Hey, I was talking about my distaste for the American SWAT teams and their horrible raids in the US with my wife this morning, and I mentioned the Mathew David Stewart case. He was the US Veteran living in Ogden Utah who was growing a few pot plants and working a steady job, and a SWAT team decided to kick in his door while he was sleeping. Having his door kicked in he shot the intruders and killed an officer.
This was back in 2012, I know they were trying to give him the death penalty, but that was the last I heard of this case. Anybody local have any updates, or was this guy just disappeared?
The first Google search return for his name is HuffPo saying he was found dead in his cell.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/matthew-david-stewart_n_3332915.html
Ungh! I hadn’t heard that. Well doesn’t that just piss me off even more.
I guess they got their pound of flesh, and how convenient that a trial that might bring into question what was obviously an overzealous SWAT Raid (he had a steady job in a gun-free Walmart Warehouse and he was a model employee…you think stopping him on his way to work, or arresting him at work with normal beat-cops MIGHT have been a better idea???)…shame
Note that when the police actually do expect trouble that’s exactly what they do.
There’s a reason they got Whitey Bulger out of his apartment and were able to aprehend him without a shot being fired.
But hey, a few uniforms aproaching a guy in a parking lot (with maybe a cruiser or two in backup) doesn’t justify the taticool budget now does it?
And if you’re gotta justify the toys… well might as well play safe wtih ’em.
Yeah except innocent people getting shot and killed, and private property being damaged when the smarter thing to do would be to NOT use a SWAT team isn’t exactly “Playing Safe”, its just cooking the books.
Silly Weerd.
It’s playing safe for the swat team if they know they won’t meet any substantial resistance. Who cares about the little people and their dogs?
If there’s even a chance that the suspect might be able to hurt one of them, then they’ll either trick them like Bulger, or burn the cabin down like Dorner.
Aye.
It’s the us-v-them and the “You had to have done something to deserve us coming” mentality (even if it’s a wrong address or “crank” swatting call).
And as Wizz said, when officer safety is actually at risk, stacking up and charging in suddenly stops being the go-to option.
The thing about “us vs them” is it eventually breeds “them vs us”…
The cops are forgetting that they are really a convenience. They need the “them” to get anything done, really.
“Them” don’t really need the cops, and for decades and decades there weren’t any in most places.
Remember the case of Stephan Dons, in Portland, OR in the late 90’s? Most relevant, it was a case where a man understandably(no, rightfully) shot at unidentified intruders who began simply kicking his door down without warning, killing one & injuring another. The intruders turned out to be police officers, without warrants, who -after being caught in the lie that they had “identified themselves, & knocked”, by many neighbors, who all said the cops simply swarmed up & began busting the door down- claimed they’d decided the smell of possibly burning marijuana gave them the legitimate right to kick the door in(& to do the case justice, there wasn’t burning mj- Dons hadn;’t even had time to think about burning the plants.. but the lie was dutifully swallowed by the lame-stream corporate media). Once again, a case of murder in custody, perpetrated by the lowest sort of human being in the world- zeal-driven, Nazi-police officers, setting out daily to ruin, &/or end people’s lives over a political issue for which the officers have clearly chosen the side of ignorance & evil, but as yet remain on the side of misguided law. Dons somehow lived through being shot 6 times by police while he attempted to surrender, & through being driven to the hospital, naked & full of holes (literally-)on the back bumper of the SWAT vehicle, but the police weren’t having it- so they committed murder.
The Portland Police claimed that while paralyzed, & in their custody, Stephan Dons unlocked the handcuffs locking him to his medical bed, climbed out of the bed, across the room, & then climbed up to the 14 ft. high ceiling camera- which he then covered with toothpaste..(?)I guess the idea is that he wanted the camera not to catch his “suicide”? Then -still paralyzed- Dons got back to his bed, climbed in it & rearranged himself into his original laying position, & then somehow managed to create a noose from a sheet, which he used hang himself to death by using the up & down function of the medical bed’s upper half.
Murder. Murder. Cold blooded murder, by police- in revenge for… what? Police ruining(if Dons had lived- paralyzed) his life so they can play ‘Let’s be Nazi Stormtroopers’ & kick in doors’?? Oh yeah- gotta punish someone for That type of behavior! It’s SO frightening, & sick, & what’s worse is that they media has covered the story, but never questioned any of the police actions for a microsecond. And Dons would surely have gone free after a trial- w/so many witnesses to the misconduct of police & justified actions of Dons. How can these events possibly happen in this modern age, in this supposed democracy?? It’s as if I’m in the Twilight Zone,,,?