Remember that story last week about the SWAT teams breaking down the door of a Maryland Mayor and shooting his two dogs? It gets better:
Threatening Mayor and his wife.
Prince George’s County authorities did not have a “no-knock” warrant when they burst into the home of a mayor July 29, shooting and killing his two dogs — contrary to what police said after the incident.
Judges in Maryland can grant police the right to enter a building and serve a search warrant without knocking if the judge finds there is reasonable suspicion to think evidence might be destroyed or the officers’ safety might be endangered in announcing themselves.
A Prince George’s police spokesman said last week that a Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and county police narcotics officers were operating under such a warrant when they broke down the door of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, shooting and killing his black Labrador retrievers.
But a review of the warrant indicates that police neither sought nor received permission from Circuit Court Judge Albert W. Northrup to enter without knocking. Northrup found probable cause to suspect that drugs might be in the house and granted police a standard search warrant.
Radley Balko has more.
In other news on the war on your neighbor, a California man who was selling medical marijuana with the blessings of local officials and under the legal protection of California state law was convicted by the feds. Take it away, Radley:
Maybe some right-winger can explain to me the wisdom of having a bullying, overbearing federal government forcing the states to deny sick people the medication that gives them relief. I’d also like someone on the right to explain to me why federalism should prevail when it comes to allowing the states to arrest gay people, ban dildoes, or to trample all over civil rights, but when it comes to letting sick people use marijuana to keep their medication down, we ought to genuflect before the power of the federal government.
There are crimes being committed in this country on a daily basis, and they are not being committed by the citizenry. For all the general hysteria about the loss of civil liberties due to the war on terror, the war on drugs is the original mac daddy of abusive government and erosion of civil rights. Our policy regarding drugs is irrational, counter-productive, and dangerous to the actual concept of America, and the rot is thorough. Whether it be the militarization of the police force, no-knock raids, the devastation of the Constitution, asset-forfeiture, or the prison-industrial complex, all of this finds its genesis in the war on drugs. It needs to be stopped. It needs to be fought. It is an outrage, and this is one of those cases where you can honestly say that the Democrats have been almost as bad as the Republicans.
The status quo is obscene, offensive, immoral, and unjust.
John H. Farr
Your every word is true here. It IS an outrage.
EdTheRed
The mac daddy makes ya jump! jump!
And then he’ll shoot your dogs…
jake
I’d like to say this is an instance of a cunning cop knowing there was no way a judge would give a nkw for the mayor. But the truth is PG County’s finest have a higher than normal thug and asshole content.
jeffreyw
Amen Brother!
damn chatzy, grumble
nightjar
This the product of 3 decades of unabated Supreme Court decisions giving more and more power to police. And it’s created an atmosphere of impunity for law enforcement under the general meme of “ends justifying the means”.
About ten years ago when I was living in Albuquerque, the cops shot to death a drunk Native American holding a pocket knife surrounded by cops with auto weapons and about 50 feet away. It was ruled as justified.
I’m for giving some leeway to the police, but it’s gone way, way past what is necessary in a free society.
Zifnab
Am I the only one left wondering what gave local cops the idea that the mayor was running around peddling drugs out of his basement? Not that I would suggest the police were using strong arm tactics to intimidate elected authorities, but it does seem awfully fucking suspicious that cops would burst into a civilian mayor’s home with guns blazing on evidence that was a complete dud.
The Moar You Know
You’re goddamn right. And on this front, both parties fail utterly. The Dems seem just fine with the status quo. The GOP’s response?
“Double Gitmo”
I don’t know how we get our dicks out of this Chinese finger puzzle, but as a society we need to.
Dreggas
Let my reefer go!
Seriously John, you’re spot on here and it’s high time (pun intended) that we reform these shitty drug laws.
Jonathan
I’m with nightjar. I don’t understand why individual cops aren’t prosecuted when they break laws.
These guys in MD went in with an illegal contract. They may have thought they were doing the right thing, but the warrant was served illegally. Therefore, they’re no longer acting a law enforcement, but as private citizens who broke in to a guy’s house, restrained the occupants, and shot the dogs (and stole several hundreds of thousands dollars worth of drugs).
That’s a crime. Prosecute them like they would any other gang that did this.
Just Some Fuckhead
I thought someone had mailed/shipped drugs to the mayor and the shipper caught it and notified authorities. I might be confusing it with some other drugs story.
rawshark
first you make drugs illegal. That creates a crime situation which requires the police to up-armor. Then comes the Supreme Court justification for supercop.
Do you know there are people in this country who actually think the crime issue from drugs involves junkies stealing to buy drugs? That’s a bigger urban legend than either crack babies or meth mouth. Its like something you’d hear in Reefer Madness. But right wingers still believe it. Sometimes it’s fun to talk to wingnuts, the things they say. LOL
Dennis - SGMM
Communities generally get the kind of police force they generally want. Bushco has been creating a climate of fear ever since they came into power. Fearful people want tough, militarized, door busting cops. And so they get them.
Equal Opportunity Cynic
Good reminders why I’m voting Libertarian, like every time.
Of course the fact that I don’t live in Ohio, Michigan, or Colorado, and hence don’t get a meaningful vote, helps keep my conscience clear.
John Cole
In the original story (click through the links), a drug-sniffing dog in the packages origin (I think Arizona) flagged the package. It was then delivered, the mother-in-law ( I think) left it on the porch because it was so big, and the cops waited until the Mayor took it in his house. They then acted like stormtroopers and invaded his home sans warrant and capped his dogs.
They did find 32 pounds of drugs and now believe that a deliveryman was the intended recipient of the drugs, and not the mayor.
Either way, the cops should be brought up on charges and there should be a large civil suit brought against these thugs.
bago
Yes white people, it can happen to you too.
I think there was a similar schtick about “those people” in germany a while back.
Olly McPherson
Imagine all of the times this shit happens and it’s not a mayor whose home is invaded and dogs shot. The cops generally get away unscathed.
Radley Balko also posted this story today: Officers Cheer Police Shooting Verdict in Lima. They can get away with murder, no problem.
Mike D.
Oh, hey, remember the late Eighties, when this crap was happening more or less continually? No? How about the Nineties, the whole deal where feds would bust down doors based on some dipshit dyslexic’s Top Secret warrant, and old people would get butt-stroked to the ground while their neighbors made a clean getaway? Sure you do, unless you hatched out of an egg eight years ago. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
How about a hulking great list, like Santa’s, so people can check off the “tinfoil conspiracy rubbish nonsense” one occurrence at a time? That might save a lot of time and effort, while preserving the sense of outrage for, you know, dumb asses.
D. Mason
I had learned to revile the police before I was a teenager and I didn’t even grow up with gangsta rap. Cops in America are the leading edge of the authoritarian mindset, just look at the way they choose to adorn themselves – all black storm troop garb. Police attitudes(and the resulting tactics) have morphed from maintaining order for the good folks to striking terror into the hearts of the unclean. They get a thrill from making examples of people who break draconian laws. A backlash is brewing, it’s going to be ugly and I can’t fucking wait.
bootlegger
32 pounds of drugs in the mail! Everyone knows you keep it under an ounce and pack it in good coffee. Duh.
On the WOD and policing, I’m a professor in a College of Justice and Safety, our department is the Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies. People ask us all the time what we’re doing training the next generation of jackbooted thugs. But we’re not. Policing is becoming more professionalized, more departments are requiring college degrees and there is direct evidence that college educated police have far, far lower rates of misconduct and errors than non-college educated officers.
The days of teaching Baton Twirling 101 or Tear Gas and Rubber Bullets for Crowd Control are long gone.
Our graduates take classes where they learn the truth about the WOD, about the effects of policing on urban environments, about how the public perception of police is shaped by their actions, and all the other interesting stuff that 4 decades of research has turned up.
Officer training doesn’t begin or end with the shooting range, it begins with opening the mind and never ends.
Zifnab
Ok, no. I’m totally off. I was under the impression that the box had no drugs in it for some reason. Must have misread the part about it being unopened. :-p Ignore me, plz.
Andrew
Now we all know what it’s like to be black!
bootlegger
Another tip, don’t open that package for at least a day or so. That way if the cops show up you can feign ignorance. Since none of your prints are on the contraband there is no way they can prove “intent” (mens rea) and the defense can bring up all kinds of probable scenarios that make you innocent.
Ninerdave
I have a solution! Don’t stick you dick in Chinese finger puzzles.
thefncrow
Oh, but that won’t happen. Actually, quite the opposite.
You see, the Supreme Court ruled in Hudson v. Michigan that the items seized by a search that violated the knock-and-announce rule and was served as a no-knock warrant instead does not run afoul of the exclusionary rule. Scalia wrote the opinion, joined by Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy. I’ll let his words speak for him.
Not only will the cops not be charged, but all that evidence they collected is 100% admissible in any court of law, thanks to Scalia and his judgement that we’ve entered a new age of police professionalism. If you read Balko and see his constant references to The “New Professionalism”, this is exactly what he’s talking about.
NonyNony
The War on Some People Who Use Some Kinds of Drugs is one of the few areas where I start to fall into conspiracy theory territory. Because the way we react to drugs in this country is so damn nonsensical. And if you use the tried and true method of determining why governments do what they do (e.g. answer the question of “Cui bono?”, also known as “follow the money”), you can’t help but come to the conclusion that our government is perfectly happy spending lots and lots of money to capture and punish people for nonviolent offenses to other people’s morality while AT THE SAME TIME creating a market for drugs so lucrative, with barriers to entry so high, that it makes selling drugs for organized crime, gangs, and terrorists incredibly profitable.
They couldn’t make the environment better for generating income for criminals and terrorists if they tried. Which sometimes makes me think they are trying and that that’s at least part of the intent behind our drug enforcement regime in this country.
OTOH – I also subscribe to the theory of “never attempt to explain by conspiracy what can be just as easily explained by people being fucking morons”, so perhaps we’re just a nation of fucking morons.
Dreggas
O/T but let’s help nip the latest WingNutDaily piece about Obama receiving funding from the Palestinians (This was to be the response by the nutjobs after the articles on McCain’s shady money.) in the butt.
See the (of all places) Wall St. Journal
ThymeZone
Stop complaining and do something. Join the ACLU.
I have carried their card in my wallet lo these many years, and while the org is not perfect, it is at least one powerful thing standing between you and a government that will gladly fuck you over for its own purposes at the drop of a hat. That ain’t conspiratorial nonsense, it’s a fact.
jake
Given this occurred in the heart of P.G.’s DFHville, you can be certain all sorts of misery will be heaped on the heads of the deserving. I wouldn’t be surprised if Berwyn Height’s CoP requests a transfer soon. Council meetings can be a bit awkward even when your minions haven’t knocked down the Mayor’s mom and shot his dogs.
D. Mason
It’s easy to understand. The people who are responsible for prosecuting them are their buddies.
A little anecdote, the severity of which pales compared to most police abuse, but it still illustrates the systemic nature of the problem.
Several years ago I was riding down the main drag of a small town near where we live with a buddy who was driving. It’s a 4 lane highway with businesses on either side and a fair amount of traffic, some of which was blocking the view of the side-street on the left of the intersection which we are approaching. The light is green for my friend and suddenly from the left a police cruiser appears in the intersection. It was too bright in the day for me to honestly say if he had his lights on or not from having only seen a profile view of the car but we had the windows down and the radio at a conversation volume and I can say without fear of bad karma that the cop did not have his sirens on. My friend hit the cop car which had ran the red light and we both ended up in the hospital. The cop was fine even though his cruiser was quite destroyed. To all the witnesses(no less than 10) who offered help while waiting for the ambulances to arrive it was apparent that the cop had acted in error. Everyone agreed that his light was red and some said he didn’t even have his lights on and had simply blown the intersection. A week later when my friend was able to get a copy of the police report it had two witness statements attached, from people who couldn’t or didn’t see what color either light was and thought the cruisers lights were on. The recording from the dash cam was MIA, the police said the cam was not recording even though it is mandatory for it to be on whenever a cop is responding to a call. The city tried to call it my friends fault and stick his insurance co with a fifty-thousand dollar bill for the wrecked cruiser, they even tried to cite him for running a red lightso his “crime” would cost him personally. His parents(we were teens at the time) had to fight it pretty vigorously just to get it to a “no fault” accident. That was after they gathered quite a few witness reports by putting up signs at business at the intersection and an ad in the paper. They didn’t exclude any of the people they spoke to, unlike the cops, and they ended up with several reports. Most agreed it was the cops fault and a few said they weren’t sure but none said my friend was clearly to blame as the cops had concluded. They even spoke to one of the witnesses who had given a statement to the police and she was upset that they had used her statement to mis-characterize the events. They signed affidavits that were later used to threaten a lawsuit. That’s what it finally took to get the city to back off.
The point of this regretfully long-winded story is that this was not some conspiracy planned in some smoky back room, it was a reflex. It happened instantaneously at the scene of the incident. The crooked thugs saw their buddy had fucked up and would face a penalty if they didn’t intervene and they did so without hesitation.
Just Some Fuckhead
We could maybe bring the putative War On Drugs to an end with a large-scale concerted effort that mails a couple pounds of drugs to mayors, councilmen and police officers all over America.
Dreggas
Really OT but THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE
Badtux
Reality is that no cop will get fired for lying to a judge, no cop will be fired for illegally entering a home, and the mayor will get some money from the lawsuit against PGC but of course that won’t get his dogs back. And the PGC cops will violate someone else’s civil rights tomorrow, but it’ll be a poor brown-skinned person so we won’t hear about it. The PGC police force has been lawless for years, violating people’s civil rights, forging false confessions to “solve” crimes, refusing to allow detainees to see their lawyer even when the detainee is demanding his laywer and the lawyer is standing in the lobby demanding to see his client, and otherwise behaving like a miniature Gestapo, and nobody ever does anything about it.
The sad thing is that most folks in the area don’t care that the PGC cops are serving as judge, jury, and executioner — they *want* to live in a dictatorship where the police can invade any home they feel like invading and kill anybody or anything they feel like killing regardless of whether they’ve been convicted of a crime or not. Democracy does not seem to be much loved in today’s America, sad to say. The whole Constitution thing, with its separation of powers that says you’re innocent until found guilty by a jury of your peers (or by a judge if you forgo the jury), apparently is viewed by the average American today as just a piece of fancy toilet paper, sorta like how Sheriff Joke (Joe Arpaio) gets re-elected every time in Maricopa County AZ despite having killed dozens of people in his jail who have never been convicted of any crime. But the average American apparently thinks that whole “fair trial” thingy is just a quaint tradition that is irrelevant today. Sad. Just sad. Our founding fathers gave us a Republic, and we’re pissing it away because, apparently, democracy is just too much hassle for the average American today.
— Badtux the Saddened Penguin
gocart mozart
Example #15342 that proves that when Republicans say they are for states rights and less government, they are lying.
ET
PG county – excuse me people there prefer Prince Georges County – police have been having a hard time of it of late.
This is the same county where 19 year old Ronnie White who was in custody for allegedly running over and killing a cop, was found dead – not of natural causes (he was in a cell by himself with a check every 15 or 30 minutes).
This is also where an off-duty PG County (Keith A. Washington) who was their Deputy Homeland Security director shot 2 furniture delivery personnel one of whom died. he got 45 years in prison.
And people say my hometown (New Orleans) has problems with their cops….
Dreggas
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Phoebe
I think it’s “mack” daddy, but apart from that, fantastic post.
wasabi gasp
When hitting the bong, have extra munchies on hand incase of unexpected company blasting thru your door. Its just common deviant criminal scum etiquette.
jrg
I always found it interesting that the powers that be consider MJ to be a “gateway drug”, yet completely ignore the credibility problem that appears as a result of people discovering that MJ has very few negative effects, especially when compared to alcohol, cigarettes, or most prescription drugs.
It’s exactly the same sort of thinking that we see behind “abstinence only education”, and it’s the reason the WOD is a complete failure.
Telling someone that “all drugs are bad” is like saying “never have sex until marriage”. The end result is people who catch STDs because they can’t distinguish between sex and “safer sex”, and people who get more easily hooked on dangerous drugs because they can’t tell the difference between the (so-called) dangers of MJ and the (very real) dangers of coke, meth, or heroin.
Obviously, prohibition does not work. Legalize it and tax it. Why not make money off of regulated MJ, while saving the tax dollars that would otherwise go into the black hole that is the prison-industrial complex?
The Other Steve
Two words:
Ruby Ridge
We go in cycles, and I do believe that the administration does have some influence in what is allowable. I’m seeing us fall right back into the same patterns that occured under Reagan/Bush and were corrected under Clinton.
I fear that the Iraq vets returning are going to do to the police what the Vietnam vets did. Fuck ’em up with new ideas. Like SWAT teams, etc.
The Other Steve
All drugs are bad, except the ones we prescribe you to deal with the symptoms of your disease because it’s not profitable to find a cure.
Fledermaus
It really isn’t. Police and prosecutors will take any excuse to expand their power over citizens and imprision. Plus the drug forfeiture laws mean $$$.
cyntax
Big time OT, but lets revisit that dust-up a few weeks back where we had what amounted to a kind of concern trolling over whether Gore’s challenge to have 100% carbon-free energy (within 20 years) was at all possible or whether we’d have to completly redesign the power grid to make it possible.
Well, the whole “have to redesign the power grid” meme just took a big hit: MIT scientists are developing a new power storage system modeled after plants’ storage of energy generated by photosynthesis [link]. Here’s the money quote:
The whole article’s pretty interesting and not long, so worth a read. But the upshot is that MIT is trying to make solar possible on a large scale within 10 years.
The Moar You Know
Boy, it sure seems to here in San Diego. The body count of the innocent is incredible here. Our guys even manage to bag a few unarmed civilians a year while off duty. That’s taking your work home with you!
Out of uniform? No badge? No problem! The DA gives ’em a smack on the ass and a finger-wagging in the face and puts them right back on the beat.
Can you come down here and give our
Gestapofine officers a talking-to?Dreggas
I used to love Upright Citizens Brigade and the skits featuring bong boy.
gopher2b
There probable cause was based on the latest episode of Weeds.
You can’t be serious (re: Clinton)
Dreggas
Marijuana, ironically enough, is good for folks with asthma. The smoke from marijuana expands the lungs and airways and helps relax the constriction.
Dreggas
No shit especially regarding drug laws.
Also, as much as this might put me in agreeance with some of the righties, remember waco.
Chuck Butcher
The WOT & WOD are big contributors to our present circumstances, but John misses it by calling the WOD out as a dating mechanism. Back up to the War On Organized Crime (Mafia) and that cute little legal item RICO.
The Grand Panjandrum
Just wait for the first time someone gets a fucking traffic ticket from the Feds when Obama’s President. Wingnuttia will be at full tilt outrage for the rest of his term. We have a War Criminal in the White House and they still get on their knees to service the rat-bastard regularly.
Dreggas
add into that the roots of the WOD which was prohibition and then the, I believe, tax stamp act.
Chet
Also, as much as this might put me in agreeance with some of the righties, remember waco.
Try not to get too wrapped up in Waco conspiracies. All the reports that the Feds had flamethrowered the compound were debunked. They were crazed, armed cultists who committed mass suicide by firebombing their own compound.
pharniel
war on drugs started same time as prohibition and the depression, at least as far as MJ is concerned.
it was a way to deport all those filthy illegals in the southwest
the first guy to have to try to enforce the ban was like ‘wtf mate’ and drove out and stood in a huge patch of it growning byt he side of the road.
‘how do you fight a weed!?!?’
D. Mason
It’s good for a lot of things. Legalization would eliminate the need for prescription anti-depressants, some of the most dangerous drugs. That’s why big pharma will fight it tooth and nail.
Dreggas
I don’t dispute what happened. I’m not big on conspiracy theories myself. I am talking more about the raid as a whole. To me, at least at the time, it looked like over-kill.
cleek
i’m sure there’s a GOP House staffer out there somewhere with a ObamaImpeachment.DOT all ready to go.
Dreggas
This is even more disturbing
D. Mason
Bullshit. I’ve seen video with my own eyes of people getting shot down, by agents taking cover behind a goddamn tank, trying to flee the inferno.
Buck
Waco makes killin’ the Mayors dogs look pretty god damned tame to me.
Forget how it ended. Take a look at how it started.
Adrienne
Because that would be too much like right. It makes WAAAYYYY too much sense. It’s 2008. Common sense is overrated and it ain’t so common.
People back in the day had the good sense to repeal Prohibition, and that required a damn Constitutional Amendment that had to go through that long drawn out process. Good thing they did b/c a sister NEEDS to have her +2,3,4+ every now and again. :-)
We could get rid of these dumbass laws by two simple votes and a stroke of the pen. Fucking idiots.
Brachiator
Sweet Boneless Jesus with a hookah! I read the earlier stories to try to determine why these goons broke into the mayor’s house in the first place, and came across this:
So I’m not seeing any evidence that the mayor is a major drug buyer, seller or user, and these Keystone Kops are just following a package to see where it goes? And then two articles get into the minutiae of valid searches, proper procedure, warrants, etc., when everything about the case is bullshit from the start.
And everyone from the reporters writing about the case to the cops and lawyers involved seem to fall easily into the authoritarian trap that once the police suspect you of something, then you cease to be a citizen with rights, but become a suspect. And then if shit happens, your home is violated, your dogs killed, then everyone looks to transform violations into “honest mistakes” that occurred in “good faith.”
You’re right. This would be a good start.
Tax Analyst
John, the very first commenter said it perfectly.
I have little to add except to say that this is one of your strongest and most important posts I’ve seen in the 3 or so years I’ve been reading BJ.
cleek
with a child molesting authoritarian cult leader ?
gopher2b
The address would have tipped me off. But I’m not a cop with all his street smarts.
Dreggas
So the gov’t sends in tanks and basically a small army to deal with them? Guns or no guns on the premises it was way over-done.
Punchy
At least Mrs. Mayor has a nice rack.
Dreggas
add to that that Koresh was suspected of the whole cult/child molesting thing, he had not been convicted of anything.
Don
While I don’t concur, I’m willing to stipulate this because it should have been irrelevant: Koresh could have been picked up on any number of occasions when out on a jog or the like. It’s precisely because the feds chose a moronic and ham-handed approach that all that violence had the opportunity to go down. That’s not a blank check for any misdeeds on any side, but the smart move is not to create a situation where these things can happen.
Dreggas
Then there was that touching family photo of Elian Gonzalez with an H&K MP5 in his face.
Bob In Pacifica
nightjar, you could see the arc from when the Supreme Court gave the cops the right to set up road blocks and stop everyone to see if anyone was drinking and driving. Once you can tiptoe around probable cause you go to probably… ’cause…
I wonder who doesn’t like the mayor.
Socraticsilence
Mistakes were made at the beginning in Waco (namely calling in the media which tipped the cult), but after Day 1 and a number of ATF agents dead, I really doubt it could have ended peacefully.
Socraticsilence
Mistakes were made at the beginning in Waco (namely calling in the media which tipped the cult), but after Day 1 and a number of ATF agents dead, I really doubt it could have ended peacefully.
Emma Anne
Also note that this occurred in the first few months of Clinton’s presidency. They got smarter after that.
CFisher
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to realize that the government massively fucked up, and whether or not they were ultimately responsible for the fire (If they were, I think it was accidental), the first impulse of any government agent is the same as the first impulse of the guy sitting in the cubicle next to you when he screws up: Cover your ass.
You also don’t have to be a raving libertarian to realize that when cops screw up and kill innocent people, or take shortcuts or outright lie, they will get a lot more deference and benefit of the doubt than you would in a similar situation (i.e. getting woken up during a wrong-door, no knock raid by armed intruders and shooting back only to realize after the fact that they were cops.)
The cop would get desk duty for a week and probably a fucking medal while you’d be looking at the chair.
D. Mason
Alleged child molester, alleged by the agencies who appear to have committed serious wrongdoing in the assault. I know it’s ridiculous to think the government might demonize someone to misdirect from their own wrongdoing. As for the authoritarian cult leader stuff, who cares, they’re everywhere and as far as I can tell, leading a cult is not a capital offense.
Here’s a question, what would be more traumatic to a child, being molested by their sick fuck religious “leader” or being trapped in a burning building by their own government while they listen to the agonizing screams of everyone they know being burned alive?
Socraticsilence
Oops, um sorry about the triple post, Dreggas I’m sorry but Apocolyptic Cults amassing Weapons Caches is one of those instances where I want strong federal intervention, the WoD, Elian, yeah those are over steps, but a bunch Cultists collecting automatics um sorry but I’d like the State to step in.
Dreggas
What makes you think I don’t agree with everything you said? I live in So-Cal and see this shit happen all the time.
Brachiator
So let’s review the thought process here behind the police action.
bootlegger
The “professionalization” of policing will take time, and Scalia is a fucking idiot if he thinks professionalism means the individuals can police themselves.
The students we turn out are taught the importance of transparency and accountability, which are major components of professionalism.
Police, as a group, are as heterogenous as any other profession and to assume that the actions of a few power-tripping goons are an indicator of the “average” officer is specious reasoning.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchers? We do. We pay the salaries of these men and women and believe or not they are under our control, not the other way around.
You want change, then get involved at the local level. Elect officials who will institute real civilian oversight over policing and insist that they hire college-educated officers for their academies. Then volunteer to serve on these boards or run for local office yourself. This will and is changing the culture of policing, not conspiracy rantings about who is really in control.
CFisher
Nothing.
I was just throwing out a comment mostly agreeing with you that calling Waco a major screw up and example of overkill and ass-covering does not equate one with living in a Unibomber style shack typing out manifestos on a typewriter.
Dreggas
I am not saying I don’t support an investigation. What I am saying is I don’t support what amounted to an invasion complete with tanks.
cleek
alleged by former members.
and he’s defended by a lot of people who sound a lot like Dale Gribble.
the power to prevent both events was in the hands of said sick fuck cult leader.
nightjar
This is the case that sticks in my craw more than any other.
YOUR PAPERS PLEASE!!
D. Mason
The same power was in the hands of the government. Both sides failed rather miserably and that’s my point. The fact that so many people are willing to give cover to the authoritarian gangsters with the tanks is more worrying to me than the actions of one shit-head and his band of merry followers.
John H. Farr
OT, but why in the hell is this site hosted on such a shitty server? Half the time I can’t even get to it.
Marshall
All wars are politics by other means, and this certainly applies to the drug war. Think about who is being politically persecuted by it, and you will realize why it continues.
Additionally, anyone who thinks that the current police training is helping the situation is seriously misguided. I have lived in this country for over 50 years, and every time I interact with the police it is worse than the previous time. The degradation over the last few decades has been simply shocking, of the frog in a pot of water on the stove variety. With all due respect, it is reasonable to place some of the burden for this on the training the police get, which is probably well intentioned but on its face is not working well.
Dreggas
My thoughts exactly.
oh really
It doesn’t take a right-winger to explain such a policy. Most Republicans seem to operate under an assumption that is consistent with their judicial philosophy: locking up innocent people is justifiable if by doing so it means you get more guilty people. (By this theory, locking up everyone would probably be best, i.e., you’d be sure you had all the guilty people.)
With marijuana, right-wingers apparently believe that the worst thing that could happen would be for even one person to take advantage of the availability of medical marijuana to get a recreational buzz. If that means denying hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people the relief they need, it’s the price we have to pay.
It seems like the DEA more or less runs medical pain treatment in this country today. There are plenty of doctors who are more worried about their medical licenses than they are about their patient’s pain, which, although understandable, is a disservice to the competent practice of medicine.
Not long ago I spoke to a DEA agent on the phone. I called to see if I could find out what the actual laws were regarding Schedule II and III drugs, as opposed to what my doctor thought they were. After more than 20 years with the DEA, the agent was retiring because of the way it is being run under Bush (not that it was anything to brag about under Clinton). He was limited in what he could say explicitly because he was talking on a government phone while at work, but he made his feelings clear: current DEA policy is a disaster.
Some of the strongest proponents for getting the government out of the drug enforcement business have been conservatives, but they have had little influence on policy. And there is no shortage of misguided Democrats either.
Blue Raven
Kind of OT, but I have to call bullshit. I’ve smoked marijuana. I also have clinical depression. Marijuana does nothing for my depression. Zoloft does.
Darkness
It’s an internationalized mentality, really. Ever tangled with a Dutch train policeman? As classic an authoritarian control freak as any American cop. They could have been swapped for any our cities’ “finest”. I’ve seen Auckland, New Zealand police in full asinine, putting the public at more risk full throttle mode too. The job attracts that type is all.
cleek
the power to not molest the kids wasn’t in the government’s hands. that was all Koresh.
welcome to America!
John Cole
Self-medicating for clinical depression may be the worst god damned reason I have ever heard for legalization. Period.
chopper
i live in brooklyn. recently i bought a vintage vespa scooter from a guy in manhattan. he was hit by a cop car which blew a red light without the siren or the cherries on, plowing into him. the bike was in astonishingly good shape but his wrist got totally fucked in the accident.
the cops, of course, blamed it on him and actually threw him in the clink overnight, which meant he got no medical attention when he needed it the most and now he’s permanently disabled or something. the lawsuit is ongoing and i hope that those cops lose their badges at the very least.
Joe
The story gets even worse with the latest development, which can be read here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/06/AR2008080602495.html?hpid=topnews
The idiot cops have now arrested the deliveryman that was supposed to pick up the package with the pot. The scheme, apparently, is to send the drugs to unsuspecting people, then a paid-off deliveryman intercepts the package. The cops refuse to issue any apology or acknowledge any mistakes and are still not officially clearing the innocent mayor and his wife. Atta boys, real geniuses there in PG County.
chopper
yeah, i gotta agree there. the wife is a psychologist and i imagine the reaction i’d get out of her if i mentioned that idea as if it were valid.
D. Mason
Well, I wasn’t forwarding it as a reason for legalization. Plain and simple, pharma companies fight legalization fanatically. In my post I postulated that it’s because it would kill some of their more lucrative product lines. Nice way to twist my meaning though.
CFisher
Some of the strongest proponents for getting the government out of the drug enforcement business have been
conservativeslibertarians.Fixed for accuracy. ;)
Notorious P.A.T.
Elitist!
oh really
The two I had in mind were Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley, both of whom would be more accurately described as conservatives than as libertarians. Classical conservatism has a libertarian element to it, something that is absent most of the time in most of what passes today for a conservative.
Today’s conservatives have more in common with fascists than with anything else.
The Moar You Know
Absolute, complete total horseshit. Frankly, marijuana makes depression worse, not better. At the moment I would stop just short of citing it as an primary cause of depression, but I may well change my mind about that given some of my experiences.
Big Pharma has plenty of business it could lose to weed, but anti-depressants would not be one of the affected products.
AnneLaurie
Ask any ex-Soviet citizen: You can’t create a really profitable kleptocracy with a military coup over a long weekend. First you need to pollute the waters by creating a new brand of Thought Crimes, to be blamed upon an already suspect group, with a comprehensive network of newly-empowered Security Forces to combat them. The Nixon Administration’s War on Drugs, Kids, Uppity Minorities, Wetbacks Who Don’t Know Their Place, and Big-Mouth “Intellectuals” & “Artists” was the opening salvo in a decades-long assault upon America’s treasury.
“Everybody knew” that the War on Some Substances under Certain Circumstances known as Prohibition was an epic failure, at least as an attempt to keep Americans from drinking alcoholic beverages. But as a way of greatly increasing profits on recreational alcohol, while simultaneously creating an all-purpose legal weapon against the public-enemy-of-the-day, a lot of heavily armed police, and a citizenry innurred to ongoing private “law breaking” and political corruption at all levels, Prohibition made a fine template. The veterans of Nixon’s administration now in charge of today’s “War on Drugs” — Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bennett, Rumsfeld, et al. — have spent the last seven-plus years reaping a truly obscene profit funneling trillions of taxpayer dollars into offshore bank accounts, with so much going to the megacorporations and America’s political competitors that even the modest percentages available to the “fixers” at every level have almost sated the dreams of neo-con avarice. But the global triumph of Blackwater and Halliburton wouldn’t have been possible without all those years of training the Average Amurkin that (a) laws are for breaking, unless you’re a ‘troublemaker’; (b) justice is always trumped by a bunch of thugs with guns & badges; and (c) anybody who complains about these conditions is probably a criminal junkie rapist thief pervert, as well as anti-American. Installing a convicted substance abuser as the figurehead for this Triumph of the Kleptocrats was just the last nose-thumbing fillip at 200 years of American democracy.
Chuck Butcher
government protected pushers versus free lance pushers
any more questions?
Caitlin
What The Other Steve said –
“I fear that the Iraq vets returning are going to do to the police what the Vietnam vets did”
– and others’ comments. I just learned that two of my former students, who have both served recently in Irag, have been hired as officers for our local police department. As an English teacher, I often get to know my student all too well – and knowing these two scares the hell out of me.
Chuck Butcher
Waco was about guns. Think about the implications of that. Koresh or somebody there supposedly purchased “conversion kits” for semi-automatic rifles to change them to full auto.
gopher2b
Was McNulty college educated? What about Bunk? Bunk was a good cop.
bootlegger
There is as much heterogeneity among cops as there is in any profession. Policing attracts lots of different “types”.
Ah yes, a sample of one. I know and interact with dozens of police officers in settings from playing softball, to my graduate classes, to getting a ticket for being 3 mph over. Are some of ’em assholes? You bet. But this has to be the lamest comment on this thread. Police training today not only is better at teaching them how to react in “danger mode”, but they also learn more about the public service aspect of their jobs which is becoming more prevalent with community policing. Add to that the fact that screening for police is far more strict than even 10 years ago. They undergo psych screening (to weed out the asshole thug mentality) that was unheard of in the past and the physical and academic demands are also enhanced. You simply cannot assess the enhancements in police training and professionalization based on your run-ins with the law.
Kevin
See those “donate” buttons over on the right?
Conservatively Liberal
Like any other ‘mood altering drug’, pot will generally amplify your existing mood. If you are depressed, you will probably become more depressed. If you are elated, you will become more elated. If you are kicking back and taking it easy, you aren’t moving unless it is for Pepsi and Doritoes.
Same with acid or mushrooms. People I knew who experienced a ‘bad trip’ were in fucked up moods to begin with, but I never saw someone who was happy have a bad trip. That and dosage were problems. One girl in my old neighborhood ate two cups of fresh picked Liberty Caps and died. She was told she had to eat more of them when they were fresh. Oops.
The WOD is an industry that has grown huge and is out of control. People are making money and jobs off of it, and stopping this juggernaut is nigh on impossible now. Until a rash of common sense infects our government, this will only get worse.
Common sense in government? Never gonna happen.
D. Mason
shorter bootlegger: Don’t trust your lyin’ eyes, trust me, a police trainer.
Badtux
Human beings do not live in a vacuum. Human beings live in a culture. There is a whole social science called “sociology” about this. You put a group of people together — like, say, in a police force — and they behave differently than they would as individuals not part of a group. Now, you have a culture of “protect your fellow officer above all else” (the blue wall of silence, which is *still* a blue wall, you have to be a very bad cop indeed before your fellow officers will rat on you), you have no real repercussions for behaving in a thuggish manner and in fact most folks will congratulate you on teaching “those” people their proper station in life (for some definition of “those” that does not include the person doing the congratulating, of course), you have your fellow co-workers tasering and beating people and testi-lying all the time with no repercussions, and, well, even the most saintly of people is going to be more brutal than if he was part of a culture of zero tolerance of misbehavior and absolute enforcement of the law even if the perp is a cop.
The problem with a culture of violence such as exists in far too many police forces today is that it’s damned hard to change short of firing every single cop and starting over from scratch. A cop doesn’t learn how to be a cop from some academic bullshit at the police academy. All that shit goes out the window when he hits reality — the streets — and gets paired up with existing cops and learns the reality of being a cop as vs. all that academic bullshit. A cop learns how to be a cop from other cops, not from the police academy. And if other cops are part of a culture of violence, that’s what he learns. And don’t tell me it don’t work like that, because it’s bullshit. I’ve been through training like that, and I know damn well that I used precious little of that academic bullshit when the rubber hit the road. I relied on my peers for how to handle real life shit, not some academic bullshit that was totally divorced from the reality of the streets.
Prince Georges County is famous for its brutal, corrupt, violent police force that acts as judge, jury, and executioner. And this has been true for years. I have stories on my old blog from six years ago where PGC beat false confessions out of people and shit like that, where the real perp eventually got caught and they had to let some poor slob out of jail who’d spent two years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. You can’t tell me that there’s no culture of violence there, because there’s too many headlines going back for goddamned *years* proving otherwise. And unless people are willing to do something about it by electing people who will clean it up, it’s going to stay that way. But nobody gives a shit, because this culture of violence on the part of the PGC cops keeps “those” people “in their place” (for some definition of “those” that is not a typical PGC middle class person). It’s only when PGC cops accidentally hit the house of a middle class guy like this Mayor that anybody gives a shit, and it’ll blow over like the wind in a matter of weeks and nothing will change. Nothing will happen. Nothing ever does, because apparently people in PGC distrust democracy and prefer living in a police state where they don’t have to worry about little things like “trial by jury” to decide whether someone is a criminal or not, just let the PGC cops pop’em…
– Badtux the Cynical Penguin
Kevin
Police have gotten more “professional” over the last 20 years or so, but of course that has been coupled with a re-expansions of what they’re allowed to get away with, legally, so really, it’s a wash.
What’s the difference between some good-ol’-boy cop whacking you on the head because he can, and some “professional” cop doing the same because it “conforms to police procedures”? Nothing.
Just Some Fuckhead
All those buttons do is provoke a fine dining post from John. Keep looking for an “upgrade” button.
mclaren
The solution seems simple and clear: jury nullification.
From now on, anyone chosen to serve on a jury in a trial involving a non-violent drug offense should simply vote to acquit.
A juror need not state a reason for hi/r vote and cannot be directed by any judge as to how to vote. According to common law as well as statutory law (the John Peter Zenger case in 1735), jurors are judge of both the facts and the law.
Even since the Zenger case juries have used nullification to strike down unjust laws. It’s an old tradition in America. We should make use of it.
Marshall
You simply cannot assess the enhancements in police training and professionalization based on your run-ins with the law.
It is telling to me that you apparently feel that complaints about police training must stem from run-ins with the law, and therefore can be discounted. It seems, if I may say so, typical of the police mentality. My basic response to that is, why not ? In the end, the opinions of every citizen are primarily based on their own experience, and that is how it should be.
However, in my case I should say that I haven’t had “run-ins with the law.” Period. I never have. I have eyes, travel frequently, have friends and colleagues all over the country and I have seen the police in action. I can tell you that something is seriously broken with this country’s law enforcement. I also know that I am far from alone in this perception (read the rest of the thread). I am tired of having my colleagues who moved here from Eastern Europe tell me that the police of this country remind them of the Stasi and the KGB (both very well-trained organizations, by the way) from the bad old days. I am tired of reading of the latest outrage from Prince Georges County in the local DC news. I am tired of the mountains of lies heaped up to support the war on drugs, and the millions of lives that have been ruined by it. I am tired of the way that the Police can apparently taser or shoot anyone that they want, and it is always justified unless there happens to be a video recording of their deeds.
Clearly, a large part of the problem is the demagoguery of the last few decades, and the insane expansion of police powers that has resulted from it. But training clearly has a role to play here too. Do the police understand that the rigorous enforcement of unjust laws is the essence of tyranny ? Apparently not. Do the police understand that “I am just doing my job” is the Eichmann defense, and gains them neither credit or sympathy ? From my observation and experience, most certainly not. Do the police even understand that you don’t always get to control what other people think about your intentions, that meaning well or even being basically a good person (for the policemen I know personally are basically good people) is not always enough to save your reputation or your soul ? I would hope so, but in my heart I fear not.
I think that maybe training could help here. Here is a suggestion – have your charges read the diaries of Victor Klemperer, particularly volumes 1 and 2. I have written enough here, but maybe others on this list could come up with some other useful suggestions in this regard.