Another innocent man shot, and nearly killed, in a botched drug raid. Another case of no fault among the officers involved, and zero introspection or reconsideration when it comes to the policies that led to the incident:

Huntsville Police Chief Rex Reynolds concurred Wednesday with a review board’s findings that SWAT team members acted “in policy” when they shot a Capshaw man several times during a raid on his home.

Police announced their presence and identified themselves before entering the house at Honey Way, Johnson said.

Inside, police found another door shut and locked. When they broke down the door, Jamar was standing in the room and pointing a handgun at four Huntsville SWAT Team members, Johnson said.

“Police gave him several commands to ‘drop the weapon, drop the weapon,’ and when he didn’t do so, that’s when they used deadly force,” Johnson said. “They weren’t after this guy. If he had not done what he did, he wouldn’t have been shot.”

Ah. So it’s the victim’s fault. The guy was behind two doors, bed-ridden, and lame with gout. Armed men invaded his home. Yes. Certainly. It’s his fault for not comprehending that, though he did nothing wrong, the intruders might have been police.

I’m not buying this, either:

Blakely said he considered the search lawful despite a typographical error on the search warrant, which listed the address of Jerome Wallace’s father rather than Jamar’s address, Blakely said.

“It was the correct house that they had a picture of. They had included an aerial photograph of the house. I’m not a judge, but I’ve been in law enforcement 37 years, and they clearly entered the house they intended to and that they had showed the judge when they obtained the search warrant,” Blakely said.

Johnson said police meant to search Jamar’s house, though they were not looking for Jamar.

“Police had the right house. It was believed Jamar’s family member was using it as a stash house. … The search warrant was for the house, not for him. He was only shot because he did not comply with the police officers commands,” Johnson said.

Sounds like ass-covering to me. “Typographical” errors typcally result in a “q” where there should be a “w,” or an “m” where there should be an “n.” Missed keystrokes don’t coincidentally result in the address of the suspect’s uncle appearing on the search warrant instead of the address of the suspect’s father. To me, a far more plausible explanation would be human error. Of course, that would open the raiding police agencies up to a lawsuit, and shift blame away from the victim. We can’t have that.

Of course, even if the review board’s assessment is correct, there’s something terribly wrong here. Jamar was innocent of any crime. That fact seems to get lost in the explanations offered by law enforcement officials. The only reason he was targeted was because he happened to be an uncle to a drug suspect (one who was apparently so dangerous, he was arrested without incident while standing in his father’s yard, watching them take his uncle off in an ambulance).

The lesson here for we civilians is rather troubling: If you have the misfortune of being related to or an acquaintance of someone wanted on drug charges, it’s perfectly acceptable for heavily-armed paramilitary police units to tear down your door and invade your home. And if — being innocent and all, and having no reason to think the police would invade your home — you understandably mistake those raiding officers for criminal intruders, well, you deserve what you get. It’s your fault.

Even if that means a body full of bullets, and a couple of weeks in intensive care.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 10:40 am 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.