TheAgitator.com
Wrong Door Drug Raid
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008Except this time, the intruders were criminals:
When armed intruders burst into her Southeast Portland home and ordered her husband and her roommate to the floor at gunpoint, Emily Morden knew it had to be a terrible mistake.
One of the men yelled: “Where’s Tim?” and barked orders. The intruders began to bind their hands with duct tape. They accused Morden’s 23-year-old roommate of being a drug dealer. The roommate, an old friend, lay on the floor in pajamas and fuzzy duck slippers.
Morden started to protest.
“Tim is not a drug dealer! He works at Fred Meyer!” she said, kneeling before the gunman but refusing to lie down out of fear of what would happen next.
“Are you sure you have the right house?”
Turns out, they didn’t.
The “Tim” they were looking for was the medical marijuana grower who lived next door.
There’s the usual argument here about how this kind of thing puts people in an even more precarious position when trying to determine if the people breaking into their homes are cops or criminals posing as cops.
But reader Brian Courts, who sent me the article, had another observation I hadn’t considered: The people who got raided by these criminals were actually treated better than most of the people wrongly raided by the police.
Consider:
1) No one was shot or killed. And no dead dogs.
2) The intruders actually apologized when they realized they had the wrong house.
3) Now that they’ve been caught, the intruders will actually be punished for terrorizing a home full of innocent people.
what punks, don’t they know when you got to the wrong door in a drug raid you are supposed to search the place anyway and NEVER NEVER APOLOGIZE? Argh, with criminals like these no wonder the cops get so upset, they don;t know at all how to handle a wrong door raid, I bet they didn’t even do thousands of dollars in property damage.
Point number three isn’t actually an example of how the victims were treated better. It’s an example of how far above the law the police really are.
Excellent (and depressing) reporting as always, RB.
Damn, my fake tags got eaten.
Radley – you missed #4 – they also didn’t trash the apartment and tear up the front door.
The real question is whether they went through the motions of drafting a fake warrant. I mean, even the cops do that.
with all the guns available, the big question should be, “Why aren’t more people shot?”
it can’t be that hard- stay the fuck out of my house!
What complete frauds. Everyone knows that if you want people to take you seriously, you have to shoot the pets. Anything less is merely blowing smoke.
Thieves have to be nicer than cops. A thief risks repercussions of he pisses someone off. Cops usually risk nothing. They’re part of the privileged class.
Or, maybe the thieves just had a conscience, whereas…
No one mentioned the detention time length. Did the thieves take four hours to determine they had the wrong house?
Dave Krueger hit it right on the head. The criminals have more fear and respect of the populace than the po-po does. Ask any crim who he fears more, the po-po or citizens. They fear the citizens more. The po-po will just lock them up. The citizens might kill their asses. The uniformed criminals however, do not fear the citizen. Maybe we should take a lesson from this and make them pay for these kinds of “mistakes”?
Perfect example of how one has infinitely more to fear from the State than non-State actors.
Creating a privileged class of people drawn from the same imperfect population as those to be ruled is insanity.
Radley observes…”The people who got raided by these criminals were actually treated better than most of the people wrongly raided by the police.”
BINGO! And, besides treating people horribly jack booted thugs are never held accountable for anything (ie Waco, Ruby Ridge etc)
Google “tony creed task force raid”
Took a little digging:
Here is Tony Creed’s tale of woe
If his tale is true, the America hating thugs in the anti-drug/gang task force are just begging to be sent to jail.
This, and the comments, should be all be read by our elected “representatives” at all levels, and by the law enforcement community also.
We the People are obviously p’ssd!
BTW, BATFE needs to be disbanded with prejudice. Waco was, and is, just the tip of the iceberg!
Wow that’s messed up. But it doesn’t really surprize me at all
Is it not true ,that Tony C is also a San Diego SWAT member himself ?( he got stomped by a different breed) Anyone know what #bad bust this one is? Lost count awhile back…
Already got the message. Mr. Tony C is not a SWAT member…sorry for…
Fire the cops and hire these guys to carry out the raids.
Stunning isn’t it? That criminals still retain enough of their humanity to be embarassed by making a mistake whereas the police, emboldened by a righteousness embrace of the states power and a profound sense of arrogance, are not.
My distaste for the coercive power of the state is reinvigorated once again by reading the agitator.
Thanks a lot Mr. Balko…
Seems like a similar incident in Houston that ends with a dead child.
Bad guys went to wrong house first.
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=7746785&version=4&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1