A SWAT team in Leesburg, Virginia conducted a drug raid on a home for suspicion of possession of marijuana. Read that again. Possession of marijuana. Not even distribution. Police raided the home after finding suspicious items while going through the occupant of the home’s garbage, including “sandwich baggies” with the corners missing.

Now think about that for a moment. Are you comfortable with it? Police can sift through your garbage. If they find something “suspicious” as a torn-up sandwich bag, they can then break down your door in the middle of the night with an ostentatiously-armed SWAT team.

Police found one bag of marijuana, and some cash. No weapons. They’ve yet to file any charges.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2006 at 6:01 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.