TheAgitator.com
LAPD Has “Wrong Door” Team to Fix Damage From Botched SWAT Raids
Sunday, March 16th, 2008On the one hand, I guess it’s a plus that they at least repair the damage they do to innocent people’s homes. That’s more than can be said for many police departments across the country.
On the other hand, the fact that there’s a permanent unit in place to deal with wrong-door raids (and the reporter’s seeming nonchalance about it all) suggests that we’ve reached to the point where innocent people occasionally getting terrorized—and should they have the temerity to reach for a gun to defend themselves—possibly killed, is basically an understood and accepted consequence of fighting the drug war. That’s pretty unsettling.
Note also that the article says there were at least eight wrong-door raids in L.A. last year. I don’t remember reading about any of them—and I get Google News alerts, Lexis notifications, and reader emails just about any time a botched raid makes the news. More evidence that these raids are hitting the wrong house far more often than is reported in newspapers.
Incidentally, something similar happened in New York City in the late 1990s. Civil rights groups were becoming increasingly concerned about the number of botched raids showing up in the city’s newspapers. NYPD insisted that "wrong door" raids almost never happened—until an internal memo was leaked that instructed officers how to quietly notify repair men and locksmiths to fix busted doors. The wrong-door death of Alberta Spruill in 2003 sparked promises of reform, but within a few years it was back to business as usual.
Thanks to Mike Lombino for the link.
aside from the need for a repair guy to fix wrongly damaged doors is the question of whether this is the right way to spend the city’s money. Observe that he makes $31.25 per hour, plus the cost to the city of his benefits, so the cases for medals which he is building cost the city $250 plus materials EACH. Equivalent cases can be easily purchased for a quarter that cost, or less. Another example of rampant stupidity in the police department.
“”I heard back in the day of (former Police Chief Daryl) Gates, they had 75 in one year, if I’m not mistaken. Right now, things are a lot more politically correct than they were back in the ’70s and ’80s,” he said.”
Politically correct? Because if we weren’t so concerned with crazy ideas like diversity and ethnic profiling, we’d be kicking doors down every day like we used back in the good old days. It would be too naive to hope it was civilization.
First of all, what is a “civilian carpenter” and who are “civilian employees”? Outsiders?
Second of all, it’s a brilliant plot by the city - repair the damage and the wronged parties are not likely to find a lawyer to sue them. Plus, if they do, the city can argue they already accepted settlement by allowing the repairs. $65,000/year to prevent multi-million dollar lawsuits being filed by truely harmed and sympathetic plaintiffs is a bargain.
Finally, I take it that they don’t fix your door if you deserved to be arrested. I seem to have missed the part of the criminal code that imposes property damage as punishment for crime.
Did someone say “SWAT” and “politically correct?”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-parry16mar16,0,3411363.story
From SusanK
And the cops get a news article making them look as though they are doing a community service on the same level as rescuing abused puppies or helping destitute tornado victims.
I think this rises to the level of “evil genius”
[...] The Good News: The Los Angeles Police Department has a special unit to fix the doors of houses that the police break down in raids where they’ve gotten the wrong house. The Bad News: The Los Angeles Police Department needs a special unit to fix the doors of houses that the police break down in raids where they’ve gotten the wrong house. [...]