May 05, 2010

One reason to vote to decriminalize marijuana, even if, like me, you never touch the stuff:

Police will have to find another pretext to break in and shoot your dogs.

Caution, this is horrifying:

The insult to injury bit is that they charged this guy for "child endangerment" because of the "small amount of marijuana" they found on the premises. The whole operation is child endangerment. That kid could easily have been shot, and is probably scarred for life (and not because of the pot.) Even I'm crying over the pets. How do these people sleep at night?

And maybe I'm naive, or my information is out of date, but aren't they supposed to show or read out the warrant to the person whose home is being invaded? I thought I read that was in the common law.

There are over 100 of these raids every day in America, according to this.

More here. God bless Radley Balko for tirelessly documenting these abuses.

ADDED: The dog's crying has been haunting me all day long. I've been reading about abuse like this for years and I know this sort of thing is extremely common; it's only the unusually clear video that makes this particular case special. What kind of country subjects its citizens, even those guilty of misdemeanors, to this kind of harsh treatment? I hope this guy sues Columbia, MO into bankruptcy. And any investigation that leaves these officers and their chief free to terrorize citizens in this manner again will be a failure and an outrage. We need to demilitarize the police.

Posted by Dr. Frank at May 5, 2010 04:57 PM | TrackBack
Comments

They have so called Probable cause, and they dont need a warrant. Cops are humanless maggots these days.

Posted by: fredteded at May 5, 2010 06:24 PM

I wish I had paid more attention to your warning because hearing that dog get shot has really made my heart hurt.

Posted by: Leah at May 5, 2010 08:35 PM

Frank, you know that I'm not one to usually speak this way but:

I would like to personally beat the living fuck out of these murderous Nazis before they lose their jobs and get locked away for the good of the public. However, I know that this will not happen. They'll get praised for doing their job and not get penalized for murdering this man's dog and trampling upon his civil rights.

Posted by: Zaphod at May 7, 2010 03:21 PM

"Cops are humanless maggots these days." - Fredteded


I feel kind of funny about being the one person, of all people, to say this (I criticized Frank during his "Blogs of War" days for what I considered at the time to be nativist and reactionary post 9/11 sentiments that, among other things, pretty much excused laws like the Patriot Act), but let's not go there. You know and I both know, fredteded, that these "maggots" are the first people whom you will call when there is an emergency. Heartless cruelty like that depicted on the video will only stop when people stop being lazy and get out on the streets to demand that these antiquated laws end.

Posted by: David at May 9, 2010 12:42 AM

Not all cops are bad, or "maggots."

Posted by: David at May 9, 2010 12:44 AM

David, of course not all cops are bad, or "maggots." (I'm not even sure what a maggot is, in this context.)

Some are bad though, and a big part of the problem is that bad ones rarely face real consequences for malfeasance. They have every reason to believe they can get away with anything, and they act accordingly. Moreover, this situation encourages reckless, dangerous behavior even among the "good ones."

I would say, moreover, that outrage about this video presents the best chance we've ever had of reforming the antiquated laws you refer to and curtailing this kind of abuse.

We need police, as we need the government. But we also need protection from them. It's a balance our Constitution was designed to ensure, and it is clearly out of whack. Right?

Posted by: Dr. Frank at May 10, 2010 07:19 PM

Right.

Posted by: David at May 13, 2010 02:56 AM