TheAgitator.com
Here We Go Again
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008Yesterday, I briefly noted a drug raid in Connecticut in which police killed 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan, an unarmed man they say charged at them as the raid transpired. Guizan was a guest at the home at the time of the raid. More information’s coming out, now, and it’s looking ugly. The police say they’re still looking to see if there were drugs in the home. They were apparently looking for two small pipes and a small tin of crack, none of which was found. Thus far, there have been no charges resulting from the raid.
The police make reference to a shooting at the house a few weeks ago, but oddly, those shots were fired at the house, not from it. In any case, again, the fact that an unarmed man is dead is a fairly good indicator that perhaps this show of force wasn’t the best way to handle a search for a couple of pipes and a small tin of crack.
The article itself linked above is rather one-sided, citing three criminal justice professors who take a “nothing to see here” position, who attest to the importance of using overwhelming force while serving drug warrants, and who talk about the “disadvantage” police face when they bust in unannounced to a house with a battering ram, flash grenades, body armor, and weapons. All three professors quoted in the article are former police officers.
The police department has thus far refused to release the names of the officers who fired the fatal shots. They also won’t release the affidavits leading up to the search warrants, or the personnel files of the two officers the unarmed man charged during the raid.
Is it just me, or have there been an unusually high number of botched raids in the news of late?
“Is it just me, or have there been an unusually high number of botched raids in the news of late?”
Well it is an election year…
“Is it just me, or have there been an unusually high number of botched raids in the news of late?”
Practice makes perfect.
Well, is it ‘unusually high’, or is it an increasing trend, as more and more departments get more and more ‘militarization’, and more and more of this ‘training’ gets out, so they use it for more and more warrants, where in the past they wouldn’t have gone for the farcical ’show of overwhelming force’, and instead done something reasonable, like just arrest a guy.
We can hope for ‘unusually high’, but I rather fear it’s the other.
Actually Radley, you’re the person I’d go to to find out if it’s an unusually high amount. So if you think it is, it likely is.
So this raid was basically just for a possession offense? A small tin of crack (which had probably already been smoked if my stereotypes of crack smokers are correct) justifies this kind of force?
Propaganda at its best. How to make a botched raid not look like a botched raid. The article doesn’t make clear that neither Sacred Heart University nor Housatonic Community College are not law schools, so you kind of get the impression that these “professors” actually know something about law, when they are probably more likely just seasoned ex-cops who know a lot about kicking down doors and coordinating their stories for the lawyers and juries. So what you hear is the official party line from an ex-cop, and you know what that is. (Ahem — impenetrable blue curtain — ahem.) And one of the cops involved saved a person from choking while he was working at a fundraiser (in an unrelated event)! WTF. It seems like it’s the cops that actually do the writing for the Connecticut Post and not the newspaper reporters.
“attest to the importance of using overwhelming force while serving drug warrants, and who talk about the “disadvantage” police face when they bust in unannounced to a house with a battering ram, flash grenades, body armor, and weapons.”
Yeah, Uh-huh. That sure is a “disadvantage.” What do they expect by using such Nazi Tactics? Nixon’s failed war on drugs he started decades ago hasn’t done anything to stop it. Billions have been wasted though. Go figure.
Clearly objective sources with no biases at all…nope. Nothing to see here, move along…move along.
Key word: in the news. I think they’re happening at the same rate as before, but people are finally starting to notice. And a certain Mr. Balko can take a lot of credit for raising the profile of reports on paramilitary policing.
I’m sure the whole thing was totally justified and the shooters should get a medal; it takes a lot of courage to shoot unarmed people. /s
I think it’s just a percentage thing, if 10% of 100 raids go bad you have 10 bad raids, if 10% of a 1,000 raids go bad, you have 100 bad raids. And, the number of raids has been increasing every year.