The video above depicts a police raid on the home of someone suspected of pirating music. It’s one of a number of raids conducted by a special copyright enforcement “strike force” set up by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

The music industry couldn’t be happier.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) presented the honorary gold record to Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and each member of the SECURE Strike Force for their unprecedented numbers of arrests and seizing of pirated music.

“Usually you have to sell a lot of albums to get a Gold record, but this is a great recognition for recovering thousands of forged CDs,” says Shurtleff. “These pirated discs represent lost jobs for businesses and lost taxes for state coffers.” . . .

“Those are real results,” said RIAA Anti-Piracy Executive Vice-President Brad Buckles. “On behalf of the major U.S. music labels, we are pleased to present Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and members of the SECURE Strike Force with honorary Gold Records as a token of our appreciation for all the hard work they’ve done to meaningfully address piracy on the streets of Utah.”

In an effort to boost the state economy, the SECURE Strike Force was launched in June 2009 to stop major crimes of music piracy, and the illegal aliens involved. Suspects have been undocumented residents charged with forgery, racketeering and piracy, but agents have also seized drugs, fake government documentation, and several thousand pirated movies.

Previous posts on the use of paramilitary tactics to enforce copyright law here and here.

Free Staters in Keene, New Hampshire, are pushing back against the town’s proposed plan to buy a Bearcat armored personnel carrier.

Interestingly, LENCO, the company that makes the vehicle, pulled the promotional video below from its website in response to the Keene protests. DHS has given out hundreds of homeland security grants to local police departments across the country to purchase these vehicles.

Huffington Post’s John Rudolf has more on that deadly police shooting in the Bronx.

A week after police shot to death an unarmed 18-year-old in his grandmother’s Bronx apartment, questions continue to swirl around the aggressive police tactics that led to the fatal confrontation.

Ramarley Graham died last Thursday after Richard Haste, 30, a New York police officer, kicked down the door of his grandmother’s apartment and shot Graham in the chest while he attempted to flush a bag of marijuana down the toilet. Graham was unarmed and police did not have a warrant to enter the home.

It looks as if this was a stop-and-frisk that went south. Graham first came to the cops’ attention while leaving a bodega under investigation for drug activity. He ran when they asked him to stop,likely because he had pot on him. That’s not a crime in New York (so long as its an amount small enough for personal use). But as we all now know, once they’ve stopped you, the cops will then trick you into “displaying” it, at which point it becomes a crime.

Footage from private surveillance cameras shows Graham walking into his grandmother’s apartment building, a three-story home on a residential street.

Police officers, guns drawn, quickly follow and attempt to kick down the front door after finding it locked. In the back of the building, other officers swarm in through a rear apartment. The cameras do not capture what transpired inside, but police officials confirmed that officers entered the grandmother’s apartment with force and without a warrant.

The large number of officers at the house indicated that Graham wasn’t likely to escape and that officers could have waited to obtain a warrant before storming the apartment, said Emdin, the Graham family’s attorney.

“They can’t take matters into their own hands like this and violate the Constitution,” Emdin said.

John Wesley Hall, a criminal defense attorney in Little Rock, Ark. who has argued cases involving police searches before the Supreme Court, said a police suspicion that Graham might be carrying an illegal handgun was insufficient justification for breaking down his door.

“If they thought he had a gun, they should have stopped him on the street and not waited for him to go inside,” Hall said. “Any reasonable officer would have known that they needed a warrant to get into the house.”

The most crucial question facing Haste, the shooting officer, will surround his actions inside the apartment.

Haste’s partner told investigators that Haste identified himself as a police officer, told Graham to “show his hands” and then yelled “gun, gun” before firing, Kelly said.

But Graham’s grandmother maintains that officers did not announce their presence before kicking down her door and that Haste did not say anything to Graham before shooting him, Emdin said.

“I asked her if they said ‘police’ when they entered,” Emdin said. “She says 100 percent no.”

The police also initially said Graham “struggled” with the cop who shot him, but then retracted that story the next day. I’m not sure it really even matters if the cops identified themselves, given that the kid was unarmed when they shot him. If we take the police story at face value, the cops twice saw a gun that they have yet to find, and doesn’t appear to have existed.

Add another body to the drug war pile.

• You will soon be fined $1000 for throwing a Frisbee or football on the beach in L.A. County.
• I’m quoted in this Nashville Scene piece on police militarization in Tennessee’s Rutherford County.
• HIV/AIDS activist faces six months in jail for violating prosecution agreement by smoking medical marijuana. And t’s far from clear that he violated the agreement.
• “The Media’s Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion Of The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision.” Not written by someone you might expect.
• Brazilian government demands hosting service remove a URL it doesn’t like.
• Here’s another good Mark Hemingway deconstruction of bias in a “fact checking” piece.
• Gay man rates “the ten hottest homophobes on the Internet.”

I’ve noted before that the level of force the government chooses to use often is determined not by the nature of the threat so much as the message the government wants to send about the law it is enforcing. Hence, SWAT raids on medical marijuana dispensaries.

It looks like we’re also exporting that philosophy.

On January 20, dozens of New Zealand police’s elite special forces broke into Kim Dotcom’s mansionwith assault helicopters, M4A3 automatic weapons, Glock pistols, dogs, sledgehammers and even a circular chainsaw, as if they were expecting a vicious narco gang waiting inside, armed to the teeth.

What they found instead was two kids—three and four years old—a 15-month old baby, some Filipino nannies, two security guards, Dotcom’s bodyguard Wayne Tempero, Dotcom’s wife and meganerd Kim Dotcom himself, hiding in the security room you are seeing in this video.

Tempero told the story on how the Kiwi cops assaulted the Megaupload founder’s home and how they captured Kim himself to Kiwi news channel 3news. It sounds pretty scary and way out of proportion, given the nature of the alleged offense and the people involved.

The operation started at 6:45, when the thunder of the assault helicopters woke up the body guard and everyone in the house. He stepped outside to see the helicopters when a policeman in a bulletproof vest asked him to surrender. He didn’t have any weapons and he complied. He also said that he couldn’t even hear them identifying themselves as police officers because of the sound, but obviously these weren’t low-rent kidnappers.

As this was happening, the elite squads and police officers were going around the house, smashing doors and looking for Kim Dotcom with dogs. In the childhood area they found the kids and the Filipino nannies. According to Tempero, the police asked the Filipino nannies—who must be famous in New Zealand for their ferocity and skills in explosives manufacturing—if they had any bombs.

They also found the wife, who tried to give them the code to open the door to Kim Dotcom’s quarters before they attempted to slam the doors down. Dotcom had run to his secure Red Room, where he stayed for 30 minutes until he was apprehended. On the way to get him, the police smashed an old elevator door thinking it was the gate to a secret room.

Nobody in the house had a history of violence. Only two shotguns, with legal licenses, were stored in a gun locker. Neither Dotcom nor the security guards had any gun on them.

Remember, they’re enforcing copyright law, here. And as Gizmodo points out, the Kiwi heavy-handedness was almost certainly influenced and encouraged by federal law enforcement officials in the U.S. (Who in the past have had no qualms about enforcing copyright law with a SWAT team.)

(Thanks to Tim Lee for the tip.)

The Ogden, Utah, man who killed one police officer and wounded several others during a drug raid over marijuana plants has finally recovered from his injuries enough to speak.

Matthew David Stewart, 37, said he never heard officers identify themselves or announce they were at his home to serve a search warrant. Stewart, in an interview Friday at the Weber County Jail, said his alarm clock woke him, then he heard a crash that sounded like glass breaking.

“Some parts I remember vividly,” Stewart said of the Jan. 4 shootout. “Other parts it was like I was running on instinct.

“When you’re convinced that you are getting robbed and most likely killed by a group of armed men, your instincts kick in.”

Stewart has been charged with aggravated murder for the death of Ogden police Officer Jared Francom, who was a member of the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force. He also has been charged with eight other felony counts. Weber County Attorney Dee Smith has filed notice that he intends to seek the death penalty.

Stewart spoke with a Tribune reporter Friday during one of his two weekly 25-minute visits he’s allowed via a video teleconference system at the jail . . .

Stewart said he “had no idea” he was under investigation by the strike force. He worked a night shift at the Walmart in Riverdale and was asleep as the strike force arrived between 8 and 8:30 p.m . . .

Although Stewart said he didn’t hear officers announce themselves, he didn’t answer whether he had some indication police officers had entered his home.

“I didn’t know,” he said. “All I knew for sure is they were there to rob and kill me.”

Court documents claim Stewart was in a hiding spot as the strike force was searching the house to see if anyone was inside. Stewart then emerged from the hiding spot, court documents say, and began firing a 9 mm Beretta, first shooting Officer Shawn Grogan in the face . . .

As for Francom and the injured officers, Stewart said: “I’m totally devastated that anybody had to suffer over any of this. This never should have happened.”

Stewart thinks two bullets struck him during the shootout, but he isn’t sure. He said he can’t tell what are entrance and exit wounds and he had difficulty getting answers from his doctors and nurses at the hospital where he remained until Monday.

One bullet appears to have struck Stewart in his right hip then entered his abdomen, he said. Doctors had to remove portions of his intestines. He’s using a colostomy bag.

“I’m still having a lot of trouble dealing with the colostomy,” Stewart said. “It’s a big psychological blow, but it’s also real difficult in here.”

Another bullet struck Stewart in his left leg and damaged nerves there. Stewart said he can’t stand in one place long without “blinding pain” in the leg . . .

Near the end of his visit, Stewart implied more facts of what happened Jan. 4 will emerge.

“I’ve always been a big fan of the truth,” Stewart said. “It’s tough for me to stay silent on some issues.”

He’s also looking for an attorney.

This story is starting to look remarkably similar to the Ryan Frederick case.

Details here.

In Dallas:

According to the complaint, which made its way to Courthouse News yesterday, Cantu, a diesel mechanic, was making his lunch January 22, 2010, when he saw a few cops streaking across his yard. A deafening explosion shook the room as a flash bomb shot through the door. Nearly 20 officers crashed in.

“Get on the ground!” they allegedly ordered him. Cantu, according to the complaint, obliged and was zipcuffed. Inexplicably, the filing claims, the officers kicked and punched him until he was unconscious, lying in a pool of his own blood on the kitchen floor. Meanwhile, they searched his house and allegedly didn’t find what they were after. Cantu’s alleged butcher’s bill: a broken orbital bone, a broken nose, a concussion, traumatic brain injury, a loss of vision in his left eye and loss of hearing in his left ear. According to his complaint, the “injuries required surgical intervention and caused significant scarring and disfigurement.”

Cantu was arrested but never charged with a crime.

This one gets stranger, in that there seems to be no record of the incident anywhere. And Cantu’s lawyers didn’t respond to the Dallas Observer’s request for comment.

You now have your very own SWAT team.

“The purpose for creating the UNCC SWAT Team is to protect the community and prevent the loss of life,” said Lieutenant Josh Huffman of Campus Police. “We must be prepared to respond to high risk situations such as those tragedies that occurred at Virginia Tech and Columbine.” . . .

With all this training it would seem these men would be anxious to use it, but they’re not. Considering the conditions needed for the men to utilize their past training, many, including Baker, never hope to see that day.

“I would be the first to admit that I hope we are never placed into action,” Baker said. “However, it is critical to be prepared to respond to a variety of serious/high risk incidents that have occurred on campuses throughout the nation.”

Yes. Virginia Tech and Columbine. Now, let’s look at the numbers: Any given middle school, high school, or college in America can expect to have exactly one homicide on its campus every 12,000 years. So how long before the UNC-Charlotte SWAT team feels the need to justify its existence by expanding its mission? I predict they’re serving drug warrants and raiding frat houses within a year.

The FBI takes the isolated incident into horror-film territory.

It’s going to be a while before things get back to normal for Judy Sanchez and her three-year-old daughter.

Last Thursday, a team of FBI agents swarmed her apartment building as part of a massive citywide drug and weapons gang raid.

Trouble is, Sanchez lives in apartment 2R.

The suspect they were after is in 2F.

At 6:04 last Thursday morning, just before Sanchez’ alarm was set to go off, she heard a pounding outside her second floor apartment.

“I just happened to glance over and saw this huge chainsaw ripping down the side of my door,” she explains. “And I was freaking out. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Within moments, the chainsaw had cut through most of her door, and someone on the FBI’s arrest team kicked the rest of it in.

“That’s when I heard the clicking of a gun and I heard ‘FBI, get down!’, so I laid right on down.

If the purpose of these raids is to take dangerous people by surprise before they can shoot back at police, how exactly does taking the door down with a chainsaw fit that strategy?

Excerpts are from a recent news story. You make the call.

The problem is that they broke into the wrong house . . . Attorney Michael J. Balskus, pointed out.

“They put guns to their heads and threatened to kill them if they did not turn over marijuana,” Balskus said . . .

Judge Barbara Key cited . . the emotional trauma . . .caused [to] the occupants of the house . .

“These were innocent college students going about their business with guns held to their heads thinking they were going to die,” Hart said. “They will suffer the trauma all the rest of their lives.”

Click here to see how you did.

• Sniffing oxytocin could turn you into an extrovert. (That’s tocin, not contin.)
• Judge seals all the search warrants in that fatal Ogden drug raid.
• It’s astounding that after all the DNA exonerations we’ve seen in recent years, politicians will still grandstand about limiting death penalty appeals.
• The latest example of how preventing the “abuse” of controlled drugs often comes at the expense of people who need them.
•  Moronic libertarian-bashing of the day.
• Skip Oliva tells me that a former architect of Plan Columbia now owns the company that runs this creepy service. Seems appropriate.
• Police officer who admitted to snorting hydrocodone on the job, including in his cruiser, won’t face criminal charges.

Don’t even think about trying to smuggle your pot into space.

Along with the formidable force of standard security at Kennedy, a highly trained and specialized group of guardians protect the Center from would-be troublemakers. They are the members of the Kennedy Space Center Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team and they mean business.

“We’re here 24-7,” said SWAT commander David Fernandez. “There’s never a point when SWAT is not here, so we’re ready to respond to something if needed at a moment’s notice.”

NASA contracts the 29-member team from Space Gateway Support (SGS) to protect Kennedy’s employees, visitors and national assets like the Space Shuttle from any potential threat. The SWAT team carefully prepares for special events like launch day and the arrival of astronauts and VIPs, but it also stands ready every day for possible problems that may arise.

Additionally, the SWAT team provides support to Kennedy security when special expertise may be needed to diffuse a dangerous situation. Skills like rappelling, defensive tactics, or marksmanship may be used to help keep the peace.

This seems less ridiculous than, say, the Department of Education’s SWAT team. But I still don’t understand the camouflage.

Since we spend so much time looking at excessive use of SWAT teams here, it’s worth pointing out instances where they’re used properly, and really do save innocent lives.

Here’s one such instance:

The terrifying abduction of an 11-year-old girl began with a kidnapper’s gunshots in the early-morning hours Friday as she was grabbed from her San Jose home. It ended almost five miles away and 12 hours later with a single shot, when a SWAT officer killed 42-year-old Tri Truong Le, the alleged kidnapper, during a gunbattle in a narrow staircase.

The girl, who was in the kidnapper’s arms when the gunbattle started, was miraculously almost unharmed and recovering from the trauma at a hospital, police said.

The officer who fired the fatal head shot was identified by police Friday night as Mauricio Jimenez.

Police Chief Chris Moore said the brave rescue by Jimenez and the highly trained team of special operations officers was the result of “what they are trained to do, time and time again, hoping they never have to use that skill set.”

“I am extremely grateful to our officers today for their courage and professionalism under fire,” Moore said. “Today’s events involved a lot of great work by a lot of people. Being able to reunite this little girl with her family was our number one mission.”

Note that the SWAT team didn’t resort to violence first, as is almost always the case with suspected drug offenders.

Police scoured the city looking for the girl and her kidnapper.

At 12:15 p.m., officers from the San Jose police special operations tracked him down. They quickly surrounded a two-story green-and-beige townhouse in the 3400 block of Pistachio Drive off Senter Road.

As officers set up a command post to see if they could get him to peacefully surrender, the suspect appeared in the window of the townhome with the girl in his arms and fired a handgun at officers.

The officers went into instant hostage rescue mode. They forced open the townhome front door.

Le was still holding the girl in his arms at the top of the stairs when he began firing at the officers. Jimenez fired back with his assault rifle, without hitting the girl, and killed the man.

“This type of crisis hostage situation only happens every 10 or 15 years,” said police spokesman Sgt. Jason Dwyer. “When an officer has a chance to save a hostage’s life you get one shot to make it count.”

This is why we have SWAT teams—to use violence to defuse an already violent situation. They saved this girl’s life.

• “Anything dealing with that kind of work, anything dealing with guns and taking down bad guys, I’m there. I love it.”
• Bakery creates TSA-compliant cupcake.
• The second-to-last paragraph of this piece is horrendous. There’s an ethos
• A pretty stunning series of portraits.
• Coddling Joe Arpaio.

Here’s a little visual quiz I put together to illustrate the way cops and soldiers are increasingly difficult to tell apart. There are 21 images. All police photos are from domestic U.S. police agencies. A couple of the “soldier” photos are from foreign military.  I blurred or blacked out insignias that would give away the answer.

In Maui . . .

A Kihei couple is suing the Maui Police Department in federal court after officers allegedly raided their home while executing a search warrant on the wrong address last year.

April and Norman Freeland allege that police forced them outside and searched their home for nearly half an hour, even after they knew they were at the wrong location. Attorney Sam MacRoberts of the Law Office of Philip Lowenthal said the couple still has never seen a warrant for the search.

“Everyone is supposed to feel safe inside their home, and the one person who’s supposed to protect you, the police, are the ones who invaded their home,” he said. “They feel violated.” . . .

According to the Freelands’ complaint, they were at home hosting a dinner for three guests on April 15 when they heard a loud noise from their front lanai at around 9 p.m.

When the Freelands approached the door to their lanai they found armed men who did not identify themselves but were later identified as Maui Police officers, according to the complaint.

“When Norman Freeland touched the door, the men rushed into the Freelands’ home without permission,” the complaint alleges, adding that the officers did not “knock and announce” their presence as required by state law.

The officers “screamed and yelled” as they entered the home, grabbed Norman Freeland by the wrist and forced him and his wife outside, where they were held by a man carrying a “combat-type weapon,” according to the complaint.

The men told the Freelands that they had a warrant but did not show it to them, according to the complaint. It also claims April Freeland told them that they were at the wrong house and pointed out that their address was clearly displayed on the outside fence and door. Still, the officers continued to detain them and searched the house for around 30 minutes, according to the complaint.

The officers “overturned furniture,” “searched the Freelands’ drawers” and “created a mess in the Freelands’ home,” according to the complaint.

The police say they promptly apologized once they realized they had the wrong house, and that the Freeland’s are lying about the search, the time they were detained, and that the police overturned furniture.

“If a chair got knocked down in the process of an entry, that might have happened, but it would not have been done purposely to damage any part of their home,” she said.

Maybe the Maui police are different, but that’s certainly not consistent with the many post-drug raid photos I’ve seen. In any case, there’s no need for concern, as this was just  a, well let’s just let them say it . . .

Lutey said the situation was extremely unusual, but police responded correctly as soon as it was apparent that they were at the wrong address.

“It’s certainly not our practice or policy to go to the wrong house to execute warrants,” she said. “This is the first time I’m aware of this ever happening in all the years I’ve been involved in representing the Maui Police Department.”

• Cribs: The GOP Edition.
• This is the most terrifying thing I’ve read in weeks. And I’m not even a carpenter ant.
• Incredible photos from yesterday’s cruise ship sinking in Italy.
• We may soon have our first picture of a black hole.
• Panic of the day.
• First person account of a bad interaction with the New Orleans Police Department.
• Lawsuit: Family woken, taken outside, handcuffed at gunpoint after neighbor mistakenly reports burglary.
• Responding to a rape call, Louisiana police break down the door, storm the wrong house. Sheriff calls the mistake a “boo-boo.”

So who is the bigger threat to the community in this story?

Eric Stevens and cousin Henry Dondle, both longtime Homewood residents, woke this morning along with many of their neighbors to the sound of explosions and shattering glass.

It wasn’t long before scores of officers clad in military fatigues and brandishing assault rifles ordered Stevens and Dondle to the ground where they were restrained, according to Stevens.

Now, more than 10 hours later, bits of shattered glass lay strewn about the living room and outside perimeter of the residence that Stevens shares with his 74-year-old father. The front door is splintered and at least 17 windows were broken. Heat from the flash grenades left char marks on the walls and burned through a hanging curtain. Stevens’s father, a retired Chicago police officer, was returning home from security duty when the event unfolded.

“It looks like a terrorist attack on my house,” Stevens said.

Dondle said police confiscated 20 grams of marijuana and several water pipes. He claims they had a gathering the night before and that the marijuana was for recreational use.

Derek Copp, the Grand Valley State student shot during a 2009 drug raid, has settled with the city for $144,000.

Police were serving a marijuana warrant (Kopp’s roommate was actually their suspect) when they broke into Kopp’s apartment. Deputy Ryan Huizenga’s gun “accidentally discharged,” striking Kopp in the chest. Kopp was unarmed. Huizinga was convicted of a misdemeanor for reckless discharge of a weapon, but is back on the force.

Huizinga’s lawyer initially blamed Kopp for “startling” Huizinga as Huizinga and the other officers were breaking into Kopp’s home.

. . . both on Matthew Stewart and the Ogden drug raid.

This one, from the Standard-Examiner is headlined “Suspect had a bomb,” and repeatedly, explicitly refers to a “bomb” that police detonated in Stewart’s closet. Meanwhile, this one, from the Salt Lake Tribune, quotes an ATF spokesman.

Earlier Monday, Brad Beyersdorf, public information officer for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, confirmed that bomb technicians detonated “explosive materials” or components found inside Stewart’s house Saturday. Beyersdorf did not specify what was found but said that “to characterize it as a bomb or device is not accurate at this time.”

Emphasis mine. The same article also quotes Stewart’s father on the “device:”

But Stewart’s father, Michael Stewart, told The Tribune he believes the chemicals found by police were used by his son to grow marijuana, which apparently spurred the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force to obtain the search warrant they attempted to execute Wednesday night on Stewart’s house at 3268 Jackson Ave. in Ogden.

Michael Stewart claims police “botched” the initial investigation into his son’s marijuana growing activities.

“It’s possible the authorities may have been relying on an informant who broke the law who was trespassing,” Michael Stewart said.

He did not specify why he believes that but said he has spoken with his son’s attorney, Randall Richards.

I got a little chill at that line about a trespassing informant. Flashbacks to the Ryan Frederick case.

Here’s the Standard-Examiner, once again:

The neighborhood was evacuated, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms was called in, said a source close to the investigation speaking on condition of anonymity. The bomb couldn’t be moved and was detonated inside the home, he said.

“They also found a picture of the suspect dressed as a terrorist,” he said. “He was posing in a suicide bomber’s vest.”

The source had no detail on the type of bomb or any indications of a link with Stewart and any terrorist group. “I have no idea what any of it means,” he said.

And back to the Tribune:

But Stewart’s father said the photo actually shows his son in a Halloween costume that he wore three or four years ago.

“He was going to the party as Osama bin Laden,” the father explained.

Amazing the different impression you if you read just one of the two stories. Once again, we know very little so far. But it’s unfortunate that (a) someone “close to the investigation” is feeding the Standard Examiner bad information, (b) that person is requesting—and being given—anonymity, and (c) the Standard-Examiner is running with the bad information, apparently without bothering to get confirmation.

The DA, by the way, has announced that he’ll be seeking the death penalty.

I haven’t had time to write about the awful drug raid in Ogden, Utah just yet. But the gist is that a veteran who apparently grew marijuana to self-medicate for anxiety and depression apparently shot and killed one cop and wounded several others during a nighttime raid on his home. This is the same narcotics task force, by the way, that shot and killed a man wielding a golf club five seconds after breaking down his door during a botched meth raid last year. That cop was forgiven for his mistake. Heat of battle, volatile situation, mistakes were made—you know the drill.

Perhaps we’ll soon learn that Matthew Stewart was a big-time drug dealer hell-bent on taking down a team of cops. We don’t know enough yet to say anything for certain. But from what we do know, it doesn’t appear that way. The guy had no prior criminal record. And the article below suggests that the authorities are already setting expectations for the possibility that Stewart was just a guy who grew for his own use.

Here’s a DEA flack defending the raid and pointing out the (very real, though not in the way he’d have you believe) dangers of pot smoking.

The head of Utah’s Drug Enforcement Administration spoke with FOX 13 about the recent Ogden shooting that left one officer dead and five other officers wounded. There has been evidence gathered that may point to the shooting suspect maintaining a marijuana grow operation.

DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank Smith has been involved in the war on drugs all over the globe. He is quick to dismiss any arguments about legalizing drugs like marijuana, especially after fellow officers were shot and killed, presumably trying to take down a so-called indoor marijuana grow operation.

“They’re heroes, they’re protecting the public!” said Smith . . .

Army veteran Matthew David Stewart, 37, is the suspected triggerman. Police will not say exactly why the strike force raided his home, but Stewart’s father says his son has issues and may have been growing marijuana in his home to “self-medicate.”

Smith says that, even if Stewart had allegedly used marijuana to only self-medicate, that his drug use is not a “victimless crime.”

“It’s not a legalization issue, it’s not an immigration issue, it’s a public safety issue. If someone is willing to shoot it out with police, who is self-medicating on marijuana, what’s to say he’s not willing to walk out his house and start shooting his neighbors?” Smith says.

Jesus. How about the fact that he hadn’t harmed a soul until armed government agents broke down his door? Reading these articles is like slamming your head against the wall. People keep dying. And the drug warriors keep taking that as confirmation that they need to double down on the policies that are exactly why people keep dying.

You wonder if Smith’s even capable of comprehending the possibility that it’s the tactics that caused this tragedy, not pot’s sinister—and completely unsupported by any scientific research—effect of turning unassuming veterans into cold-blooded killers. That is, I wonder if people like Smith really believe their own bullshit?

Smith says the shooting case will be reviewed and he hopes lessons will be learned to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.

Oh, there are lessons. But they won’t be what Smith and other drug warriors take from this awfulness. Which is why you aren’t going to “prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.”

No. So long as we have people like Agent Smith in positions of power, the pile of bodies—both cop and citizen—will only get larger.

MORE: Stewart’s father is now speaking out. Here he criticizes the tactics used in the raid.

After four years in the military, Matthew returned to Ogden and got a job as a security officer for the IRS. But he began having problems with depression and anxiety. He didn’t want to use prescription drugs, his father said, and chose to self-medicate with marijuana that he grew.

He eventually left the IRS and got a warehouse job at Walmart, working graveyard shift. About two months ago, he broke up with his girlfriend.

“He was a good guy,” his father said. “He worked hard. He served his country. He tried to live his life his way. He didn’t think he was hurting anybody.”

The Stewarts say they know very little about the Wednesday shootout at their son’s Ogden residence at 3268 Jackson Ave.

“We’re devastated by this whole thing,” Michael Stewart said.

The Stewarts have not been allowed to see their son at an undisclosed hospital. And they don’t know what happened when the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force entered the house with a search warrant.

Michael Stewart said his son kept a handgun for protection. But he said that his son’s shotgun had been in his parents’ possession for years and he didn’t have any automatic weapons.

Michael and Sonja Stewart say they can’t understand why the strike force would execute a search warrant the way that it did, knocking down the door and rushing into the residence….

If Matthew Stewart was sleeping or listening to music in his back room, there is a good chance they would not have heard police announce their arrival.

“If they had done some research, why not arrest him at Walmart?” Michael Stewart said.

“I’m hoping the citizens of this state can look at what’s happened here and rethink the drug war,” he added. “Are we losing the drug war?”

• New Florida Marlins acquisition Mark Buerhle can’t live in Miami because he own an 18-month old Staffie, and Miami-Dade County has a dumb ban on “pit bulls.”  I explain the numbskullery of breed-specific legislation here.
• Ken at Popehat draws the line between recording police, take-down notices, and SOPA.
• Alabama minister sues after his photo was posted to the local sheriff’s “most wanted” web page. It was posted after a tip from an informant.
• U.K. couple cleared in the midst of a shaken baby trial after post-mortem exam reveals the child had rickets.
• Veteran photographer threatened by L.A. cop for violating the cop’s “right to privacy.”
• Tumblr of the moment: Ron Paul meets Ron Swanson.
• The threatening letter that the FBI anonymously sent to Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Seattle policy on dash cam videos: We will happily release the police dash cam videos you have requested for your lawsuit . . . just as soon as the statute of limitations expires.
• The historian Newt Gingrich is apparently unaware that Washington and Jefferson grew hemp. He also seems to think we had a drug war back then. That, or he thinks Washington and Jefferson were just shooting up pot smokers, vigilante-style.
• Utah cop is killed, several others are injured after a shootout during a drug raid. The suspect had no prior criminal record, save for a traffic misdemeanor. The police haven’t yet said if they found any drugs.
• Citing prosecutorial misconduct, a Texas judge has vacated the conviction of man who has served 31 years for rape.
• Illinois police officer writes woman a traffic ticket, then looks her up in the DMV database and asks her out on a date.
• Houston man arrested, jailed for 36 hours for photographing an arrest is looking for representation for a lawsuit.

This is taken from the SWAT team page for the Barton County, Kansas Sheriff’s Department.

The glib sloganeering about how they apply violence is bad enough. But note that they chose the word use, instead of sell or deal.

Thanks to Eapen Thampy for the tip.