Huffington Post reports it as “Police Kill Man In Drug Raid Gone Wrong“.
So what’s the “gone wrong” part?
The police had a no-knock warrant (though they forgot to bring it) to search for drugs. Busting down a citizen’s door quickly, loudly, and with overwhelming force is the standard. Sure, the guy they were looking for was a roommate who had already moved out (and they knew it), but it is so vitally important that we find and imprison people smoking weed at home that even a hastily-planned no-knock midnight raid without warrant paperwork is preferable to allowing one more joint to be smoked by a middle aged man in his own home.
It is standard operating procedure to send the “Weber-Morgan County Narcotics Strike Force” in all-black full body armor, toting automatic weapons under the cover of night. If police are confronted by someone wielding arms, like, say, an average cannabis consumer with a former drug dealing roommate who grabs a golf club to defend himself when he’s suddenly awakened in the dead of night by armored ninjas toting machine guns, they are legally allowed to discharge their firearm to defend themselves and neutralize the suspect.
When you break down a man’s door in the middle of the night with guns drawn, somebody dying isn’t an unexpected outcome. This is a drug raid gone right. We send stormtroopers into American homes 100-150 times per day on the premise that finding their drugs justifies risking their lives. Most of the time nobody dies (except the dog) and the few that are killed that you read about are the ones that shock everybody because they didn’t have large amounts of drugs or a firearm on them at the time. Yeah, mistakes were made, but you’ve got to expect some collateral damage in a War on Drugs, right?
Note how many times you read about a raid where “multiple firearms” are found and that is used to justify the excessive force of the raid. How many times do they tell you those multiple firearms are a collection of hunting weapons or sporting arms or handguns for self defense? How about when a “felony amount” of drugs are found, so they must be drug dealers! Have you ever looked at what constitutes a felony level of drugs in some states? It’s 3/4 of an ounce in Florida. It’s an ounce in Oregon (yes, hippie dippie, medical marijuana-lovin’, first-to-decrim Oregon!)
Cannabis is not cocaine. It’s not like we need to burst in quickly before the suspect flushes the evidence. If he’s got any amount large enough for you to think he’s a big time dealer invested in it enough to kill a cop, it’s more than can be flushed, burned, or hidden. And if we’ve been dipping into the stash, unlike cocaine we’re not going to go into some lunatic Tony Montana rage and spray cops with an Uzi. Damn, knock on the door and tell us you’re Domino’s and we’re likely to just let you in!
I know legalization might take awhile. Can we at least stop executing people in their homes over pot?
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I have been an advocate for making weed legal for years. I am 58 yr’s of age I hate the way people are being treated over their use of marijuana .Every one knows that if you teach your children. That a certain way of doing things is right or wrong it will stick with them when they are grown.And they will teach their children the same .By the second or third generation right or wrong .Those people having had this train of thought passed on to them will believe it is the gospel .and only by repeated chipping away at this thought process and revising this flawed impute will it be possible to correct this .Someday we will be truly free of the ignorance and the oppression of the powers that be.UNTILL THEN love and peace to all of you …….. the herb dr.
[...] tearing this apart and supporting the story with facts and figures. Gee, I love this kinda talk. Can we stop the killing, can we stop the SWAT raids? Can we stop using excessive police force to enforce these drug [...]
Holy Smokes. This is the Police State we have fallen into by complacent citizens not paying attention. The middle of the night, black clothed, faces covered, and carrying weapons, what is the citizen to do? Wecome to the reality of Orwell’s 1984. It makes me have a cognitive recognition of authority as the bad guy. I support LE in their jobs. But, this makes them look like Thugs in my opinion. As, the bumpersticker so eloquently stated “Question Authority.” Blessings.
The Rev.sLeezy
It’s sickening that raids have to be conducted this way. It’s sickening enough that raids have to be conducted over a damn plant. But when you have people breaking into peoples homes at night like common robbers bad things are going to happen. Because it was night the room was dark so when the guy heard his place was being broken into he did the one thing any of us would have done and that is reach for something to protect yourself. These cops see someone carrying this weapon and without warning shoot him down, and the sick thing is some of these cops probably do it for enjoyment because he can use “self-defense” as an excuse. What happened to just executing a normal search during the day with warrant in hand? It’s as if they’re trained to look at us as terrorists. How many more innocent people have to be killed before something is done about these raids? Sadly, because we’re living in a police state, I see these raids continuing for a long time to come. Land of the free? Home of the brave? Not when we’re labeled criminals for smoking a natural herb and shot down by cowards!
We pot heads don’t matter, they used to call us “white niggers”
look it up!
I’m irish too!
It’s war on the people. This is going to keep going on until we do something about it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/18/utah-video-police-kill-man-drug-raid_n_810420.html
I just did a show about Utah. I was locked up for 8 months in Utah for 2 GRAMS?!!!!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/xcannabis/2011/01/18/sensi-life-radio–interview-with-chris-bennett
Ive said it before, the police bring the violence to us here in marijuana nation,
we very rarely bring it to them!
I agree dead..Why are we killing americans? why do we seek to imprison american men and women?I want to take my wife and three kids somewhere we wont have to worry about this crap! Shoot a guy when hes ten feet away from you, what a bad ass that pig must be. Probally went out for beers aftrewards.
I welcome you and family to try Cambodia…nice and safe place to find sanctuary.
Im so sick of this crap, my god why should they shoot anyone over drugs, oh he may have had a sword, so what he was 10ft away when they shot him. What was he a Ninja that would do a flip into the air and land behind the cops and cut their heads off? And how many times has that ever happened? NEVER!
Im so sick of it, they call this Justified, WTF. Cannabis consumers literally have a death warrant on our heads, shoot first, get justified later? Im so done with this nation, its not going to take much more for me to take my 4 kids and get the F out!