root of incidents like this.

the drug war is a complete failure, a total atrocity that has been used not only to fuel corporate and government greed, but also to further racial discrimination in the form of disproportionate enforcement of drug laws against minorities. it's not even a debate.

Nalod wrote:

sebstar wrote:

Nalod wrote:

kam77 wrote:You can't really defend the cops on this one. They were acting on week-old intelligence and they didn't know there was a child in the house.

Hey, Im not defending the cops on this one, but generically we read about bad busts but this one we got to see and hear the horror so its far more intense than the usual stories.

My point is that its more sensational than usual and........what % of busts go wrong? Cuz if its low, they are not going to do much. Make a parade of a bad seed and move on.

Pit bulls are a threat. Sterotypical Drug dealers have mean pit bulls. Its Phucked up they shot the dog, and the kid was in the house. If this famliy has no connections or history of felony activity then its a true abortion of justice and they are due some form or compensation-apology, but if they are "active" shame on them for doing it around a kid and bring it in the house.

Most of us are pretty conventional staying with the letter of the law and the cops ain't breaking down our doors.

Lets focus on these wack ass drugs laws which are the root of incidents like this.

Dealing weed is a pretty bad felony. Not like Smoking it.

They can actually charge you with income tax evasion and tax your estimated sales. Its how they pay for it.

Im down for legalizing it. Personally I gave it up over 20 years ago. Just did not like it anymore.

My concern is if the weed dealers can't sell weed, what are they going to sell? Im guessing they need cash flow and what they replace it with maybe far more harmful. Its a big sales distrubution channel.

There's two problems with selling weed. The first is the markup isn't as significant as with hard narcotics. The second is that you can grow it yourself and it challenges the old money tobacco and alcohol cash pools

[marv albert] Yes! [/marv albert] @ SC and Evil.

eViL wrote:

sebstar wrote:

Nalod wrote:

kam77 wrote:You can't really defend the cops on this one. They were acting on week-old intelligence and they didn't know there was a child in the house.

Hey, Im not defending the cops on this one, but generically we read about bad busts but this one we got to see and hear the horror so its far more intense than the usual stories.

My point is that its more sensational than usual and........what % of busts go wrong? Cuz if its low, they are not going to do much. Make a parade of a bad seed and move on.

Pit bulls are a threat. Sterotypical Drug dealers have mean pit bulls. Its Phucked up they shot the dog, and the kid was in the house. If this famliy has no connections or history of felony activity then its a true abortion of justice and they are due some form or compensation-apology, but if they are "active" shame on them for doing it around a kid and bring it in the house.

Most of us are pretty conventional staying with the letter of the law and the cops ain't breaking down our doors.

Lets focus on these wack ass drugs laws which are the root of incidents like this.

the drug war is a complete failure, a total atrocity that has been used not only to fuel corporate and government greed, but also to further racial discrimination in the form of disproportionate enforcement of drug laws against minorities. it's not even a debate.

You know evil, in terms of weed, I am pretty much now set that it should be legalized, but in terms of hard drugs like heroine and meth (Stuff that you cook at home) I'm more so thinking it should be legal, not b/c of crime rates or what it can do to people, but the dangers of having it around the house and what it can do to your kids. It's definitely another topic for another day, but it's my personal stance on the issue.

This was bad though.

Nalod, for the record, cops in a lot of areas are now completely shrugging off anyone who has weed. A lot of them could care less if they are selling it. They are moving on to bigger things like heroine now, especially here on Long Island, where there's a nice narcotic addiction outbreak.

as far as hard drugs go, you know oxycontin is the new heroin. adderall the new coke. your doctor is your new drug dealer and your pharmacy is the supplier.

eViL wrote:as far as hard drugs go, you know oxycontin is the new heroin. adderall the new coke. your doctor is your new drug dealer and your pharmacy is the supplier.

You may or may not be kidding with that wink, but you're pretty much right.... Except I don't think I ever heard of adderall.

Allanfan20 wrote:

eViL wrote:as far as hard drugs go, you know oxycontin is the new heroin. adderall the new coke. your doctor is your new drug dealer and your pharmacy is the supplier.

You may or may not be kidding with that wink, but you're pretty much right.... Except I don't think I ever heard of adderall.

Doctors prescribe it to kids with ADHD. It's more or less cocaine and you'll find college kids grinding it up with credit cards and snorting it

Nalod wrote:
Im gonna be an asshole here and take the side that can we really expect that police are gonna get it right all the time and when they don't it really does suck?

tell me if that's any consolation to the parents of this little girl.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/16/mich...

7-year-old girl killed in Detroit police raid
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 16, 2010 3:53 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Police in Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday expressed "profound sorrow" at the fatal shooting of a 7-year-old girl in a police raid.

Aiyana Jones was shot and killed by police executing a search warrant as part of a homicide investigation, Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee said in a statement.

"This is any parent's worst nightmare," Godbee said. "It also is any police officer's worst nightmare. And today, it is all too real."

The warrant was executed about 12:40 a.m. ET Sunday at a home on the city's east side, Godbee said. Authorities believed the suspect in the Friday shooting death of 17-year-old high school student Jarean Blake was hiding out at the home. Blake was gunned down in front of a store as his girlfriend watched, Godbee said.

Preliminary information indicates that members of the Detroit Police Special Response Team approached the house and announced themselves as police, Godbee said, citing the officers and at least one independent witness.

"As is common in these types of situations, the officers deployed a distractionary device commonly known as a flash bang," he said in the statement. "The purpose of the device is to temporarily disorient occupants of the house to make it easier for officers to safely gain control of anyone inside and secure the premise."

Upon entering the home, the officer encountered a 46-year-old female inside the front room, Godbee said. "Exactly what happened next is a matter still under investigation, but it appears the officer and the woman had some level of physical contact.

"At about this time, the officer's weapon discharged one round which, tragically, struck 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones in the neck/head area."

The girl was immediately transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Godbee said he and other officers went to the hospital while others stayed at the home to execute the warrant.

Aiyana's father, Charles Jones, told CNN affiliate WDIV, "She was sleeping and they came in the door shooting and throwing flash grenades ... burned my baby up and shot her, killed her."

Jones claimed the officers had the wrong house, but Godbee said in the statement the 34-year-old suspect in Blake's death was found and arrested at the home. In addition, a vehicle and a moped matching the descriptions of those involved in Blake's shooting were also found, he said.

The suspect's name was not released.

Godbee said he wished to "express to the family of Aiyana Jones the profound sorrow that we feel within the Detroit Police Department and throughout this community. We know that no words can do anything to take away the pain you are feeling at this time."

Police obtained the "high-risk search warrant" based on intelligence, and it was approved by the prosecutor and a magistrate, Godbee said. "Because of the ruthless and violent nature of the suspect in this case, it was determined that it would be in the best interest of public safety to execute the search warrant as soon as possible and detain the suspect ... while we sought a murder warrant," he said.

The police statement said Chief Warren Evans is out of town and could not be present "to personally address this tragedy," but "his thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of Aiyana Jones."

The officer's weapon was secured, and an investigation is under way, Godbee said, emphasizing the information gained so far is preliminary.

"This is a tragedy of unspeakable magnitude to Aiyana's parents, family and all those who loved her," Godbee said. "... It is a tragedy we also feel very deeply throughout the ranks of the Detroit Police Department.

"We cannot undo what occurred this morning," he said. "All we can do is pledge an open and full investigation and to support Aiyana's family in whatever way they may be willing to accept from us at this time. I understand that they may not be open to such a gesture at this time, but we do stand ready to do anything we can to support them."