I know I’m going to be taking massive amounts of heat from people that know ‘good’ police officers, but I have yet to meet one during my 48 years on the planet – so keep your comments to yourself. Unless, of course, you would like to explain to me why SWAT teams in full riot gear were staged for the 2002 SeaFair Parade in Seattle to protect America from the threat of families with toddlers?
I have stated before and will state again that the police are trained to look upon Americans as criminals that they just have not arrested yet, and that the justice system is all about trying to create yet another revenue stream under the guise of ‘protecting’ Americans.
What follows is an article from Reason.com and Radley Balko about the overwhelming force used to serve a search warrant for some pot. The video that follows is of the actual paramilitary operation to serve the warrant on Jonathan Whitworth of Columbia, Missouri. The sad reality of this situation is that this operation is the norm, and has been for some years now. WAKE UP AMERICA! The terrorism has been around for decades, it just may not have touched you yet.
In February, I wrote the following about a drug raid in Missouri:
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.
Just so we’re clear.
Now there’s video, which you can watch below. It’s horrifying, but I’d urge you to watch it, and to send it to the drug warriors in your life. This is the blunt-end result of all the war imagery and militaristic rhetoric politicians have been spewing for the last 30 years—cops dressed like soldiers, barreling through the front door middle of the night, slaughtering the family pets, filling the house with bullets in the presence of children, then having the audacity to charge the parents with endangering their own kid. There are 100-150 of these raids every day in America, the vast, vast majority like this one, to serve a warrant for a consensual crime.
But they did prevent Jonathan Whitworth from smoking the pot they found in his possession. So I guess this mission was a success.
I’ve exchanged emails with the mother of the family, who was in the home at the time of the raid. I’m waiting on her permission to publish her account of what happened.
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.
Illegal acts perpetrated illegaly by criminals. One might ask oneself who are the terrorists? Really, where does the propaganda lie? WHO IS IT THAT RUNS AROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SHOOTING LITTLE DOGGIES, and doing their best to “send a message to criminals” and just generally scare the shit out of people! How many people sit in jail for pot offenses, how much money do they make off their illegal weed prohibition. Here’s a question; how much would we save if we legalize pot? Money in enforcment, jailing people, hey how much would we make in taxes? Don’t cops have something better to do? Maybe, they could focus on some REAL police work!
Oh shit, I’m making sense. Can’t have that; goes against the very fabric of government.
Practical Madman on May 6, 2010 at 1:58 am
This has been my argument for the last 30 years or more. Where is the crime? Who is harmed by someone smoking a naturally growing part of nature? How is an action that has no effect on another considered harmful? If there is no victim, there is no crime. What of the right to face one’s accuser? If there is no victim, there is no accuser. The fictitious “state” can not be a victim, thus can not bring accusations. This has ALWAYS been a method to control the masses and brainwash them into believing “it is for your own good”. I can choose what is good for myself, thank you very much.
Now it has become a major money making operation with the advent of “civil forfeiture”. Police are now trained to go after people with charges that give the state the power to confiscate the accused’s wealth and sell it off to support police operations against others. This is tyrannical government at it’s worst and is the beginning of the things we will see escalate from here.
If there is no victim, there is no crime. What of the right to face one’s accuser? If there is no victim, there is no accuser. The fictitious “state” can not be a victim, thus can not bring accusations.
This is the basis of the switch from de jure to de facto goverment – I know you know that but many do not.
Also, hemp was made illegal because of it’s many uses including pharma, foodstuffs, paper, clothing, and fuel for cars. Pot was made illegal in 1937 by the very same people that brought us the lovely progressive movement.
Rich on May 6, 2010 at 12:36 pm
I would like to read the warrant to see what evidence was presented to the judge. Best guess it was someone with a grdge against this person.
People will only be trampled on for so long before they bite back.
Is it just me, or does one of the cops kick the man in the head at the beginning of the video while they’re “subduing” him (although he does not even struggle, even as 3 or 4 cops walk over him)?
leaping spark on May 7, 2010 at 8:25 am
Unfortunately for America, in the name of social justice, police departments like every other organization have been forced to lower their standards. As a result we have lesser qualified officers with lower IQ’s who are far more violent and willing to follow the orders of their increasingly incompetent superiors. A civilization succeeds by bringing all of it’s people to high levels of exceptionalism, not dragging them all into the gutter. I think it’s easy to see what direction the progressives are dragging America toward. America, soon to be a nation of equally poor morons.
Debbie on May 8, 2010 at 5:20 pm
WOW, I’m stunned, here I thought I had moved to a safer area that wouldn’t have this type of crap going on….I live about 98 miles from Columbia Missouri and this just has me totally freaked! I thought living in small town Missouri we wouldn’t be affected I guess this is an eye opener. I mean my husband and I are suspicious of any type of government at this point but thinking that this could happen is crazy. As I sat there watching it it really looked like a decent family situation and home. Obviously they aren’t too horrible that all they found was a little pot but that sure doesn’t warrant what this family was put through by any means. I’ve always had a problem with the system that allows someone who has a beef with a neighbor to be able to cause those kind of problems too. It’s like with social services, anyone can call on someone else and report abuse then the family has to prove their innocence while the children are placed in foster care to be abused and who knows what….we live in crazy times, and you really aren’t safe anymore.
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Illegal acts perpetrated illegaly by criminals. One might ask oneself who are the terrorists? Really, where does the propaganda lie? WHO IS IT THAT RUNS AROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SHOOTING LITTLE DOGGIES, and doing their best to “send a message to criminals” and just generally scare the shit out of people! How many people sit in jail for pot offenses, how much money do they make off their illegal weed prohibition. Here’s a question; how much would we save if we legalize pot? Money in enforcment, jailing people, hey how much would we make in taxes? Don’t cops have something better to do? Maybe, they could focus on some REAL police work!
Oh shit, I’m making sense. Can’t have that; goes against the very fabric of government.
This has been my argument for the last 30 years or more. Where is the crime? Who is harmed by someone smoking a naturally growing part of nature? How is an action that has no effect on another considered harmful? If there is no victim, there is no crime. What of the right to face one’s accuser? If there is no victim, there is no accuser. The fictitious “state” can not be a victim, thus can not bring accusations. This has ALWAYS been a method to control the masses and brainwash them into believing “it is for your own good”. I can choose what is good for myself, thank you very much.
Now it has become a major money making operation with the advent of “civil forfeiture”. Police are now trained to go after people with charges that give the state the power to confiscate the accused’s wealth and sell it off to support police operations against others. This is tyrannical government at it’s worst and is the beginning of the things we will see escalate from here.
If there is no victim, there is no crime. What of the right to face one’s accuser? If there is no victim, there is no accuser. The fictitious “state” can not be a victim, thus can not bring accusations.
This is the basis of the switch from de jure to de facto goverment – I know you know that but many do not.
Also, hemp was made illegal because of it’s many uses including pharma, foodstuffs, paper, clothing, and fuel for cars. Pot was made illegal in 1937 by the very same people that brought us the lovely progressive movement.
I would like to read the warrant to see what evidence was presented to the judge. Best guess it was someone with a grdge against this person.
People will only be trampled on for so long before they bite back.
Is it just me, or does one of the cops kick the man in the head at the beginning of the video while they’re “subduing” him (although he does not even struggle, even as 3 or 4 cops walk over him)?
Unfortunately for America, in the name of social justice, police departments like every other organization have been forced to lower their standards. As a result we have lesser qualified officers with lower IQ’s who are far more violent and willing to follow the orders of their increasingly incompetent superiors. A civilization succeeds by bringing all of it’s people to high levels of exceptionalism, not dragging them all into the gutter. I think it’s easy to see what direction the progressives are dragging America toward. America, soon to be a nation of equally poor morons.
WOW, I’m stunned, here I thought I had moved to a safer area that wouldn’t have this type of crap going on….I live about 98 miles from Columbia Missouri and this just has me totally freaked! I thought living in small town Missouri we wouldn’t be affected I guess this is an eye opener. I mean my husband and I are suspicious of any type of government at this point but thinking that this could happen is crazy. As I sat there watching it it really looked like a decent family situation and home. Obviously they aren’t too horrible that all they found was a little pot but that sure doesn’t warrant what this family was put through by any means. I’ve always had a problem with the system that allows someone who has a beef with a neighbor to be able to cause those kind of problems too. It’s like with social services, anyone can call on someone else and report abuse then the family has to prove their innocence while the children are placed in foster care to be abused and who knows what….we live in crazy times, and you really aren’t safe anymore.