TheAgitator.com
A Drug Raid Goes Viral
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010My crime column this week is on the Columbia, Missouri, SWAT raid.
Takeaway:
It’s heartening that nearly a million people have now seen the Columbia video. But it needs some context. The officers in that video aren’t rogue cops. They’re no different than other SWAT teams across the country. The raid itself is no different from the tens of thousands of drug raids carried out each year in the U.S. If the video is going to effect any change, the Internet anger directed at the Columbia Police Department needs to be redirected to America’s drug policy in general. Calling for the heads of the Columbia SWAT team isn’t going to stop these raids. Calling for the heads of the politicians who defend these tactics and promote a “war on drugs” that’s become all too literal—that just might.
I know a couple of witch doctors…
There is a trend that chafes me going on.
The assumption that if guns are found in someone’s home that it somehow justifies treating them like criminals.
What is this, Precrime?
Virtually everyone owns knives. Knives are used to hurt people all the time. Yet, at no time have I heard a cop say “Well, we suspected they had knives in the home, so we treated it as a dangerous raid.”
If a guy is wanted for armed robbery, and a gun is found in his house, that’s different. It might be evidence and should be gathered as such.
But if there’s no reason to believe that guns found in the home are associated with any crime, then finding them should be like finding the guy’s toaster.
But no, be a law abiding gun owner, and BAM! You’re treated like Scarface.
Excellent article. Spread the word.
No. No. No.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” — Walt Kelly
There is no way out of this trap. The whole f’en system needs to go.
I believe the reason this video went viral is that we have reached a “tipping point” as far as police abuses of law and, specifically, unlawful uses of SWAT are concerned. My hope is the same as Radley’s: that people will look at SWAT raids in their own communities, investigate the details, and ask why paramilitary raids are being carried out on–in most instances–unarmed, peaceful, law-abiding citizens.
“Calling for the heads of the Columbia SWAT team isn’t going to stop these raids.”
Not stop, but maybe help deter.
I feel strongly we should call for their heads anyway. Following orders or not there needs to be retribution for this behavior.
//The officers in that video aren’t rogue cops. //
If they conduct a raid in an unreasonable fashion(*), they’re robbers and should be prosecuted as such. If there are officers in other police forces who would also conduct raids in unreasonable fashion, that doesn’t suggest that this batch is legit–rather, it suggests that a lot of police forces are infested with robbers.
(*) The way to define “unreasonable” is simple: instruct a jury that if they find the cops acted unreasonably while conducting the search, they should prosecute them as robbers. If twelve ordinary citizens would find the behavior unreasonable, it is.
Calling for the heads of a few cops, most likely out of your area of influence = easy
Calling for an entire policy, one that has been touted and portrayed as a war, to end, and accountability for the officials who backed it = hard
Americans will take the easy way out.
Andrew Williams states;
“I believe the reason this video went viral is that we have reached a “tipping point” as far as police abuses of law and, specifically, unlawful uses of SWAT are concerned. My hope is the same as Radley’s: that people will look at SWAT raids in their own communities, investigate the details, and ask why paramilitary raids are being carried out on–in most instances–unarmed, peaceful, law-abiding citizens.”
I really, really, really hope you’re right. But, unfortunately, I don’t think you are. Hell though, someone’s gotta stay optimistic.
Sadly, I have to agree with OldGrump on this one. It will get much worse before it gets better. Outrage on your facebook page over a viral video is one thing, but actually working to reform policy and risk being called Pro-Criminal or Pro-Drug by opponents in “real life” is entirely another. Apathy reigns supreme in America until the problem hits you, your family or neighbors you actually *like*.
#2 I agree 100%. Americans have hundreds of millions of legal firearms.
#5 I agree we have reached a tipping point, and occasionally you are
starting to hear a different tune coming from the chiefs of police.
I believe that the reasons this went viral is that
1- It shows a white family, and specifically an anguished mother and child living in a home which most middle class people can relate to, being raided.
2- It features an animal being killed. People are FAR more likely to be sympathetic towards the killing of animals than they are of people (thanks hollywood!)
Lastly, if you think that this anything will change, I think you are wrong. What I DO expect is that every SWAT team in the country will see this and resolve to NEVER RELEASE ANY VIDEOS EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, in addition to intensifying their lobbying against transparency or discovery statues.
As was mentioned over @ the reason thread Judge Napolitano covered the raid on his show recently and was right on the money as usual. I almost felt bad for Columbia’s new mayor … almost.
When the mayor said that these types of raids happen one hundred times a day across the country, I was a immediately struck by the idea that this guy must be reading the Agitator / Reason. I don’t know what his being a regular reader of this blog may portend for his city, but at least he’s getting some exposure to ideas other than those of the FOP. Once again, great work Radley.
““Calling for the heads of the Columbia SWAT team isn’t going to stop these raids.”
Not stop, but maybe help deter.
I feel strongly we should call for their heads anyway. Following orders or not there needs to be retribution for this behavior.”
We should be painstakingly literal, and eschew hyperbole, in discussing this matter and what should come of it.
We must not call for the Columbia SWAT team’s heads. We must call for them to be held personally and severally liable for assault with deadly weapon. Reckless endangerment. Criminal charges.
Regarding ‘following orders’, we must call for the people who issued those orders to face criminal charges also. If they failed to do due diligence in investigating the property where they sent the SWAT team, it’s criminal negligence.
If they knew that the evidence to justify the dynamic entry was not on that property, but took the oath to get the warrant for the dynamic entry anyway, it’s Perjury.
Many commenters have suggested endings to fill in the blank, “SWAT raids like this won’t stop until ……”
This is mine: They won’t stop until officers, chiefs, and DAs are facing real prison time, loss of jobs and pensions, and disbarment.
@Matt ” It features an animal being killed. People are FAR more likely to be sympathetic towards the killing of animals than they are of people (thanks hollywood!)”
I agree. And what a sad state we have come to, feeling more empathy for pets than neighbors. But hey, if it helps spread the word then that’s a positive thing right?
Bob at #2 makes a very good point about firearms. A very large percentage of gun owners keep a weapon within reach at night for exactly this event, someone kicking in your door or coming in your window at night. Many of these people actually think about that scenario and plan how they will address it. If one of these raids ends up at the WRONG, wrong door, the entire entry team may end up dead. “Hello 911, what is your emergency? I think I just killed your swat team. Excuse me?”
In addition, this is really putting a finer point on the us against them mindset of the police for a lot of people. These men volunteered and trained for violating this family. They were happy to do it and pat themselves on the back since they found enough weed to get a $100 ticket in Massachusetts.
Keep it up Radley. You are making a difference here.
The problem as I see it is that both the left and the right want to use issues like this to beat each other up.
Many quasi-libertarian conservative groups like the NRA and Gun Owners of America would probably love to call for a legal right to shoot a cop that raids an innocent household or in self-defense if the arresting cop’s behavior is so over the top it crosses the line into dangerous excessive force. The left would then have a field day about “right wing extremists who want to kill cops.”
Many liberal groups would love to end these practices and punish the police. Many authoritarians on the right would then attack them for being soft on crime.
We can’t win because the media is firmly on the side of the authoritarians. You’d never see a reporter say “well, if they’re raiding an innocent household, those citizens should have a right to defend themselves, that’s only human” or something equivalent about cracking down on SWAT deployments.
Rather than try to predict American’s reaction and any ultimate action (or lack of), I’d like to just say: Very well done, Radley. It is yet-another dent you’ve put in the machine in what is becoming a meaningful and good career.
Thank you.
#12
What I DO expect is that every SWAT team in the country will see this and resolve to NEVER RELEASE ANY VIDEOS EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
That is exactly what I think this will bring about. Whoever thought that filming this shit was a good idea must be smoking a lot of what is being confiscated.
Whoever thought that filming this shit was a good idea must be smoking a lot of what is being confiscated.
I don’t know, I mean that sort of thing might make a good recruitment video for the types of sociopaths they sign up.
flukebucket
“Whoever thought that filming this shit was a good idea must be smoking a lot of what is being confiscated.”
I assume you mean from the perspective of the blue master class.
From our perspective, it is great. It would be better if all SWAT team members were required to wear cameras and that all videos had to be made available to the defense and the public.
“Calling for the heads of” any public servant will get your name added to the list of people whose houses will be “accidentally” raided by SWAT.
They will shoot your pets, and possibly your kids.
They will enjoy smashing your china and taking your heirloom silver which was handed down for 100 years because you don’t have a receipt from 1840 when it was originally purchased.
They will assault your wife, and possibly take pictures of themselves doing it with your cell phone (which will be confiscated and “lost”).
Don’t ever kid yourselves – The police are terrorists. They are no longer our nation’s finest, they are the dregs of society.
Don’t expose your family to them if you can help it.
The police routinely discharging MP-5 assault rifles to kill the family pets is RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT of the human inhabitants of the house.
High velocity bullets can easily richochet off of hard surfaces like counters, walls or floors, and literally caroom off in any direction.
This policing practice MUST really be an unannounced national police policy, for the purpose of TERRORIZING the American citizenry.
A long-term softening up process. Like showing your “papers” to travel anywhere by mass transit.
Where is it going???
It can’t be good……..
I just wrote a Green Party candidate for US Senate about the drug war and confirmed that she supports it!
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2010/05/green-party-candidate-for-criminal.html
Aresen
I assume you mean from the perspective of the blue master class.
Exactly. From the standpoint of the SWAT team what was to be gained by filming this shit? And the fact that they just kept on filming and acting as if all was well goes to show you that this was not an aberration. It was just a typical night in the lives of SWAT.
And I am not sure how this got out into the public domain. Did somebody at SWAT say “hey, we need to show the fine citizens how we put our lives on the line every day and night against the wild and always vicious corgi and penned pit bulls!”
I don’t understand it at all.
We get the law enforcement, criminal justice system and health care system that we deserve.
Fish stink from the head down.
The ‘stink’ in this case is drug prohibition, itself. This has provided a perfect opportunity, given the visceral disgust that many previously neutral citizens have exhibited, to have the debate in this country that we have never had regarding drug prohibition.
When John Q. Public gets an eye- and ear-full of how this is not a fluke, that this happens 100-150 times a day, and how much all this costs (in this time of near universal fiscal suffering) then the door will be opened for that long-avoided debate. One the prohibs cannot possibly hope to win.
Don’t bother calling for the heads of the cops involved…but do let the legislators know that as a taxpayer, you’re sick and tired of footing the bill for this travesty when there’s better things that could be done with OUR money.
I know that the following is kind of off topic, but I gotta tell someone who cares… I’ll be as brief as possible.
The other day I had the occasion to have lunch with a police officer among others… After a brief conversation on his views of the new Arizona law – for which he gave a reasonable response regarding how illegals might refrain from cooperating with the police for fear of being deported – I then brought up the issue of puppycide.
He gave me the rundown on police guidelines: safety of the officers first, assessing the threat, not knowing if the dog is aggressive, blah… blah.. blah…
But after I mentioned how mail delivery persons are often subjected to barking/aggressive dogs, and they are somehow able to do their job and not shoot any family pets – he said, and I quote…
“The mailman doesn’t have a gun.”
My jaw would have dropped to the floor if I wasn’t a regular reader of Balko. But I was disgusted nonetheless.
Cheers.
Pogue Mahone?? Really? Awesome dude “I Love You Till The End”.
Regarding the topic, when will this sh*t end? I was kinda hoping with Obama, but I see that was foolish. What sort of change was he talking about? I mean if 3 million people locked up in prisons in this country, 60-70% for non-violent drug crimes doesn’t scream for change, what does? Oh jeez, I guess I’m just naive, most of those people are poor or black or both or maybe they just like to choose their form of medication. I just don’t get it. Why does there have to be so much violence for people to get some relief from reality? It’s something we are all entitled to. As far as I can see this guy was just minding his own business, enjoying life, minding his wife, child and dog. As he said,”wtf did I do”? Who can answer that question? Pogue Mahone?
@#29 pam
I was in a rare situation where I knew that I would be able to speak freely without any repercussions.
And you know, up until that point, the guy seemed like a regular dude. A nice fellow with reasonable views. But when he said “The mailman doesn’t have a gun.” – to me, it simply exemplified your typical police officer’s mentality: that a gun is merely a tool to be used whenever they deem it convenient – or dare I say – even sporty. They seem to have little grasp on the consequences of their actions. And why should they? They often don’t receive any consequences because of their actions.
Furthermore, I’ve been thinking about those here that have commented about how America gives more care to an animal being shot rather than a human.
If I were the victim in this case, I would exploit this to the ‘enth degree.
I have pictures and video of my dogs. The cutest things.
I would find the cutest and most adorable pics and videos of my dogs and post them wherever I could with a caption reading,
“Rover – Murdered in cold blood in front of my son by the Columbia Police Department, February, 2010.”
I want the judges who sign the warrants to toe the line for the acts that they enable. Signing the permission slip for this shit should have a cost.
do you get the feeling the warrents are just rubber stamped?
PogueMahone I was just curious about your name. Are you a Pogues fan?
My mail carrier and meter reader always has a supply of dog treats. The mail carrier has them in her truck and tosses my dog one every so often and the meter reader keeps them in her pocket. Dogs really do go for it. Maybe the local police departments could use some of the asset forfeiture monies to buy a few bag of bones or treats for when they are breaking into people’s homes after sniffing through their trash cans. I know, I know that’s no fun and it really doesn’t send the right kind of message either does it? Killing family pets is far more succinct.
pam #32,
I am indeed. :)