SWAT raid on Missouri Family

[WDW_lover_in_SC]

America home of the people in charge who do whatever they feel like whenever they feel like free of regret and punishment. I know I'll get negative comments towards me about this but everyone knows it's right in a way.

 

[DawnCt1]

The drug using father and mother who must have know her husband is a drug user are the one's who put themselves and children in this position.

The level of force needs to equal the level of the threat and visa versa. Surely you can't condone this type of behavior. The words "Protect and Serve" come to mind. The courts will decide what to do with the drug using father. The police aren't there to mete out punishment.

 

[CathrynRose]

The level of force needs to equal the level of the threat and visa versa. Surely you can't condone this type of behavior. The words "Protect and Serve" come to mind. The courts will decide what to do with the drug using father. The police aren't there to mete out punishment.

The courts did decide. It was a misdemeanor paraphernalia charge - with a $300 fine.

And the search warrant was given after.....an anonymous tip. They didn't do any work on this.

 

[Aimeedyan]

As a dog owner, this horrifies me. No amt of financial resources and apologies will bring those pups back. =(

I refuse to watch the video; I can't handle it.

 

[Art 1]

The level of force needs to equal the level of the threat and visa versa. Surely you can't condone this type of behavior. The words "Protect and Serve" come to mind. The courts will decide what to do with the drug using father. The police aren't there to mete out punishment.

The police don't know the level of threat going in. Most drug users have guns, large dogs, and interestingly snakes. Strange. When you fool with drugs, your hanging out with criminals. It's too bad he choose drugs as a way of life. There is a very good chance that this guy is up to no good and got away with it this time.

 

[Syrreal]

IIRC, the dog was also in a crate or cage when it was shot. Yeah, it really poses so much danger when it's confined!

I am beyond outraged by this. Just the idea that someone could get angry at you for whatever and call the cops with a bogus tip and then this kind of stuff can happen just... I can't even put it into words!!!

The fact that they were even able to get a warrant based on this anonymous tip is ridiculous too. Was the judge on something to sign it? Any amount of detective work (which I am sure would have also been MUCH cheaper than sending out the SWAT team) would have resulted in them knowing that drugs were not being sold out of the house, and that what was there was just a misdemeanor. Also, why go through all this when they could have just arrested the guy when he was leaving the house or pretty much any other way than what was done? There are so many more ways that this could have been handled is a much better way.

Child endangerment? How about them shooting round after round inside the house in front of the kid? Having him watch as these men in full gear kill his dog and yell at his father. Then even when the father says he wants a lawyer, they still ask him questions before Miranda-ing him. Yes, one of the questions is his name. Shouldn't they know it? Oh yeah, no research was done! No investigation. Just force. That's more endangering than having a joint inside the house, that's for sure. Excessive force is all I see.

The idea that things like this can happen everyday in our "civilized" society disgusts me.

As for the pp comment on bringing drugs in the house. This really isn't a post on debating the "good" or "evil" of drugs. We'll find the full blown spectrum of that argument within these DIS walls (as in most places in general).

The police don't know the level of threat going in. Most drug users have guns, large dogs, and interestingly snakes. Strange. When you fool with drugs, your hanging out with criminals. It's too bad he choose drugs as a way of life. There is a very good chance that this guy is up to no good and got away with it this time.

Had the police done any research or surveillance, they would have had a pretty good idea of what they would find. As for the guns, large dogs, snakes- may I ask where this info was gotten? Also, you may have a bit of an uninformed idea of who your "typical pot smoker" may be. You might be surprised that some of your neighbors may be smoking it, or your mail carrier, your librarian, your or your kids' teachers, your pastor, your friends, family members, parents of your kids' friends, the list of the "types of people" goes on and on. It is not just the low-life who is "up to no good" and is also a slew of people who not only would you ever suspect, but you would also never know.

 

[CathrynRose]

Had the police done any research or surveillance, they would have had a pretty good idea of what they would find. As for the guns, large dogs, snakes- may I ask where this info was gotten? Also, you may have a bit of an uninformed idea of who your "typical pot smoker" may be. You might be surprised that some of your neighbors may be smoking it, or your mail carrier, your librarian, your or your kids' teachers, your pastor, your friends, family members, parents of your kids' friends, the list of the "types of people" goes on and on. It is not just the low-life who is "up to no good" and is also a slew of people who not only would you ever suspect, but you would also never know.

Exactly!!!

 

[N.Bailey]

The police don't know the level of threat going in. Most drug users have guns, large dogs, and interestingly snakes. Strange. When you fool with drugs, your hanging out with criminals. It's too bad he choose drugs as a way of life. There is a very good chance that this guy is up to no good and got away with it this time.

By the only accounts available right now, the police received an anonymous tip and did a home invasion based on that 1 tip. They did NO investigation whatsoever. They obtained a warrant (how? based on 1 tip?), and invaded 8 days later.

Your neighbor could call a tip in on you if that's the threshold! It's absurd!

This was most definitely overkill EVEN if they knew 100% that there was 1000 pounds of marijuana in that house.

You'd think they were tracking down a domestic terrorist for crying out loud.

 

[N.Bailey]

IIRC, the dog was also in a crate or cage when it was shot. Yeah, it really poses so much danger when it's confined!

This just adds more insult to injury.

 

[CathrynRose]

Am I reading this right? They passed legalization of marijuana?

Columbia, Missouri, voters backed a pair of measures seeking to liberalize local pot laws. Approximately 70 percent of voters approved The Missouri Medical Marijuana Initiative (Proposition 1), which amends the Columbia city criminal code so that "adults who obtain and use marijuana and/or marijuana paraphernalia for medical purposes pursuant to the recommendation of a physician shall not be subject to any arrest, prosecution, punishment, or sanction."

Six out of ten Columbia voters also approved The Missouri Smart Sentencing Initiative (Proposition 2), which amends the city criminal code to depenalize the possession of marijuana and/or paraphernalia to a fine-only offense.
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6322


So its a fine only offense to possess up to a ounce and and a quarter of pot there and they support medical marijuana..
http://www.lawrence.com/news/2005/jun/13/marijuana/

 

[N.Bailey]

Am I reading this right? They passed legalization of marijuana?



Six out of ten Columbia voters also approved The Missouri Smart Sentencing Initiative (Proposition 2), which amends the city criminal code to depenalize the possession of marijuana and/or paraphernalia to a fine-only offense.
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6322


So its a fine only offense to possess up to a ounce and and a quarter of pot there and they support medical marijuana..
http://www.lawrence.com/news/2005/jun/13/marijuana/

That's how it reads, but since he was arrested, Mirandized, and fined $300, perhaps changes were made after these proposition passed?

I didn't see it on the video, could anyone tell if they found anything prior to placing him under arrest. They must have found the paraphernalia prior to the arrest? One would most definitely hope so!

 

[agnes!]

This also happened in Maryland. Stormed the house, two dogs murdered. Except the family didn't even have drugs in the house, they got the wrong house.

The dogs belonged to was the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland and his wife, who's a finance officer for the State of Maryland.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003299.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor's_residence_drug_raid

The boxed-up marijuana that was shipped to the home? Here's what a Baltimore Sun article (as quoted by Wikipedia) has to say...

Prince George's County Police later arrested two men in a drug trafficking plan involving the shipment of large parcels of marijuana to addresses of uninvolved residents. After each parcel was delivered outside the addressee's home, another individual would retrieve the drugs. Police seized six packages containing 417 pounds of marijuana.

agnes!

 

[Syrreal]

Basically all this force used for the equivalent of a speeding ticket.


Here is a map of botched paramilitary police raids. It was released in conjunction to a paper by the CATO institute-> [I'm not sure if this map is also from 2006 and thus outdated info (imo, the numbers have probably increased since then)]
The Cato Institute is a non-profit public policy research foundation in Washington, D.C.

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

Here is the summary for the paper this map was released with followed by the link (if anyone would like to read it)-->

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America
by Radley Balko

(Radley Balko is a policy analyst specializing in civil liberties issues)


Executive Summary

Americans have long maintained that a man's home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortunately, that right may be disappearing. Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they're sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects.

This paper presents a history and overview of the issue of paramilitary drug raids, provides an extensive catalogue of abuses and mistaken raids, and offers recommendations for reform.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476

 

[MzDiz]

All this talk about these people and their choices to lead a drug using lifestyle, hanging out with criminals, having guns, etc.... it's like calling me a skid row drunk for having a six pack in my fridge.

 

[brockash]

How are the police/swat any worse then the parents who brought drugs in to a house where children live. And I'm sure that if they had enough information for a warrant then at one point there were more drugs then what they recovered. It's easy for others to watch a video and condem the police for their actions, but until you are in their shoes doing their job, even for just a day, quit the monday morning quarterbacking.

ITA. Was what the police did in this situation over the top? Of course, however it's still on the shoulders of the parents who would have drugs around and in the same house as their child. The police, I'm sure made bad judgment calls in this situation, however the parents made bad life choices which resulted in the bad judgment in this situation.

If the parents would've been completely innocent in this, I'd feel VERY VERY different, however they aren't, and yes of course they should be charged with child endangerment...ummmm they're breaking the law and endangering their child because of their very poor choices

 

[N.Bailey]

Here ya go:

Missouri has some of the harshest marijuana laws in the country. Possession of any amount of marijuana — even as little as a gram — can be punished by up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine. Possession of over 35 grams — about 1.25 ounces — is a felony subject to a seven-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine. You can read more about the effect of Missouri’s harsh marijuana laws (like the fact that over 91% of marijuana arrests in Missouri are for simple possession) in this 2009 report by Jon Gettman, Ph.D.

http://www.mpp.org/states/missouri/

 

[bluesaturn]

The dogs belonged to was the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland and his wife, who's a finance officer for the State of Maryland.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003299.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor's_residence_drug_raid

The boxed-up marijuana that was shipped to the home? Here's what a Baltimore Sun article (as quoted by Wikipedia) has to say...


agnes!

Yes that's the incident I was talking about. Very similar situation because there was an elderly mother in the home as well. And because apparently little to no research was done before hand. You'd think someone would say, 'hey this guy is the mayor, maybe we should watch him before storming his house?'.

Of course this happened a few miles away from where the University of Maryland student was beat by police for skipping. Ironically there is a lot of actual crime going on in this area, you'd think the police would keep busy with that.

 

[N.Bailey]

All this talk about these people and their choices to lead a drug using lifestyle, hanging out with criminals, having guns, etc.... it's like calling me a skid row drunk for having a six pack in my fridge.

And you got all this information about this man where? In your own imagination maybe?

The police got an anonymous tip that he was selling pot. They raided his house based on that tip and found NO drugs on the property. Where does hanging out with the criminal element come into pay? Guns?

You might want to brush up on the facts of THIS case and stop playing a labeling game. It's just a suggestion, of course.

 

[Joe in VA]

What a horrible abuse of power. And a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.

Another example of how dumb our marijuana laws in this country. We're keeping people in prison at the cost of a teachers annual salary, while laying off teachers. That's not even taking into account the court costs. And the more more destructive drug, alcohol, continues to be legal.

 

[bluesaturn]

And you got all this information about this man where? In your own imagination maybe?

The police got an anonymous tip that he was selling pot. They raided his house based on that tip and found NO drugs on the property. Where does hanging out with the criminal element come into pay? Guns?

You might want to brush up on the facts of THIS case and stop playing a labeling game. It's just a suggestion, of course.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly the point that poster is trying to make. That the police assumed all this stuff about the guy being a big time drug dealer when they had no evidence of that.