Deputy Ryan Huizenga back on the job at Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department

Remember, officers, when you're approaching the dangerous potheads' back door with your guns drawn, keep your finger outside the trigger.

Looks like somebody is back from vacation:

Ottawa County, MI —

Deputy Ryan Huizenga will return to work at the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office this morning, April 14, Undersheriff Greg Steigenga said Tuesday.

Huizenga will be assigned to administrative duties while the department continues its internal review of the March 11 incident, in which Huizenga shot and wounded an unarmed college student, Derek Copp, during a drug raid at Copp’s off-campus apartment.

Huizenga was originally placed on unpaid leave on Monday, April 6, following the announcement that he would be charged with careless use of a firearm.

He was arraigned on that charge Monday, April 13, in Holland District Court.

Well, of course!  Innocent until proven guilty and all that.  Besides, if he’s behind a desk maybe he won’t shoot any more unarmed pot smokers.

It’s even more fun to read some of the comments:

“it is unfortunate that there are those who want to continue to vilify an otherwise good person over an accident and a blip in his apparently normal good judgment.”

“Being a Deputy is a JOB not a favorite past time or hobby. No different than any of us. He gets up and goes to work. The only difference is he has contact with the public and the machine he is in charge of is on his belt. But in the end he was still just doing his job and had an accident. The only difference between him and us is his bosses are the justice system and he is being tried in the papers. And that my friends in itself should be a crime.”

“the search warrant to raid Copp’s home was legitimate and was based on previous marijuana sales at his apartment.  plain and simple he is a drug dealer maybe a small one but still a drug dealer”

“I’m certain Officer Huizinga was operating under the premise that there was more than two teaspoons (or tablespoons depending on what you’ve read) of pot involved.”

You may think I’m pissed at Deputy Ryan Huizenga, but really, you could plug in any police officer’s name in from any of the countless stories of these paramilitary marijuana raids and it would be the same.  This story differs in that the victim lived and had such an absurdly low amount of pot, but I see comments like these on drug raid stories all the time, all with a theme of “cops just doing their job” and “those people knew doing drugs was dangerous” to soothe away any recognition that we’ve come to a place in America where we believe it is normal and necessary to send armed urban warriors of the state to break down people’s doors for smoking pot in their own home!

“He’s a drug dealer,” but what exactly is that?  I had a friend in Idaho who was “my guy”.  He grew weed, I’d buy some.  He was married, employed, paid taxes (at least, on his legit income).  He sold to me and maybe a few others, just a hobby to make money on the side.  He’s doing time now as a “drug dealer”, cellmates with a member of the Mexican Mafia who has numerous assaults and thefts and one manslaughter on his record, but is currently doing time as a “drug dealer” for trafficking in hundreds of pounds of crystal meth.  They’re both “drug dealers”, but there’s only one of them I’d trust in my home.  My “drug dealer” wasn’t taking advantage of my addiction by turning me into a meth freak or a crackhead – we were old buddies from the music scene who both liked to smoke pot!

But because we envision the Tony Montanas and Pablo Escobars and call every young person shuffling a dime bag a “drug dealer”, and because we parade the “faces of meth” and homeless junkies on the streets on our TVs and call every college kid smoking a joint a “drug user”, it’s all justified, it’s all OK.  It’s just Deputy Huizenga doing his job and having an accident at work, instead of the inevitable tragedy that is going to occur when you put well-armed men in unnecessarily high-stress environments in the dark.