(click for larger image)
NORML Daily Audio Stash
“We heard some noise outside, and then the door literally burst in, and the DEA came in in full combat gear, told everybody to get on the floor and put their hands behind their heads,” Carey said. “It was like, literally, an episode of “24,” when they bust in on a terrorist cell.”
That’s the description of the Culver City DEA dispensary raid I blogged about last Friday. Who knew that the “terrorist cell” description would have another frightening parallel. That agent unloading DEA evidence is wearing a Blackwater t-shirt.
Blackwater is the private “security firm” with millions of dollars in no-bid US government contracts in Iraq.
This is a photo published by the LA Times as part of its photo slideshow online accompanying the news story about the raid.
Or, it was published. If you click that photo slideshow link above, you’ll find that the seven picture slideshow has now been reduced to six. The Blackwater man is no longer there.
As of this writing, the photo is still online at the Times, but it’s an orphan (you won’t find links to it), along with the caption:
DEA agents remove evidence from Organica Collective after the business was raided by federal agents. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Now, maybe the LA Times took the photo down because the caption was inaccurate. If he’s working for Blackwater, he’s not part of “DEA agents”. But then why not just fix the caption?
Maybe he is a DEA agent and he just got the Blackwater shirt as swag at some convention, and the LA Times took the picture down to protect the identity of the hip young pony-tailed goatee-sportin’ undercover narc with a Robocop-sized gun on his hip.
It would be nice to know whether or not our federal Drug Employment Administration is outsourcing federal police duties to private mercenary armies like Blackwater. After all, they’ve done such a bang-up job with domestic policing in Iraq, like shooting up 17 unarmed civilians without provocation. The Iraqi government revoked their license and kicked Blackwater out of the country, but, of course, they’re still there.
The Iraqi government has learned what the California government has learned – when it is engaged in a war on nouns like “drugs” or “terror”, the US government will do whatever it damn well pleases.
[...] The Blackwater DEA photo scrubbed from the LA Times | The NORML … Aug 4, 2008 … (click for larger image) NORML Daily Audio Stash ???We heard some noise outside, and then the door … [...]
Many law enforcement agencies send their employees to train with Xe at their facillity. Honestly, I think this guy trained with them and probably picked up a t-shirt while training.
I want to buy a Blackwater t-shirt now and take a picture of myself crossing the border of Mexico and see what rumors fly.
? where did the cancer patient come from?
If you knew anything about “Blackwater” you would of course know that it is now Xe. Soo lets call it Xe. The people who go through Xe training are some of the most highly trained individuals that you will come across. Most of them of are Ex special forces, or Ex law enforcement agents seeking a bit higher pay.
Where do you get your informatio from? Just curious is all.
You have only heard of Xe in junction to Iraq. See what other conflicts they are involved in.
And no they don’t have immunity for their actions.
Xe..aka Blackwater… is only known for the misshaps that happen, nothing positive about them is ever shown on the media. They are portrayed as war junkies with nothing to lose.
There are many many more private companies working in the Middle East and surprisingly around the world that make Xe’s “atrocities” look like child’s play. The United States government uses Xe because it allows them to carry out missions that would normally not be carried because of “political correctness” or they might not have the amount of neccesary personell in the area capable of carrying out a mission. Sure they might pay them a lot, but Xe’s soldiers have a very combat ready mindset..a mindset that many fresh soldiers do not have. If you were wanting to pass a really tough test and ensure the best results possible, would you higher the lady who just got her teaching degree, or would you higher the Doctor who trained that teacher.
Since we can assume a mickey mouse shirt generally signifies one of the following:
He’s a Disney employee and wears it because he has to.
He’s been to Disneyland.
He purchased it and wears it because he’s a Mickey Mouse fan OR likes the Disney corporation and their practices
He is a bum and found it in the dumpster, and has nothing else to wear.
Now he does leave us guesing about the last one, with his distended coiffure. However we can assume he’s not a bum.
At the very least we are wihin our rights to question the connection, considering the GOP candidate in the last election stated he would deploy US troops in cities to fight this “war on drugs” he would wage upon his constituants.
Legislaters love contractors like Blackwater for several reasons. It gives them an opportunity for kickbacks and corruption they don’t get with the publicly disclosed budgets of police and military. At least more of them. Moreover, it gives hem the ability to implement just stupid or oppressive policies at will, and have little personal accountability for their actions should the poop hit the fan with the results. Maybe it was a bad idea to invade a Muslim country and impose a western political system, and in keeping the people down you have to shoot 17 of them. Hey, Blackwater did it. Our policy wasn’t flawed to begin with.
As Americans we need to know that the people we hire to police our communities, are accountable to their boss.
Ultimately, in a societal way, that is us.
Would all this “Conspiracy” Blah blah blah be hgoing on if he had on a Mickey Mouse T Shirt?
Its a T Shirt People, you can order them on Ebay.
And as for his Uber Side Arm, that people think is a New Plasma Cannon…..Its a Glock Pistol with a tactical light attached…..nothing special.
You guys Kill me……get a life.
Outstanding reply, high east. You rightfully point out the issue is both a problem of some of the individuals, and the trends of the institution itself which the systemic attitudes breeds the problematic individuals.
James Hart, don’t take his position as an attack on each and every LEO including the percentage doing a good job for the right reasons. It is the bad apples, and the institution which is increasingly encouraging their development, which overshadows their fine work.
We are using paramilitary operations far too frequently, and it seems to me it is the work of those “got older/bigger but didn’t grow up” types that are the culprit. The ones that look forward to attending conventions where contractors showcase new weapons to sell to municipalities, they’re too oriented to blowing things up and that’s fine for the Army but if you really want safer streets you don’t look to combat crime, which leaves you fighting citizens- it has to be a relationship between the individual and society that starts at an early age. If we respect (rather than fear or treat with contempt) the law and those who enforce the laws society enacts, you won’t have people wanting to shoot at them when they come to the door.
“Blackwater style” training instills the idea that those the officers encounter are hostile combatants, prepares them for this and if you understand what “self fulfilling prophecy” means, then you must see why this is going to be problematic.
I never could imagine why anyone would take a shot at a cop serving a warrant. I like many was brought up respecting police as trusted members of the community, (I’m 47) was befriended by a few cops when I got into a few scrapes with the law as a juvenile, and saw they were people like anyone else. However now the attitude is different, and the fact even small towns have SWAT divisions is an indication of the divisive relationship they are now assuming with society.
This is what we end up with when we allow elected officials declare WAR on domestic social issues. The “us vs them” attitude inherent to such conflicts is not going to solve the underlying problems, and what is the end goal of war? It generally concludes only with the utter devastation of one of the participants. We are in a really bad economic situation, was that partially a result of the government of the US being at war with its citizens?
I’ll grant you a lot of concession with what you said there. And I’ll admit that the only information I have about blackwater training and participation in civilian police work is what I have read in print and seen on the news.
I still think they are representative of the larger problem, though. For example, you state that “They train officers whose jobs (and potentially even lives) depend on an extra level of training”
Suggesting that only SWAT officers who are dispatched in selective situations get this training. This is disingenuous. This training is showing up everywhere. Even prison security guards are getting this “shock and awe style training”
The beat cop pulling you over is highly likely to have some of that “elite military training”. This type of training is bad for civilian law enforcement. This is why we see old ladies being tazered on the nightly news and sheriffs stating that “the officers followed proper procedure” because she was mouthy.
Bullshit. This is gung-ho military style law enforcement. This is bad policy and training from the top down.
The other reality is that SWAT is being used more and more for everyday police work. Have a suspect you need to pick up on suspicion? Don’t do it peacefully. Get a no knock warrant and send out the SWAT. Create a dangerous situation where there was none.
In addition, once you trained one group they tend to pass that training on to others. Eventually it becomes standard training for all officers.
Law enforcement self fulfills their own problems, too. The old saying “If you go looking for trouble you’ll find it” is true.
Bottom line, there have been a lot of law enforcement atrocities in the last few years of this new military style of policing. A lot of pets killed, teenagers shot, property vandalized. A lot of speeding tickets turned into deaths. All in the name of “proper procedure“. Never do we see these officers held accountable. The story always ends with “officer on paid leave for 90 days” or somthing to that effect.
Sad truth is that the warrior often finds it hard to find a place in a peaceful society. We need them for our wars but don’t want them in our streets, with guns, harassing our citizens.
Law enforcement might not be the best job for a combat trained warrior. Law enforcement requires more social skills than an ability to survive in combat.
I’ll close with one last thing. I was an MP in the army. I spent an additional 4 years after that in the national guard as an MP. While I agree that stereotyping groups is bad, based on my own experience, I’m going to hold to this statement as being generally true.
“Americas police officers have an us AGAINST them mentality towards the public they are suppose to serve. This mentality is top down.”
I found myself disagreeing with them so often that I changed career paths. Maybe 1 in 1000 actually has the right mentality to be a law officer. At least in my opinion. The rest are on a power trip or so jaded that they forgot what their job description used to be. I found myself feeling empathy for the people and disgust with my fellow officers.
I will never universally condem police officers as a profession. But I will codemn the training they get, the policies they adhere to, and the pre-requisites of the job.
I think we need more psychological reviews of our law officers to determine they are on this career path because they enjoy social services and helping the people. Not because they like guns, violence, adrenaline and power.
You have a very good point. I too believe that police officers would benefit from an increased level of community service training. However, things are not so black and white with the rest of your argument.
Firstly, Blackwater does not conduct routine training of everyday police officers. They train officers whose jobs (and potentially even lives) depend on an extra level of training. And I can only infer from your comment that you have never participated in nor viewed a Blackwater training course which emphasises safety and proper conduct and could equally be argued makes officers using firearms even safer for the greater public.
Making generalisations about all Blackwater staff and contractors and now all police officers is always doomed to fail. Yes, there are bad apples, and the media likes to report on it and we all love to listen to the scandals. But day to day operations which result positively 99% of the time are rarely mentioned and therefore ignored by the masses who arrogantly judge people they have never met, operating in situations they could say how they would react in based merely on clips from CNN, ABC or FOX.
The fact is that any police officer that decides to use excessive force due to a prior bad experience with another civilian should be condemned for grouping the 2 individuals in the same category regardless of cause. Moreover, any civilian who decides to condemn a police officer or any other person based on a stereotype or the action of another officer should be condemned for doing exactly the same thing. And you sir are doing exactly that.
Policing is often a dangerous job requiring officers to deal with dangerous situations involving the worst our society has to offer. They have a duty to protect others and a right to protect themselves while carrying out their duties. We do not live in a world of sunshine and gumdrops and to imply that the world would be a safer place if police were unarmed, or perhaps worse, if they weren’t properly trained in handling firearms is ludicrous.
Please note that I do not dispute the courtesy and respect that should still be afforded to the average citizen.
I understand that police officers should be held to a higher level of accountability and should be punished more severely than a normal citizen for any infractions they commit. However, holding them to an unrealistic, impossible standard and ignoring the fact they are human is by no means any solution either.
The more us for them cannot be taught by textbook nor in a classroom. It can only be gained through daily interactions with people who provide mutual respect for one another. Unfortunately, by universally condemning police officers’ actions you are in some ways justifying the us against them perspective that some police officers may hold.
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Moreover, Blackwater provides top notch training to many law enforcement agencies and has been involved in many activities other than Iraq many of which have not been publicised due to the confidential nature of the work. Basically, a lot of good work has been done too.
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I think this is actually a large part of the problem. They (our law agencies) are being trained by warriors and killers to do warrior and killer activities intended for the enemies they face in warfare. Military training.
The problem is that there is no enemy for them to face here. Just peaceful free citizens. All their training is complete overkill and, frankly, immoral for use in most non war situations.
None of that military training is conducive to policing free America citizens. They essentially turn Andy Griffiths into a gang of armed thugs who harass citizens for money.
Instead of picking up a suspect peacefully, law groups that have this type of training look for every opportunity to use that “elite training”. They force dangerous situations that are not necessary just to get their adrenaline jollies off.
No sir. These people are not doing the world any good. I’d rather see police officers getting more community service training than elite combat training. More us for them training instead of us against them training.
I don’t know if anyone is still reading about this but it saddens me. Despite the actions of some contractors in Iraq, the company (now known as Xe) does have many fine operatives. Conditions in Iraq were difficult and while I am not saying I condone the actions of a few (in fact, like you I severely condemn them), I think it comes back to it being easy to criticise from the comfort of your daily suburban lives. Blackwater operatives consistently received fire and were subject to IED attacks on a regular basis. A lot of what the public knows about Blackwater misconduct resulted from information released officially by Blackwater or individually by operatives who were concerned.
Moreover, Blackwater provides top notch training to many law enforcement agencies and has been involved in many activities other than Iraq many of which have not been publicised due to the confidential nature of the work. Basically, a lot of good work has been done too.
Law enforcement agents operating undercover (and there are varying degrees to this) are not given a costume, but merely wear what they own. Maybe this guy attended a Tactical Pistol course to help protect himself on the job and got a T-shirt while he was at it.
Either way, it is sad to see the universal condemnation of all those affiliated with Blackwater and the continued publication of the face of an undercover law enforcement officer despite assertions from the DEA that he has never been a blackwater employee and their request to blur his face for the officer’s future security.
I may be perceived as biased but there is a long list of Blackwater contractors who died, never expecting to be mourned by the public and who were never given any concern by the media or mentioned in Government statistics like soldiers. Contractors did a job, and many fought and died for a paycheck and some even died for something good. That is the side of Blackwater that isn’t in the mind of the public, but it is something I will remember forever.