An interesting twist, sent to me by the good folks at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Turns out that the massive SWAT raids in Buffalo last week came just days after Erie County county executive Joel Giambra came out in favor of drug legalization. Even curiouser: Giambra has a long-running feud with Buffalo police organizations over budget issues.

Which raises the real and distrubing possibility that those raids were more about embarassing the county executive than about good policing (then again, Buffalo’s new police chief has promised that under his watch, Buffalo cops will be “slightly hostile.” Always what you’re looking for in your “keepers of the peace.”).

A word of caution: Giambra’s call for reforming the drug laws is welcome. But he’s no libertarian hero. The guy’s entire term in office has been plagued by scandal, corruption, and bad governance. Which keeps with the tradition of politicians coming out against the drug war only once they’ve either retired and either don’t plan to or are incapable of seeking higher office.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 7:02 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.