The kid killed by Florida cops last week in a drug raid had two ounces of marijuana on him. The cops’ story doesn’t add up:

Lt. Robert Voss, spokesman for the Sunrise Police Department, gave this account of the raid:

The SWAT team knocked on Diotaiuto’s door and “announc[ed] their presence” before smashing in his door about 6:15 a.m. They found Diotaiuto in his living room and ordered him to “freeze” and get on the ground.

Instead, Voss said, Diotaiuto fled to his bedroom and “armed himself” with a loaded handgun. Voss said it is unclear whether Diotaiuto pointed the gun at officers.

Officers Sean Visners and Andre Bruna shot Diotaiuto dead. They shot him 10 times, leaving wounds to his head, chest, torso and limbs, according to Broward Medical Examiner Joshua Perper.

What happened to that loaded handgun isn’t exactly clear. So far, the only gun the cops report confiscating was a BB gun. Neighbors who saw the incident say they never heard the cops announce themselves.

Here’s another question: A SWAT team announces its presence at your door. You know you have two ounces of weed in the house. You also know there’s probably a crapload of cops behind that door with weapons bigger than your hand gun (or BB gun). Does it makes sense that you’d immediately run to the bedroom to arm yourself? Isn’t that a pretty counterintuitive reaction? One would think your first move would be to hide the marijuana.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 at 4:45 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.