Arthur Tesler is the only officer involved in the Atlanta drug raid that killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston to fight the charges against him. The testimony to so far come out of his trial really only confirms what we knew about the narcotics division at Atlanta PD from the federal investigation into Johnston’s death, but it’s still pretty striking stuff:

A former Atlanta police officer testified Thursday that narcotics officers routinely lied under oath when seeking search warrants, a practice that led to police killing a 92-year-old woman.

Former Detective Gregg Junnier told a Fulton County jury that detectives would tell judges that they had verified their informants had bought cocaine from dealers by searching them for drugs before the buy took place.

"I have never seen anyone searched before they go into the house, I’ve never seen that done, even though officers always swear to it," Junnier said. "It’s done that way in 90 percent of the warrants that are written."

But it wasn’t just lies to get the warrant to search Kathryn Johnston’s home that made Junnier uneasy, he said. He had an inkling something was wrong when he and Officer Jason R. Smith were leading the narcotics team to the front door. He said the northwest Atlanta house differed from the informant’s description.

"I said, ‘Man, this doesn’t look right,’ and he said, ‘I know,’ " Junnier testified. " ‘I said what do you want to do.’ He said, ‘Hit it.’"

A minute later, Johnston was lying on her floor, dying.

[...]

He said the chance to seize a kilo (2.2 pounds) of cocaine also drove the officers, who normally made arrests for much smaller amounts.

In the raid, police fired 39 shots. Junnier was shot in the face, chest and leg. Two other officers were also wounded. Investigators determined Johnston had fired one round from a revolver; the officers were shot in their own crossfire.

Junnier described entering Johnston’s house: "She was still alive. She was gasping for air. I heard … the order to cuff her."

Later that day, he said, the cover-up began.

It would be pretty näive to think these kinds of shortcuts only happen in Atlanta.

Here’s the interview I did for reason.tv hashing out some of the broader issues of the case.

Tracy Ingle’s sister has set up a website with information about his case, including information on how to donate to his legal defense.

Tracy’s story here.

Via the comments section, here’s an troubling notice posted at the website of the Arkansas Tactical Officers Association:

“Warrior Mindset” is a class being offered by the North Little Rock Police Department. Taught by Dr. Jason Winkle, It is an opportunity to train with one of the most sought after tactical trainers in the country. Class includes topics (but is not limited to topics) on fear management, decision making, emotional survival, physical fitness as they pertain to law enforcement officers. Class is designed for all officers from patrol to investigations to SWAT. This class is limited to law enforcement and military only.

I’m afraid this intermingling of domestic police and military is well beyond the point of no return. This looks to be a class that’s taught to police departments all over the country, though the notice in North Little Rock is timely, given today’s news.

We need a hell of a lot less of the “warrior mindset” in our police departments. In far too many communities, this “us versus them stuff” has poisoned the relationship between police and the people the serve. And it fosters the kind of mentality that leads to cases like Tracy Ingle’s.

About a month ago I got a call from a reporter for the Arkansas Times inquiring about my research into paramilitary drug raids. He’d been reporting on a raid in North Little Rock involving a 40-year-old man named Tracy Ingle. When he told me the story over the phone, I was floored, even given all the abuses and mistakes I’ve reported and read about over the last few years. What makes the case especially egregious is not that the police may have gotten the wrong home, that they shot a man, or that they were covering it up or going silent. We’ve seen all that before. What’s mind-blowing about this one is that they’ve continued abusing the poor guy, even after it should have been clear for some time now that they made a mistake.

From the outset, it should be noted that Tracy Ingle has had some trouble with the law in the past, though nothing violent, and nothing drug-related. He has had a couple of DWI’s, and a citation for failing to appear in court. He apparently also agreed to do some repair work on a friend’s car that later turned out to be stolen.

That said, what’s happened to him over the last few months is pretty outrageous.

Here’s the Arkansas Times piece, which I’d encourage you to read in full. And here’s a follow-up interview with North Little Rock Police Chief Danny Bradley about SWAT tactics.

I’ve since spoken again to the reporter and to Tracy Ingle’s sister, Tiffney Forrester, who herself is a former sheriff’s deputy. I’ve also had a chance to review the warrants and return sheets (pdf).

The North Little Rock Police Department wouldn’t discuss the case with me.

Here’s a quick rundown:

• On January 7, 2008 a paramilitary police unit in North Little Rock, Arkansas conducted a drug raid on Tracy Ingle’s home. Ingle says he had fallen asleep for several hours, and was asleep when the raid happened. He awoke when the police took a battering ram to his door. Another team of officers approached form the outside of the house, and shattered the window to his bedroom.

• When he awoke, Ingle says he thought his home was being invaded by armed robbers. He reached for a broken gun, a pretty clear indication that he had no intention of killing anyone, but rather was trying to scare away the intruders. When he grabbed the gun, an officer inside the house fired his weapon. The bullet hit Ingle just above the knee, shattered his thigh bone, and nearly severed his lower leg. When the outside officers heard the shot, they opened up on Ingle, hitting him four more times. According to Ingle’s sister, one bullet still rests just above Ingle’s heart, and can’t be removed.

• Ingle was taken to the hospital, and spent a week-and-a-half in intensive care. He was then removed from intensive care—still in his hospital pajamas—and taken to the North Little Rock police department, where he was questioned for five hours. He was not told he was suspected of a crime, and his family wasn’t allowed to speak with him. After the interrogation, he was arrested and transferred to the county jail.

• Ingle spent the next four days in jail. He says he was never given his pain medication or his antibiotics. Though hospital nurses told him to change his bandages and clean his wounds every 4-6 hours, Ingle told the Arkansas Times that jail officials changed them only twice in four days. Ingle’s wounds became infected during the time he was in jail.

• Police found no illegal drugs in Ingle’s home. They did find a scale, which Ingle’s sister tells me she was an extra she was given when she worked at a medical testing facility for use in her jewelry-making hobby. They also found a bunch of small plastic bags. Again, Ingle’s sister says these were part of her business. "I was leaving the country for a while, and I stored a lot of my stuff at his house," she told me. "The scales and bags were mine, and are both common things to have for anyone who makes jewelry." Police also found the broken gun and a broken police scanner.

• From those items, the police charged Ingle with running a drug enterprise. They also charged him with assault, for pointing his broken gun at the police officers who had just barged into his home. The judge set Ingle’s bail at $250,000, explaining that it had to be set high because Ingle had engaged in a shootout with police—never mind that Ingle didn’t fire a shot. Ingle was able to sell his car to pay a bail bondsman. But with no car, his injuries render him basically immobile.  He had to walk two miles on crutches and an infected leg to his hearing last week.

• The police obtained a no-knock warrant for Ingle’s home about three weeks prior to the raid. The warrant itself (pdf) reads like boilerplate, with no specific references to Ingle (other than his address), or why he specifically posed a risk to police safety, or of disposing of drugs before coming to answer the door. It mentions no controlled buys. It doesn’t even mention an informant. In fact, someone scratched out "crack cocaine" and hand-wrote in "methamphetamine" on the type-written warrant, suggesting a cut, plug, and paste job. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must show case-specific evidence of exigent circumstances in order to be issued a no-knock warrant. The mere fact that it’s a drug case isn’t enough. The warrant for Ingle’s home contains no such specific information.

Many times, information specific to the investigation is contained in the affidavit the investigating officer files for the search warrant, not in the warrant itself. Forrester says she has called the North Little Rock Police Department more than 20 times in an effort to obtain a copy of the affidavits. She says they at first refused to return her phone calls. When she was finally able to speak with a lieutenant, he became angry when she told she had contacted the media. She then says he told her to "dream on" when she asked for copies of the affidavits.

• According to Forrester, Ingle’s neighbor had a direct line of sight into the bedroom, and saw the entire raid. His account initially matched Ingle’s. But that changed. "We have a witness, a next door neighbor that saw the entire incident," Forrester told me. "He came forward on his own to give a statement to the family. Police never questioned him until a month or so after the shooting, at my insistence. They kept this neighbor in his home, and questioned him for at least four hours, refusing to let the man’s wife come home, of for other people to see him. When the police finished intimidating the man, they told him specifically that ‘he did not see what he thought he saw.’ The neighbor is now afraid to talk to the media." I have not yet been able to speak with the neighbor.

• Ingle’s family was able to put up $1,000 to retain an attorney, but can’t afford the extra $6,000 the attorney has asked to represent Ingle. Ingle is therefore still looking for representation. He has no health insurance, and no money to pay for medication, or to continue treatment of his injuries.

• Last week, after the Arkansas Times article appeared, the judge in the case issued a gag order, preventing Ingle and any future attorney he may have from talking to the media about what happened to him. This is puzzling. Before today there had been exactly two articles about this case—not exactly a media circus. It’s hard to understand why a gag order was necessary. It’s only real purpose is to prevent more people from learning about what’s increasingly looking like a railroading. And it’s only effect is to lend more support to the possibility that it is, in fact, a cover-up and railroading.

As noted, the police aren’t talking. And the prosecutor is now bound by the gag order. Perhaps there’s some piece of information damning to Ingle I’m not yet aware of—though it’s hard to imagine what that might be.

Barring that, what’s happening to Tracy Ingle is pretty outrageous.

UPDATE: The Arkansas Times reports that the gag order in Ingle’s case was withdrawn late yesterday. I don’t know that this will make the police or prosecutors any more likely to talk about the case, but if I have time this afternoon, I’ll try again to give them a call.

John McCain is promising more John Roberts and Sam Alitos on the Supreme Court if he’s elected president. Cato’s Ilya Shapiro weirdly thinks this is a reason for libertarians to vote for McCain.

Here’s George Washington University con law Professor Johnathan Turley on Alito:

Despite my agreement with Alito on many issues, I believe that he would be a dangerous addition to the court in already dangerous times for our constitutional system. Alito’s cases reveal an almost reflexive vote in favor of government…

…In my years as an academic and a litigator, I have rarely seen the equal of Alito’s bias in favor of the government. To put it bluntly, when it comes to reviewing government abuse, Samuel Alito is an empty robe.

[...]

As an assistant solicitor general, Alito strongly opposed the ruling of a court of appeals in the seminal case of Garner v. Tennessee. In that case, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed 15-year-old boy when he fled with $10 from a home. Alito supported the right of the officer to kill the boy for failing to stop when ordered, a position ultimately rejected by six members of the Supreme Court and decades of later decisions.

Likewise, Alito authored another memo that argued strongly in favor of giving immunity to officials who violate the rights of citizens — a position long rejected by the federal courts.

As he did as a Reagan administration attorney, Judge Alito often adopts standards so low that any government excuse can overcome any government abuse.

[...]

An independent judiciary means little if our judges are not independently minded. In criminal, immigration and other cases, Alito is one of the government’s most predictable votes on the federal bench. Though his supporters have attempted to portray this as merely a principle of judicial deference, it is a raw form of judicial bias.

The Alito vote might prove to be the single most important decision on the future of our constitutional system for decades to come. While I generally defer to presidents in their choices for the court, Samuel Alito is the wrong nominee at the wrong time for this country.

As for Roberts, in his book Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage devotes seven pages to Roberts’ career of defending government power (particularly presidential power).

Roberts, from the beginning of his legal career and straight through to the Hamdan decision, had demonstrated his unwavering commitment to expand presidential power.

These aren’t libertarian judges. They’re judges who defer to police and prosecutors on criminal justice issues, who would put broad restrictions on your ability to sue government agents who have wronged you, and who embrace the Unitary Executive, essentially the belief that when it comes to foreign policy and national security (and a number of other issues), the president’s powers are unlimited, absolute, and unchecked by either Congress or the courts. That isn’t an exaggeration.

Roberts and Alito also both voted the wrong way in Hudson vs. Michigan, the no-knock raid case. Not only that, but Alito’s vote proved to be the tiebreaker. Had Sandra Day O’Connor not retired, it’s likely that Hudson would have gone the other way.

Bush (or more likely Cheney) chose Roberts and Alito for one very specific reason: Both have proven throughout their careers to be reliable defenders of presidential power.

More judges like Alito and Roberts is the last reason a libertarian should vote for John McCain.

Despite claims from Taser defenders that there has never been a confirmed case of a taser jolt contributing to death, the Arizona Republic did a little digging, and found at least 27.

Taser International, fresh from threatening to sue bloggers for trademark infringement for merely using the Taser name, is apparently threatened by the willingness of more and more medical examiners to look past Taser’s corporate propaganda and list a stun from the weapon as a contributing cause of death–so they’re suing the medical examiners, too.

Taser would rather medical examiners attribute such deaths to “excited delirium,” a vague condition relatively unheard of in medical research before the advent of the Taser, but that now seems to be a frequent cause of death in Taser-related cases–but totally unrelated to the actual Tasering, of course. Coincidentally, Taser is apparently also shoveling money at researchers willing to lend medical bona-fides to the “excited delirium” theory.

Broadly speaking, I don’t have a problem with the Taser. Assuming that it’s used in situations where a more lethal gun would otherwise be sued, it’s probably an improvement. But the incessant “non-lethal” marketing of the weapon I think makes the police much more willing to use it, particularly in cases where the person being tased is pretty clearly not a potent or imminent threat. That, and it’s increasingly looking like the “non-lethal” descriptor simply isn’t true.

And frankly, one surefire way to piss away your credibility is to start bullying bloggers and intimidating doctors with litigation.

My hunch was right. Derrick Foster’s lawyer says his client was playing dice at a house in Columbus when the police started to break down the door with a battering ram. He shot at them because he though they were criminals coming to rob the place.

Never mind how many regular people get wounded, killed, and terrorized by these raids. How many cops have to die or get hurt before people start to conclude that they’re needlessly violent and confrontational?

In Florida:

More than one hundred Miami-Dade police officers, along with federal and state agents, raided homes that grow marijuana in a two-day operation. An Opa-Locka family on Friday asked one law enforcement agency, the DEA, for an apology since it wrongly targeted their home, and to repair the physical damage done inside.

Noel Llorente and his wife Isabel, at their attorney’s office in North Miami Beach, said they would not be filing a lawsuit, but at the very least would like an apology and repair damage done when agents believed their home was growing marijuana.

It was called “Operation D-Day”, and there were more than 50 grow houses across the county involved.

The operation lasted two days; officers arrested 49 people and confiscated more than 2,000 marijuana plants along with 1,700 pounds of marijuana which had a street value of nearly $7-million.

They also confiscated 8 firearms, a bullet proof vest and $113,600 in cash.

“Operation D-Day?” You’re sending civilian police officers out to bust up nonviolent pot growers, and you name it after the military invasion at Normandy? Might that have some, just some affect on the mentality of the officers sent out on these raids?

Police groups justify door-busting paramilitary tactics by pointing out that drug dealers are violent and armed to the teeth. How does that jibe with finding just eight firearms in 50 homes?

Thanks to Kishnevi for the link.

We still don’t know what quantity or what type of drugs were found in the house. But it is looking increasingly like Derrick Foster isn’t the kind of guy who’d knowingly kill a police officer:

One of the accused is Derrick Foster, a 38-year-old former defensive end for Ohio State University who police said has no criminal record.

Foster has a sociology degree, a $60,000-a-year job as a Columbus code-enforcement supervisor, a $146,000 home on the South Side, a 5-year-old daughter and a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon.

In one annual review, Foster’s supervisor called him “an asset to the Near East Side” neighborhood where he works.

Police now say they suspect some gambling may have gone on in the house. Which makes some sense. Foster doesn’t have the resume of a cop killer, or a guy who’d have reason to be slinging dope (I don’t know many drug dealers who’d bother to apply for a gun permit). It does seem plausible, however, that he might have been at the house to gamble, and mistook the raiding cops for invaders out to rob a gambling house.

For example, an apartment of college kids busted with less than two ounces of marijuana.

Even when everything goes “right”–not shots are fired, the police hit the house they’re looking for, they find some drugs–is this really an appropriate use of such violent, confrontational tactics? To rough up some small time pot offenders?

A drug raid in Columbus, Ohio last night resulted in two wounded police officers.

The man who shot them is being charged with attempted murder. Thing is, he’s a city employee–a code inspector. Details are still sketchy, but the articles says witnesses heard police ordering other officers to break in windows, then gunshots–nothing yet about an announcement. Also, the article neglects to say if any drugs were actually found. Several people are being held, but only the shooter has so far been charged, and he’s only being charged with the shootings. It’s been my experience that police are usually very quick to announce if they’ve found any drugs, particularly in raids that don’t end well.

More to come, I’m sure. And perhaps new details will show the charges against this guy are justified. Right now, it’s setting off some red flags.

More: They’ve since updated the story to say that drugs were found in the home, though they haven’t said what type or in what quantity.

You’d never know violent crime stats actually ticked up over the last year.

In the last couple of months, police have broken up games in Charleston, South Carolina (netting a poker playing cop and prosecutor in the process) and, no surprise here, in Dallas and Houston.

In the Houston case, prosecutors planned to file felony organized crime charges against the operators of a $300 buy-in tournament.

In the Charleston case, investigators went back more than a year to find names of players who may not have been playing on the night of the raid. They then went out and arrested them, too. They were eventually charged with misdemeanors.

Here’s a first-hand account of similar Charleston raid from a couple of years ago:

At the game in 2006, Chimento said there was a knock on the door and then “…all of a sudden it was like a commandos SWAT team raiding a bunch of crack dealers. It’s was like the SWAT team that you see on TV, busting into your home, guns drawn, ski masks on, full protective gear, and demanding we put out hands on top of our heads,” Chimento said. “At first we thought we were getting robbed, then we realized they had police written all over them, and we were like ‘Oh my God, check this out.’ Someone could have easily been killed that night.”

A 78-year-old grandmother was one of the players swept up that night. Police issued citations on the spot and seized about $6,000 in total from all of the players.

Fish tank, meth lab—whatever.

Brooklyn Park police were looking for a meth lab, but they found a fish tank and the chemicals needed to maintain it.

And a few hours later, when the city sent a contractor to fix the door the police had smashed open Monday afternoon, it was obvious the city was trying to fix a mistake.

It happened while Kathy Adams was sleeping.

"And the next thing I know, a police officer is trying to get me out bed," she said.

And what thorough investigative work precipitated this raid?

Roehl said the drug task force was acting on a tip from a subcontractor for CenterPoint Energy, who had been in the home Friday to install a hot water heater.

"He got hit with a chemical smell that he said made him light headed, feel kind of nauseous," Roehl said.

The smell was vinegar, and maybe pickling lime, which were clearly marked in a bathroom Mr. Adams uses to mix chemicals for his salt water fish tank.

"I said, ‘I call it his laboratory for his fish tanks,’ " Mrs. Adams said, recalling her conversation with the CenterPoint technician. "I’m looking at the fish tank talking to this guy."

Police say there was no extended investigation, just an interview with the subcontractor.

Still, no one did anything wrong.

"From a cursory view, it doesn’t look like our officers did anything wrong," said Capt. Greg Roehl.

[...]

"Everything this person told us turned out to be true, with the exception of what the purpose of the lab was," Roehl said.

[...]

Police say the detective who asked for the search warrant is an 8 ½-year veteran, but he just started working in the drug task force.

CenterPoint energy maintains the home was "unsafe" and it would have "irresponsible" for the subcontractor not to report it.

Several people have asked me what I think about the acquittal of the four New York City police officers who shot and killed unarmed groom-to-be Sean Bell. I guess I don’t have much to add that hasn’t already been said elsewhere. We’ll never know exactly what happened, but I’d wager to guess that if four men not wearing badges were to unload 50 rounds into another, unarmed group of men, killing one and sending stray bullets all over the neighborhood, they wouldn’t have escaped without being convicted of a single crime.

On the other hand, I’m having a hard time seeing how…uh…capitalism is to blame. This is what happens to people who read too much Naomi Klein.

So much for “community policing.”

Springfield’s men in black are returning.

The city’s new police commissioner, William Fitchet, says members of the department’s Street Crime Unit will again don black, military-style uniforms as part of his strategy to deal with youth violence.

Fitchet’s predecessor, Edward Flynn, had ditched the black attire as part of an effort to soften the image of the unit. Flynn left Springfield in January to become the police chief in Milwaukee.

Sgt. John Delaney told a city council hearing Wednesday that the stark uniforms send a message to criminals that officers are serious about making arrests.

Delaney said a sense of “fear” has been missing for the past few years.

Worth keeping in mind when you hear complaints about how the public always assumes the worst about the police. I can’t tell you how many older and retired cops have expressed their concerns to me about this kind of thing. That is, the psychology effected by military-style uniforms happens on both sides of the badge. It’s bad enough that Sgt. Delaney thinks it’s the role of the police to instill fear in the people they work for. But the flip side is even worse: When you dress cops like soldiers, some of them are going to start acting like soldiers.

Sean Mullins’ ode to the 92-year-old woman killed in a botched drug raid came out a few weeks ago. And it’s good! Well, the music is good. The lyrics wander around a bit, and don’t really tell what actually happened. But hey, it’s a good pop song about a botched drug raid. I’m not going to complain. I can’t find it online anywhere, but you can download it from Amazon for a buck.

Here’s a short interview Mullins gave to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I’d beg to differ with him on one point. Mullins says this kind of thing only happens in “certain neighborhoods.” It’s probably true that low-income people get the brunt of it. But there are plenty of examples of botched raids on college students, middle-class homes, and, occasionally, even millionaires.

The reader who sent me this link has a connection to the man who tased, and says he’s expected to die today.