SWAT team breaks into home, fires seven rounds at family’s pit bull and corgi (?!) as a seven-year-old looks on.
They found a “small amount” of marijuana, enough for a misdemeanor charge. The parents were then charged with child endangerment.
So smoking pot = “child endangerment.” Storming a home with guns, then firing bullets into the family pets as a child looks on = necessary police procedures to ensure everyone’s safety.
This is what happens when you give a bunch of cowboy assholes heavy weapons and fill them with a God complex. Although I’m sure Joe Lieberman would suggest we strip this family of their citizenship.
Oddly enough, I doubt the tea partiers screaming about individual liberty will notice this. After all, it isn’t like the cops were going to raise their taxes or provide them with affordable healthcare coverage. They were just shooting his dogs in front of his family and then made up some bullshit excuse to try to take away the kid. No big deal.
(via)
Martin
Dude! A corgi? It’s the Queen’s dog, for fuck’s sake. I can’t watch that. I love my corgi.
KDP
No the TPs will claim that they must have had it coming to them. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, don’cha know?
OT – The new talking Walmart ad is annoying and disconcerting.
Fergus Wooster
John,
Thanks for headlining this. I can’t get the squeal of the dogs out of my head.
I think the “endangerment” charge is the same sort of projection involved when the cops beat the shit out of you, then charge you with assault. They endangered the child with multiple high-velocity bullets, so they charge you for same. (After all, if not for your possession of a misdemeanor quantity of herb, they wouldn’t have had to shoot up your house.)
How does someone go through this and not hate the police?
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
But there’s a war on! It’s a war on
terrordrugs, and war trumps all considerations of civil rights, presumption of innocence, or the rule of law!Meanderthal
@Martin:
Agreed, and I can’t watch either. My girlfriend has two corgis; they’re wonderful little creatures.
Seriously, something is fucking wrong with these people. Carrying weapons just seems to amplify the stupid.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I started to post a link where cops gunned down a fucking border collie (looked like) on a routine traffic stop. But I just couldn’t bear to watch it again. The pooch was not much bigger than Charlie and was wagging his tail, for chrissakes. I say it a lot. I am more afraid of police than the crooks. While I know there are many good cops, they don’t wear a good cop seal of approval on their sleeves.
Persia
John, you’re forgetting the important part: The Demon Weed was in the house. He obviously deserves everything he gets!
Rosalita
I can’t bear to watch it, just reading the facts is enough. And they say Obama is trying to put us in a police state. We’re already there and then some thanks to the law and order crazies.
Bulworth
People in possession or possibly in possession of Dangerous Illegal Drugs are The Other and deserve whatever they get. Actually I suspect the Teabaggers will be disappointed the parents and children weren’t shot.
But a health care reform proposal that promises potential health benefits to The Other is UnConstitutional and Treasonous.
Freedom!!! Liberty!!!!
Stooleo
@Martin: I can’t watch it either. Corgis are the sweetest dogs.
Rosalita
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
you never know if you are getting a professional officer or a bully with a badge.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
My father was a 30-yr veteran of a metro DC (surburban VA) police force. Their rep wasn’t exactly one of mindless brutality but being around them for any amount of time instilled in me a healthy disrespect for a large number of folks in that profession.
The good ones are the ones who are very deserving of all the knee-jerk “praise the cops and firefighters” stuff you hear. The bad ones? See above. They have no business having badges and packing heat.
Of course this also highlights the deeper issue that is the grand stooopidity that is the War on Drugzez.
asiangrrlMN
I can’t watch it after hearing several descriptions of what the video contains. Our priorities are so fucking screwed in this country.
Maude
Tell me they had a warrant and it wasn’t knock and announce.
I guess gunfire doesn’t endanger a 7 year old.
This is for a very minor pot pick up.
I hope the Feds can do a civil rights violation inquiry.
Pot has be legalized once and for all.
The SWAT and the bastards that sent them should burn in hell.
Dreggas
I can’t watch this. I’m one of those that goes to the pet adoption days at PetSmart and wants to walk out with every one of the pets there. If someone shot my dog there’d be hell to pay and then some.
Sue
I know I can’t watch this, but from the still it appears that these are white people.
I thought police states were ok only when you needed to control the brown ones.
Tom Traubert
There is absolutely no way in hell I can bring myself to watch this.
aimai
I was waiting for the moment that the uncomfortably overdressed cops in full battle gear chastised the homeowner for saying “why the fuck did you kill my dog? She was probably trying to play with you?” I was sure they were going to say “How dare you use foul language in front of your young child?” Well, I guess charging the parents for endangering their own kid by letting the swat team invade is probably their version of keeping the peace.
aimai
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Oh shit, I just noticed where that happened. That’s right up the road from me. My wife volunteers at the animal shelter there and we foster cats.
Jeesuskeeristonabike, Columbia’s pohlice don’t have that kind of rep, as a rule. Wow. And sad.
Believe me tho, this won’t arouse the kind of ire you might think since Columbia is a tiny island of blue surrounded by wingnuts that would make your Stereotypical Southern Wingnut proud.
beltane
I can’t watch this. A similar situation happened in Maryland a few years, except the cops went to the wrong house altogether and shot a black lab.
The only Republican I’ve ever heard criticize the War on Drugs is Ron Paul. It is not an issue for the teabaggers as their puppet masters support this decades long terrorizing of the American people.
JenJen
OMFG. OMFG.
jrg
Please digg this up on the Reason site and/or Facebook the link. People need to see this shit.
beltane
@Sue: The hippies (aka anyone who smokes pot, or associates with someone who does) need controlling too. Have you ever heard some of Ronald Reagan’s speeches as governor of California?
Michael
Is there a shitty neighborhood in Columbia MO where I can set up a gun giveaway table?
CJ
The comments on the Reason article are positively hilarious. Invoking curses on dead grandfathers, deep stuff.
The video turned my stomach. I’m still nauseous. To think that actually happened. . .I almost can’t believe it. It shakes me to my core.
And my grandfather and uncles were all cops.
scav
Jumping back, funny how the overzealous child endangerment troopers failed to knock down any doors letting loose a righteous hail of still more lead at McNeil Consumer Healthcare. . .
flukebucket
How do you watch something like this happen to somebody else and not hate the police?
Thanks for putting this one up. This needs to be seen by as many people as possible. This shit is going on all around us every day.
It is crazy and somehow it is going to have to be stopped.
frankdawg
You guys are way underestimating the baggers. How they feel about this will have a lot to do with the amount of melanin the family was exhibiting.
Not unlike how they responded to the kamikaze in Texas or the bungler in NYC. If they white they alright – if they brown shoot em down.
We need tougher laws against drugs in this country to prevent this sort of thing – sarcasm alert
licensed to kill time
I’m not going to watch this, have heard enough in the comments about it. This country has some seriously skewed priorities. Really, kids are much more harmed by alcohol abuse in their homes any day of the week than they are by a bit of pot smoking.
Child endangerment is shooting the kid’s dogs right in front of them ! Those kids will be traumatized for life.
This was quite literally OVERKILL. Sickening.
Polish the Guillotines
I won’t watch the clip based on the description. It’s just too fucked up.
Semi-on-topic: Over the weekend here in the tree-hugging Bay Area, the Oakland cops wasted a baby deer that wandered into someone’s back yard. Shot it seven times. Of course there were kids around.
Money quote:
J. Michael Neal
@Dreggas: My cats would likely be hiding under the bed. If the cops did shoot them, though, the chances of my getting out of there alive are slim.
OT: Eddie has a lesion on his thigh. I’m hoping to hell that it’s not his cancer coming back. I can think of a couple of other things it could be, since it isn’t identical to the last one. I get to put him in the box and take him to the University hospital on Monday.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Ot
This is interesting
Common Sense
@beltane:
IIRC they broke into the mayor’s house and killed his dog because someone mailed a FEDEX package to that address.
I’m going to be the guy that stands up for the poor pit in this situation. An officer in La Marque (SE of Houston) shot a pit bull a few months ago while it was playing in it’s owner’s front yard. Cop claimed they felt threatened by the dog in an unfenced area.
bemused
There must be some tea partiers who like to smoke a little & have kids & dogs who would be angry but they would probably just blame Obama.
Pinko Lanterne
They’ll probably get a medal like the incident in Minneapolis.
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5484185&page=1
Paul L.
According to progressives Koch Industries is behind the Tea Party AstroTurf.
Koch_Industries also provides funding for the “Tea Party propagandist” organ Reason Magazine.
Strange that the link for this story goes to Reason Magazine.
Comrade Kevin
And then there’s the Oakland police, who decided to shoot and kill a deer that happened to wander into someone’s back yard. They couldn’t be bothered to wait for the DFG to get there.
Dreggas
@jrg:
posted to my facebook.
licensed to kill time
chopper just nuked the excessive regulation thread with the dreaded hyphen bomb! oh noes!
Comrade Kevin
@Paul L.: Would someone provide a crazy-to-English translation for that?
Polish the Guillotines
@Comrade Kevin: Money quote from an SFGate article (which I just tried to comment on, but FYWP):
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@jrg:
Posted to FB. I’ve also done a quick diary at Show Me Missouri and over at the GOS.
micah616
And this is how they act when they know there’s a camera.
jrg
@Dreggas:
Thanks. I posted it to my FB, too… And I digged (dug?) it.
If everyone saw this, support for the drug war (and a militarized police force) would plummet. This is just about the most egregious shit I have ever seen.
morry
Police = state sponsored terrorist organizations
Mark S.
My blood pressure is probably 180/110 right now. The War on Drugs is nothing but a farce, but it’s been great for the rights eroding business. The Founders must be spinning in their graves.
kay
Well. That seven year old is not going to forget the night police broke into his house, threatened his mother, took his father, and shot his dogs.
I suppose he’s lucky they didn’t shoot him in that narrow dark hallway, as they were firing at everything that moved.
Our MANN Unit don’t yet wear military helmets, as in the video, but they didn’t use to dress like soldiers at all, and now they do, so I’m sure that’s next.
Bnut
What dog is NOT going to freak his shit out when someone breaks a door down in the middle of the night in his home? Pit, rott, beagle, lab, whatever. If my dog got shot to secure less than an ounce of bud (a ticket! in Colombia), I’ll guarantee I’d be leaving that house in an ambulance.
August J. Pollak
All right, I guess I’ll be that guy. The guy they raided was being suspected of drug distribution. He also was arrested two years ago for getting wasted and plowing into six cars on a suburban street… two years after his previous release on parole for substance abuse.
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/02/29/6-car-crash/
The war on drugs and the police raids are horrific but it kind of puts a slightly different perspective on this guy’s Father of the Year status.
Mnemosyne
@frankdawg:
Yep. I went to USC 20 years ago (which is in the middle of South Central Los Angeles) and my best friend was tutoring kids at Manual Arts High School. One morning, one of her students kept falling asleep at her desk because the cops had come in and busted up their apartment by mistake the night before and she and her family were up until 4 am cleaning up.
They didn’t bother filing a complaint. Oh, and three years later, we had the riots. Not really a shock.
The only difference here is that now they’re doing it to white people, too.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
Yes, hats off to Balko for taking time away from his busy schedule of scouring the country looking for minority teabaggers to actually, you know, do something libertarian.
Elisabeth
@Tom Traubert:
I clicked the play button and then turned it off.
Can we start the clock on when something like this happens in Bossier Parish, LA home of the “we’re training civilians for an ’emergency?'”
PeakVT
I think a good number of American law enforcement officials have forgotten (or never learned) that the goal of policing is to keep the peace, not merely enforce the law. I don’t see how breaking into a house and shooting two dogs over a couple of joints in any way helps keep the peace.
librulcarmelite
As a former peace officer, this is disturbing.
This video is an example of why we need good people to be ethical officers: to uphold the law, to serve the common good, and to protect *all* people.
I just can’t get the sound of the multiple shots and the sounds of the dogs in agony, and the face of that child out of my head.
That is not the way that a child (or anyone, for that matter) should be introduced to death. That event was/is enough to cause PTSD in the whole family… and I don’t think the officers executing the warrant were even aware of that.
The callous manner in which they (the SWAT officers) handled the man’s grief upon learning his beloved dogs had been shot really says a lot about them as people.
This literally made me sick to my stomach and have an emotional reaction, and I’ve seen many take-downs and arrests in my time… but this is really frightening, infuriating, and saddening at the same time.
Man, that dude, his wife, and kid really need a chaplain or someone to help them deal with that load of pain – and I’m pretty sure that that PD isn’t going to provide it. I don’t care what faith/sprituality they are, they need someone to talk about that, because I know after just watching that I sure as hell do.
Sorry for rambling, but that shook me up.
Comrade E.B. Misfit
@beltane:
It was the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, MD, and the cops killed both of their dogs.
That time, it was the Prince George’s County cops, the same groups of thugs which beat up a college student a few weeks ago and were going to charge him with all manner of felonies, until video of the incident showed that the cops were lying.
Comrade E.B. Misfit
@August J. Pollak:
So that is an excuse to bust down the guys door and shoot his dogs? In front of his kid?
sherifffruitfly
Cop = state sponsored domestic terrorist.
Mary
@August J. Pollak: Except I don’t see anyone calling this guy Father of the Year. The discussion is about the actions of the police, which are outrageous no matter how many times this guy has been busted.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
This comment in my diary over at Teh Orange:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2010/5/5/16126/34193/7#c7
am I missing something here? The video is disturbing as all gitout and yet we can garner a comment like that one. Argh.
maus
@Meanderthal:
Got to use up the weapons and overtime budgets or they’ll go away at the end of the quarter, y’know! Unghhhh sickening.
jrg
@August J. Pollak:
If you think that a prior conviction and suspicion of dealing pot is enough to bust into this guy’s house, guns blazing, with a kid inside, in the middle of the night, killing one dog, wounding another (a Corgi, for god’s sake), then your priorities are very different than mine.
ruemara
@Sue:
Many white peoples who approve of police states are often shocked to find they can be considered brown after approving it. Your class/income level mileage may vary. See, Wasila Pet Grifter Queen for more explanation.
scav
@Comrade E.B. Misfit: yeah, well I guess apparently to some having any sort of record at all is good enough cause for your family and pets and any other innocent bystanders possibly dying in a hail of bullets as as the default police response.
kay
I have to say, the resident wasn’t intimidated by this overwhelming show of force, and that is really heartening to me. He wasn’t cowering, once they got off him. He asked for a lawyer before they got the Miranda card out, and he asked them why they shot the dog.
So we’re not all so fearful of being tased (yet) that we still feel we can question the police.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@jrg:
This. Proportionate response. Do we know if this guy had any history of violent criminal behavior? Sounds like a typical, not-so-bright, alchoholic petty drug dealer.
TaosJohn
That would never happen in northern New Mexico, because a) nobody gives a fuck about marijuana, b) family is EVERYTHING to Hispanos, c) any cops who did this could end up dead off-duty later.
Back in 2000, I once had someone tell me to hurry up and get my MD license plate off my car so I wouldn’t be stopped: “The cops are more reluctant to pull over New Mexico cars, because anyone they stop is probably a relative or has a gun in the glove blox.” I asked a very knowledgeable Anglo old-timer whether it was legal to have a loaded gun in the car, and he just laughed.
“Might not be LEGAL, but…”
This is the frontier. No freeways, no malls, no big chain stores except Walmart. Sometimes this pisses me off. The rest of the time I’m very, very grateful.
TooManyJens
@August J. Pollak: Well, I guess the cops piling a shit-ton of totally unnecessary trauma on his son’s head will make up for any shortcomings he has as a father.
BRB, need to go hug my kid.
librulcarmelite
August J. Pollak: Look, I understand he had previous arrests and a record of breaking the law… but that doesn’t justify what occurred in this video.
If they wanted to get him on distribution, they should have gone about it another way… like for example, take him down when he is in his vehicle with more than just a small amount of marijuana on him. Kicking the door in at 2 or 3 am, terrorizing family members, and shooting dogs is a misuse of resources and officers, esp. when all you get is a small amount for personal use when you are trying to build a case for distribution.
This arrest should not be a chance for the SWAT members and officers involved to vent their anger and frustration about previous cases with this perp. That’s what it looks like to me, and that is really disturbing.
Shinobi
There is just no reason for this level of brutality. I can’t even watch the video, but what if they’d accidentally shot the child?
I know that police officers can be very jumpy about dogs, why do they then not have animal control officers with them when executing warrants on homes with animals in them? This is not the first time I’ve heard of dogs getting shot because police officers are frightened (Didn’t this just happen a year or so ago to a guy who got a package misdelivered to his house? and they shot his labs?)
There ARE people who are trained to deal with animals, and there are humane ways to protect the officers without killing the dogs. This is just brutal and disgusting.
Paul L.
@Comrade Kevin:
You should understand the statements as I am just repeating progressive nutroots talking points.
Koch Industries: We Don’t Fund Tea Parties (Except For The Tea Parties We Fund)
From the sourcewatch link
trollhattan
The other day Terri Gross interviewed two Philly newspaper reporters who broke a story about the narcotics cops who were raiding and robbing bodegas–after disabling their video cameras. One also “specialized” in molesting women during the process.
Just lovely.
After reading this piece by Steve Benen, I can’t wait for the new-skool conservative journalism to take the torch.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_05/023665.php#more
flukebucket
@kay:
I have a feeling that that is the only good that came out of having the camera rolling. If they had not been being filmed they would have kicked the shit out of that guy.
TooManyJens
Found this gem from the trackback @68:
I can think of some Arizona legislators who would probably like to offer this guy a position in law enforcement.
John Cole
@TooManyJens: The guys name is Jonathon E. Whitworth. Yeah- he’s a furriner!
Bob L
@Martin: Yes, nothing says getto more than a corgi, WTF?
John Cole
@August J. Pollak: Well, in that case, busting down his door based on bad information and shooting his dogs in front of the kid seems reasonable!
licensed to kill time
@TooManyJens:
I guess this is a variant of “They all look alike to me”.
MattR
@Comrade E.B. Misfit: To make that story even worse, the PG county cops did not know the guy was the mayor and did not believe him when he told them. They mentioned it dismissively to one of the first local cops to arrive and were supposedly a bit freaked out when the local officer confirmed that it was in fact the mayor’s house that they had just raided.
TooManyJens
@John Cole: Yeah, he “looks to be Latino”! That’s reasonable suspicion of being an illegal immigrant!
I wonder what shoes he was wearing.
(Unsurprisingly, that blogger deleted my comment saying he was a racist. Also, too.)
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Went over to the trackback for #68… someone tell me, what is it with the sheer bloody-mindedness of conservatives?
Heartless fucks, each and every one of ’em.
Mark S.
@TooManyJens:
Jesus, I’ve never heard of that site but that guy is fucking idiot (and a racist to boot). I’ve read a lot more than a few stories of SWAT teams getting the wrong house.
Bnut
New Missouri law, “Dog owning while brown”?
gocart mozart
It is unclear how the Tea-Baggers will react. The suspect appears to suffer from a melanin defeciency. If in addition to that he is a libertarian or a registered Republican then this is a clear case of Obama-Hitlerism and jack booted Commie-Fascism. If suspect is Hispanic or a DFH then move along nothing to see here.
aimai
I thought one of the weirdest moments is when the police asked him–after breaking in and shooting the dogs and dragging the woman out to (not safety) in the hallway “what’s your name?” I thought the right response, which he chose not to give, was “you break into my fucking house and you don’t know for sure who I am?”**
Look, the craziest thing of all is *why break into the house at night* in the first place? Why not wait until morning and arrest the guy and search the house when he walks out to get the paper, or goes to work? Invading a house at night is both stupid and dangerous–especially in this country where people are armed to the teeth. If you know enough about the guy to know his name and get the warrant you have to know the names and ages of the other people in the house. Breaking in at night with the children there is just crashingly stupid and counterproductive.
** When I lived in Chicago the Police broke into the wrong apartment and scared an elderly black woman to death. They thought they were breaking into a drug dealers apartment but they just went to the wrong door, blasted down the door, and the poor old woman had a heart attack. The Police make mistakes about which house they are invading *all the fucking time*.
aimai
Cris
@kay: Also I agreed with the guy’s response in this exchange (approx. 1:53):
Bnut
I found this link in the Reason comments. This is going to be a crazy series of articles.
Mark S.
@gocart mozart:
People, unless this is on Fox News, 98% of the teabaggers will never know it happened. Seriously, watch some interviews people have done with teabaggers. If you don’t pay much attention to Fox you won’t understand half of what they are talking about (“The Five Thousand Year What?”). These are not people who supplement their news by going over to Sully or Hit and Run.
Paul L.
@MattR: Comrade E.B. Misfit:
It gets better. The PG county cop lied to the local cops to justify the raid.
Deadly Force
scav
funny that those defending the police actions in this instance are probably also those out running about screaming that the evil commie govt thugs are coming for their guns any minute now!
licensed to kill time
@aimai:
I guess that’s why the police asked the guy in this video his name. Because if he had said John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt, instead of the name on the warrant, they would have said “Whoops! Our bad!” and just quietly left, amirite?
After saying “Sorry about the dogs”.
Buddy
I hope those who shoot the dog for no reason be shot the same way. Thugs!
Cris
“im in ur base, undermining ur narrative”
Derek
@August J. Pollak:
Fuck you.
WereBear
I appreciate everyone venting about the contents, because I can’t watch it.
Just what level of offense is it where it would be okay to traumatize their seven year old? Not to mention the dogs.
And where is our fairly useless National Humane Societies in all of this? I’ve stopped giving money to them, because all they want to do is raise money with Michael Vick while killing his confiscated dogs.
Platonicspoof
@John Cole:
OT (not watching the YouTube):
Delete lines through all text after comment 83 in “Clearly Another Case of Excessive Regulation”.
Thanks.
TruculentandUnreliable
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I’m from Columbia, too, and I don’t really have that many warm and fuzzies for the cops here, actually. How many tasings have we had in the past year? Two? Three? And for totally stupid reasons.
Additionally, I think we’re becoming more conservative here. I’ll just say that I moved here five years ago and I’ve noticed a shift in culture in the past 3-4 years. Maybe your experience is different, but that’s what I’ve deserved.
I am fucking pissed.
kay
@Cris:
There is a persistent myth out there (completely spread and encouraged by police and prosecutors) that if you waive all your rights, you’ll all be friends and work together as a team to address the “issue”.
Which is of course ridiculous.
I was glad to see this man understood the reality of the relationship.
gocart mozart
@Mark S.:
True but if the guy had been a tea-bagger, militia or neo-Nazi (see: Randy Weaver) the Fox Noise channel would be on it 24/7.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really know the Columbia PD. But as some of the other commenters have discussed, when compared to a PD I do know something about, in the above case, the PG County PD (I usta work in PG County), the Columbia PD are downright gentle.
Columbia’s progressive community is strong but not nearly as large as they would like people to believe. We moved here 14 years ago and the entire area was far more red than now. Still, I’m not there every day to know.
Nonetheless, what the Columbia PD did here was disproportionately strong. I have no hope that the powers in City Hall will do anything because at it’s core, Columbia is still a small town with a lot of “big fish in a little pond” types who, no surprise, run things. And the pohlice will be related to just about everybody.
Perhaps this story will gain some traction and shine a hot light on the city.
gocart mozart
@kay:
Yes, I was glad to hear that the first words out of the guy’s mouth was “I want to talk to a lawyer.”
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@gocart mozart:
And you can bet that in itself pissed off the cops. Might have been another reason why they decided to shoot the dogs, ie., another way to intimidate him.
Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix
@August J. Pollak: OMG he was a POT DEALER?!?!?!? And he was in a CAR WRECK?!?!? KILL EM ALL KILL EM ALL KILL EM ALL.
But seriously: eat shit and die.
TooManyJens
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Nah, they shot the dogs pretty much as soon as they walked in the door.
Comrade Tank Hueco
@gocart mozart:
True. Also, I like your handle. :)
Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix
@Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix: Really, what the fuck is wrong with you, August? Do you honestly think think was an appropriate way to bust the guy? Not, I dunno, tracking him until they discover where he gets his supply, then calmly busting them both when he goes to reup? They just had to bust in during the night, guns blazing, traumatizing the kid and killing the dog? Why? Why? Fucking why?
Come back here and explain yourself. I once thought you were one of the good guys, but apparently I was as wrong as these police. Apparently you think that a petty criminal record means your family should be destroyed by the police at their leisure.
So explain. Or post and run like a little bitch.
TruculentandUnreliable
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Oh, I think that the PD is better here than a lot of places, but disproportionately authoritarian for such a small city. I think it’s gotten worse since we had that crime wave a couple of summers ago.
I have just observed a growing cultural gap in this town–there seems to be a huge gulf between the middle class and poorer people here, especially for a town of 100,000 people. I wish I could put my finger on it a little better; it may have a lot to do with demographics and the fact that younger professors aren’t moving here–I don’t know.
Oh, and I totally lied–I’ve been here 6.5 years, but I will say that it’s definitely the last 2-3 years I’ve seen a difference.
Catsy
@August J. Pollak:
No. I call epic bullshit.
You cannot justify terrorizing this man’s family and slaughtering their pets in front of their children just because he had a DUI accident a few years ago and you think he might be selling pot.
FULL. MOTHERFUCKING. STOP.
No, don’t even try.
gocart mozart
@Comrade Tank Hueco:
or If it was a right wing gun nut !eleventy! Fascism! Fascism! Fascism! I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK! Waaah!
LD50
The Teabagger response: scrounge around til they find some Democrat holding statewide office in Missouri, then blame it on the ‘liberal nanny state’. Mark my words.
Zuzu's Petals
@MattR:
And to make the story worse still, he and his elderly mother-in-law were handcuffed and made to lie on the floor next to their dead dogs in a pool of blood.
The internal investigation completely exonerated the SWAT guys.
MattR
@Zuzu’s Petals:
I am shocked by this. Shocked I say.
And to add a cherry of worseness on top, the PG County Sheriff, Michael A Jackson, is now running for County Executive.
But for a slightly silver lining, Mayor Cheye Calvo won reelection yesterday.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Gotta link to that?
MattR
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Here is an article about the results of the internal investigation.
There is also a longer article from the Washington Post about the entire incident which Paul L links to in his response to me above. (EDIT: Here it is )
Fergus Wooster
@Catsy: What you said. Cheers.
This video seriously fucked me up. I had to hug my dog, and my daughter (in that order) when I got home.
Fergus + 4.
TuiMel
@August J. Pollak:
You know what? I don’t have to want to give the guy any slack for his criminal endeavors to think this kind of crap is over the top. No slack for him. No slack for this SWAT invasion unless the target is holding hostages or holed up after committing a violent crime. And, yes, I will cop to feeling outrage because of the killing of dogs and terrorizing of a child.
Hob
For what it’s worth, I didn’t read August’s comment as trying to justify the raid at all, but just pointing to other reasons for the child welfare complaint specifically. Why August thought that that was worth mentioning, and why he felt the need for the stupid “Father of the Year” strawman, I have no idea. It came off as a dickish remark in that regard. But he wasn’t actually saying that the cops’ actions were anything other than insane, as far as I can tell.
Catsy
@Hob: I’ll be that guy.
It’s called some people have a dickish, contrarian tendency to wade into discussions where people are rightfully outraged and post some fact that is completely irrelevant to why the outrage exists–and intimate that it somehow mitigates the degree of outrage necessary. When challenged on their bullshit, they retreat to the cowardly hedge of “well of course I wasn’t saying this makes it okay, I just think we should keep it in mind before we start grabbing pitchforks” or some inane horseshit to that effect.
Sometimes it’s out of a well-meaning but misplaced desire to see everyone get along and keep the outrage from getting out of hand, but more often than not it’s a way of making yourself appear wise and sensible without the necessity of acquiring wisdom or sense.
Fuck You, August J. Pollak
@August J. Pollak:
You’re obviously a terrible human being, too, but I’m not going to break down your door and kill your dogs.
John Cole
Actually, August is a pretty good person, which is why his comment threwme for a loop. Stop the pile-on.
Damien
I don’t know how to do he @August J Pollock thing, but I have to say that I have had some email conversations with him trying to understand his positions on certain things, and I don’t know why, but he is a spectacular asshole to deal with.
He seems to take positions without justification or even really thinking them through. When I asked him specifically, and politely, to explain his characterization of the Dawkins/Hitchens Papal arrest campaign as “a distraction,” he not only refused in a petulant and dismissive manner, but seemed to have literally not thought it through in the slightest.
That he feels the need to be contrary on this issue doesn’t surprise me.
Oh, and this may not be police, but fuck you, August, fuck you very much for trying to inject an irrelevant topic into the discussion of a SWAT team MURDERING A GUY’S DOGS for no good reason, on a raid for no good reason, and armed to the teeth for no good reason.
Batocchio
They can go to hell right after the torture crew and everyone who lied us into a war.
CynDee
It’s everywhere and it has been for a long time. I don’t know what can be done at this point. These evil people are bent on killing things. They don’t get into trouble for it when the target is an animal.
In a small town in South Dakota in 1968 we lived in the same apartment building as a couple, the husband of which was a military police officer stationed at the nearby Air Force base.
I began noticing that he was leaving his little toy-poodle type dog out in subzero weather, sometimes day and sometimes night. It was just frightful for the poor little freezing animal. I began bringing the doggie inside, into the apartment hall. He climbed all over me for that, and then yelled how did I know it was HIS dog. Well everybody knew that.
I should have known he would go ballistic because when we had met informally earlier that year and had talked, I asked him what he wanted to do when he left the Air Force. He said, “I gonna go back to South Carolina and join the Highway Patrol and shoot n*gg**s.
What an aspiration for a young man of about 24.
Ten years later we moved to another, smaller town in the area. My father had a lumberyard, and one of his best customers was a middle-aged man who kept his home in beautiful condition, and without fail paid his bill on time and in full. Only trouble was, we learned that this guy enjoyed going around and shooting pets that were in their own fenced yards. He was never prosecuted. Shooting into people’s yards, killing their pets. No problem.
In the same town the police chief came to my friend’s house. She’s a librarian. I’m not sure why, but he was talking with her out on the lawn. I think they knew each other. During the conversation, her 4-year old red setter came bounding up to her joyfully. He had been running around the farm-like property chasing something and it was hot. He stopped when he got to them, and was drooling a bit and wagging and panting. The chief drew his gun and shot this beautiful animal point blank, claiming that it was rabid. The dog’s immunizations were up to date and he had his tags on.
My friend, of course, was devastated. I had always felt safe there, but after that I began to observe a lot of mean-spirited behavior going on that I had never picked up on before. Nasty attitudes. Plain meanness. I don’t know what turns people into such zombies.
Evan
The fact that this happened is horrible, but it’s not as bad as the fact that there will be no consequences for these actions, nor for any other police misconduct. Killing dogs in the course of serving a search warrant, firing a taser at a 12-year-old girl, SWAT raids on the wrong house. Somehow, the investigation always says that the police didn’t do anything wrong. Not the ones who got bad information from untrustworthy criminals trying to reduce their own sentences. Not the ones who take that bad information to the judge. Not the ones who decide that assault rifles and a home invasion are necessary to serve a search warrant against a suspected pot dealer (have they ever met a pot dealer?). Not the ones who shoot 20 lb. dogs, or crated dogs, or just go in with guns blazing.
gil mann
Y’know, the last time August J. Pollack was the only guy willing to state a distasteful truth, he was warning Dems that they were going to lose “Teddy’s seat.”
Which is why I can’t dismiss anything he says out-of-hand. I had to really study that comment of his above to be sure it was bullshit.
Yeah, it’s weird how ungracious people can be when total strangers pester them to clarify their opinions.
ReggieH
It is hard for me to convey properly the rage that this inspires in me. So I will not even try.
Anyway, I facebooked the link. Hopefully this inspires the same rage in others that it does in me.
jeff
I’ve put off watching this for a while. I watched it. I do not support our police, period. Full stop. Full fucking stop. I’m hoping these assholes get fired/prosecuted. I will be contacting HSUS and ASPCA. Maybe even PETA, though I don’t think they really give a shit about cruelty.
Picked A Bad Day to Quit Sniffing Glue
Cowards. Worthless cowards.
LanceThruster
End the War on Dogs now!
Illegalize canine-ibusts.
I’ve known parents who smoked pot, whether in front of their kids or not. Regardless of the wisdom of those choices, to gun down dogs with a child looking on is a sadistic mindf*ck. I’d be traumatized. The the danger of discharging high powered weapons in such an environment is totally asinine.
Big swinging dicks with a badge. License to thrill(kill).
Picked A Bad Day to Quit Sniffing Glue
@August J. Pollak:
“was being suspected of drug distribution”
Nice grammar there. You must be cop.
kay
@Hob:
To clarify, child endangerment isn’t a child welfare complaint. It’s a criminal charge against the parent (although just a misdemeanor).
Had the police officers been concerned about the child’s welfare, they would have gone a different route. An abuse, neglect or dependency proceeding is used for that, and that isn’t a criminal action, vis a vis the parent, it’s an child protection mechanism. The child is adjudicated neglected, abused or dependent.
This incident is tailor-made for “dependent” because that’s what they use for drug-using or incarcerated parents. It’s a no-brainer.
They’d remove the child on the basis of “dependency” if they were actually protecting him from harm.
Here, our local drug war team rely on children’s protective services who handle the kid welfare end, because, as a practical matter, they’re arresting the parents, leaving the children without anyone to care for them.
Child endangerment (the crime) is used when they need an additional charge against the parent. It just isn’t a child protection tool.
IMO, they needed another charge to justify this slaughter, besides the misdemeanor drug charge, so they used what they had. It wasn’t about the kid.
Damien
@gil mann: It’s odd that you make the assumption that I was “pestering.” I was simply confused about the position he was taking, and asked him to clarify. What am I to do when I’m confused about his point? He takes no comments on his blog.
I came to my opinion of his dickishness from my interactions with him, why are you presuming I was harassing him?
kay
@Hob:
Just to clarify further (this is something I feel strongly about, as is probably obvious).
They can bootstrap off a child endangerment charge to get to child protection proceedings, but there’s no need to. It’s not even a sensible way to get there. The whole point of child protection for drug-using parents is to get the parent in to treatment. So if the concern was that parents were compromised (drugs, dangerous habits) and the child needed state protection, this would be a stupid way to go. They’d need only the drug charge, or the child witnessing the violence, actually.
Honus
Read the “About me” on that guy’s website at linked at #68. He’s a very confused individual:
“My name is Charles Patrick Adkins and I live in the southern suburbs of Detroit. I am 37 years old. I was born in 1972. As you can see to the right there; I am not your a-typical computer geek/writer type.For those who must know, I weigh 320 pounds; but I am 6 foot tall, so, the fat only shows, when I sit down. I can handle my own, so, if you get some idiotic idea, about trying to fuck with me, you’d better bring your damned lunch. I can kick ass and I don’t take names.
Yes, I do wear my beard like that, all the damn time. I like it. My Mom doesn’t, but this ain’t her face.”
I especially likemthe part of his bio where he says he thinks Walter Reuther was murdered.
Hob
@kay: You’re right – I hadn’t read that part carefully.
xephyr
Disgusting. Horrible. What sort of sick America are we turning into? What a nightmare. Christ…
Fred Fnord
Look, the craziest thing of all is why break into the house at night in the first place?
That’s easy: if someone is killed in a drug raid, they’re guilty and there’s no need for a costly trial. Saves time and money all around, hey?
-fred
bocomo
I live in Columbia, MO. We are enraged. Nothing in memory has brought our community together like this. I have not the time to read all of your comments on this blog, as I have been looking at blogs about our fair community from all over the world..
The history of the video here:
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/may/06/complete-coverage-february-2010-swat-raid/
The video was obtained by our local newspaper who for once, acted like real journalists. The police did not want or ever intend for this video to be seen. I am surprised they didn’t “lose” it.
A good place to get a feel of how Columbians are reacting to this story here, read the comments after this news article:
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/may/06/chief-details-swat-incident/
and the comments after this article. Trouble brewing in our fair town….
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/may/03/drug-raid-inquiry-is-ongoing/
malcolm kyle
Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of incompetence, corruption and human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless.
Prohibition has decimated generations and criminalized millions for a behavior which is entwined in human existence, and for what other purpose than to uphold the defunct and corrupt thinking of a minority of misguided, self-righteous Neo-Puritans and degenerate demagogues who wish nothing but unadulterated destruction on the rest of us.
Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.
By its very nature, prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model – the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous, ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved.
Many of us have now, finally, wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco, clearly two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant and irrational minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.
There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection then maybe you’re using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody ‘halfway bright’, and who’s not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem, it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand.
No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, diminution of rights and liberties, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer, only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you still support the kool aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
“A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
Abraham Lincoln
The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!
Kit
Excuse me while I go cuddle with my dogs (border collie/Aussie mixes, both of whom would freak the fuck out if anyone broke into my place and bark like mad [but are unlikely to attack anything bigger than a particularly annoying fly]). That poor corgi – that was wrenching to listen to.
These guys need to be slapped. A bit of weed (even if he has a record) does NOT justify this!