Only half the states require the preservation of DNA evidence in criminal cases. This is pretty inexcusable at this point.
This Virginian-Pilot editorial on the shooting death of an undercover police officer during a drug investigation calls his death “one more painful reminder that progress in confronting the drug problem comes at tremendous sacrifice.” What progress? It’s actually one more senseless death wrought by the government’s foolish efforts to control consensual behavior by force.
Where do Scientologists go when they die?
This has been done before, but it always amuses me.
I’ll be keeping this in mind when I head up to Alaska this week.
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on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 9:38 am by Radley Balko
and is filed under General Drug War, Innocence.
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TheAgitator.com
Save the DNA? Are you kiddin’? After going to all the trouble of convicting someone you expect prosecutors to hang on to the one thing that can quickly and decisively flush all that hard work down the toilet? Sorry, buddy, but that’s just a waste of taxpayer dollars.
A police officer dies over a half pound of pot (a half pound!), and I’d say the blame lies solely on the system that puts the officer in that situation, not on the pot itself.
[...] Via Radley. [...]
The Virginian-Pilot is a cop site,no? How else can you explain the wrong minded sentimentality. Some editorialists just don’t get ,that it’s the prohibition that causes the violence on all sides. Drug war, what a waste!
Why is it they always portray the cops as angels that had great family lives, and only lived to serve and protect.
The stories of cops actually protecting someone are few and far between, in fact when they fail to do shit for a victim the courts support them saying it is not their job to protect individuals.
Always somebody writing about how they put their lives on the line every minute of every day, as though they have the most dangerous job conceived. Makes me feel sorry for fishermen, timber men, cab drivers, convenient store clerks, roofers, truckers, farmers, construction workers, and miners all of which make the typical day in the life of a cop look like a day in the park.
The people who truly put their lives on the line are the ones who come in contact with the police.
Killed for a weed trying to stop someone from getting high? I just can’t conceive of how anyone (in their right mond) can consider the WoD to be a success.
What a waste of a life!
The “War on Drugs” is just a platitude used in an attempt to fool people into believing that there is a fight against something tangible.
The war is against human nature. Using these tactics, no progress will ever be made and nothing will be won, except death. How long will it take before all people realize this is the only inevitable outcome of prohibition.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The propensity for humans to deny facts that stare them in the face is unfathomable.
Just preaching to the choir.
Enjoy the Alaska trip. Will love to hear what you think of my home. By the way, there is a sow brown bear that has attacked two people in a big Anchorage park this summer. In it’s defense, it is protecting it’s cubs, but it is causing concern.
“Always somebody writing about how they put their lives on the line every minute of every day, as though they have the most dangerous job conceived. Makes me feel sorry for fishermen, timber men, cab drivers, convenient store clerks, roofers, truckers, farmers, construction workers, and miners all of which make the typical day in the life of a cop look like a day in the park.”
Photographs here: building scaff-rigs for outdoor shows in the 80’s. This is The World’s Largest Set of Monkey-Bars. We had a kid on one of our crews who’d been an aircraft-handler on a US Navy carrier. He couldn’t believe how dangerous this work was. I remember a whole day at Kansas City (Pink Floyd) when my brother Michael led a team of a dozen guys on building the upstage wind-wall. We feared for their lives for twelve straight hours. I saw all kinds of crazy injuries and too many near-death scenes to recall. (I still think about Steve Rongo, though, almost going off the top of the Pink Floyd rig at Syracuse, and it just about stops my heart. I can still see that like a movie and I’ll never forget it.) Michael pulled a whole crew off a Who gig in southern California and marched ‘em into an emergency room for blood donations for a guy who’d had a piece of steel dropped on him. It didn’t work. That guy died.
I don’t wanna hear cops whining. If they didn’t know the job was dangerous when they took it, then they’re fools who deserve what they get.
The cop being killed in the marijuana buy is tragic, of course, and it’s a useful indictment of the war on drugs, of course.
But isn’t it also an anecdotal argument against the idea that SWAT teams are unnecessary for marijuana dealers?
It’s an anecdotal argument against penalties so severe that, from the drug dealers perspective, the cost-benefit analysis says it pays to shoot rather than get caught.
Yes, it’s that, too. But it is also an argument for SWAT teams for marijuana dealers, no?
Yes, it’s that, too. But it is also an argument for SWAT teams for marijuana dealers, no?
I don’t think so. This was an undercover buy, not warrant service. And it isn’t clear (and seems unlikely) that the cop’s killer knew he was LEO.
That a pot dealer might shoot what he thinks is another dealer isn’t all that surprising. The question is whether a pot dealer is likely to knowingly shoot a cop or several cops who come to his home to peacefully serve a search warrant.
I think the answer is no. Even drug dealers know that if you shoot a cop you’re either going to go down in a hail of bullets, or at best you’re going to get caught, and can expect life without parole.
Break into a pot dealer’s house at 3am, though, and you’re much more likely to get a violent reaction.
And that’s just the practical argument. There’s also the more philosophical question of whether it’s appropriate for the state to use violent home invasions to police nonviolent drug crimes.
Radley,
Those are fair points, and I think you’re mostly right here. However my point was more that we libertarians often characterize marijuana dealers as if they were all like Rachel Hoffman (i.e., peaceful hippies dealing to their friends and a few others); not at all prone to violence. This incident indicates that at least some of them can be armed and dangerous, which is the primary assumption police make when sending in the SWAT teams (and the justification used when something goes wrong).
Doubtless this one story does not justify all the horrific costs associated with drug raids, and I’m sure you’re right that most of the time peaceful warrant service would suffice (and minimize potential injury). That said, I’m sure the police response would be: “Most swat raids are unnecessary. But some are. Since we don’t know, ex ante, which is which, we choose to use the SWAT team for all of them.”
Is that calculus correct? I tend to think not. But this story - isolated as it might be - lends some credence to that justification.
But of course I’m completely with you on the “philosophical question,” the correct resolution of which would make all of this a triumphantly moot point.
“That said, I’m sure the police response would be: ‘Most swat raids are unnecessary. But some are. Since we don’t know, ex ante, which is which, we choose to use the SWAT team for all of them.’”
Yes, they probably do say this, but this could be said this about any interaction between the police and the rest of us. It took me just a few seconds to find examples of routine traffic stops turning deadly. These incidents are rare, but they happen. Nevertheless, we don’t use SWAT teams for routine traffic stops, even though some will involve violent criminals.
Public policy can’t be based on a few anecdotes. There has to be some reasonable assessment of the risks of particular situations and a proportionate response.