Some Telling info on the cowardly and stupid Pot Bust in Ogden:
A man accused of fatally shooting a police officer and wounding five others during an Ogden drug raid last month says he feared for his life because he thought people were breaking into his home to rob and kill him.
Matthew Stewart told The Salt Lake Tribune (http://bit.ly/zMxrig ) that he never heard the drug strike force members identify themselves or announce they were at his home to serve a search warrant the night of Jan. 4.
Stewart, in an interview Friday at the Weber County Jail, said he was asleep when he heard his alarm clock and then a noise that sounded like glass breaking. A shootout between the suspect and officers followed a short time later.
There is ZERO justification for this raid. The Suspect worked the night shift so he was sleeping at the time when the police knocked on his door to serve his warrant, and he was woken up by the sound of them breaching his door.
My door gets kicked in, I’m going to be afraid for my life and take protective action too. Also if the intruders shout “Police!” that isn’t going to give me any comfort. Why? Well let’s do a little experiment. Push back from your keyboard and shout “Police!” into your room. Were you able to do it? Are you an active duty police officer? I rest my case!
They kicked down his door with a SWAT team when they could have arrested him in his driveway, or at work, or on a public road as he was working at the time of the raid. They could have done this with any uniformed officer, but instead they chose to do this with the black-clad SWAT Ninjas. Why? because if they don’t use the SWAT team often enough, the city may feel they can cut some costs by removing what is in fact an unnecessary expense.
They got a good man killed, several others wounded, and a suspect unnecessarily shot up for the sake of justifying their “Cool” black fatigues and military weapons.
All for what is likely a few pot plants.
Sound worth it to you?
“They kicked down his door with a SWAT team when they could have arrested him in his driveway, or at work, or on a public road as he was working at the time of the raid. They could have done this with any uniformed officer, but instead they chose to do this with the black-clad SWAT Ninjas.”
Note that when the police actually have a dangerous suspect they want to arrest they will arrange for a public pickup. That’s because going after a person on their home territory (where they have the advantage of prepared terrain, ambush, and equipment) is far far more risky than walking up to them in a neutral location.
Look at what the police did here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger#Capture
“Authorities received a tip from a woman in Iceland that he was living in a Santa Monica, California, apartment near a beach.[76][77] A day later, “. . . using a ruse, agents and other task force members lured Mr. Bulger out of his apartment”, “arrested him ‘without incident,’ then went in the house and arrested Greig”.”
Says a lot about police mentality when they’ll lure Whitey out to take him without incident, but a potential pothead warrants a full ninja strike don’t it?
It’s pretty obvious the primary reason why police forces have SWAT teams is A) Because they’re cool, and B) Because if you’re on the SWAT roster you get paid more.
On the department roster there’s also you’ll get more funding and cool toys if you have a SWAT department.
The “downside” is that you gotta use said swat department or else you won’t get more money next year.
I dunno, I haven’t seen enough evidence of that to be that cynical. Saying “it’s pretty obvious the primary reason why police forces have SWAT teams…” sounds, to me, a lot like “it’s pretty obvious the primary reason why rednecks have guns…”. I continue to believe that most SWAT teams are professional, and when they’re really needed, I wouldn’t want to do without them.
I do think that the SWAT team members in question should be busted down to issuing parking tickets… and that the people who ordered the bust should do hard time. I also think that, with incidents like this happening, perhaps being part of a SWAT team won’t seem so cool anymore.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
I gotta disagree. Most of the small-town SWAT teams are the beat cops that get a couple of extra weekends of training, and some cool-looking gear, and 99% of their duties are doing “Drug Raids” like this.
Now I WOULD agree that we NEED a REAL SWAT. “REAL” meaning dedicated paramilitary officers with extensive training on entry and hostage situations, as well as dedicated snipers.
The amount of times where we NEED these units (Hostage situations, Terroist attacks, well-prepared criminals like the guys in the North Hollywood Shootout *tho even that will mostly be solved by dropping a semi-auto rifle into the truck of every Police Cruiser*) is so few we would probably be best served by having one team in each major city, and a team in a central location that covers large portions of the remaining country (not within close proximity of the major city with a Team) with air support that can rush them to an emergency.
Well, you gotta break a few eggs to make a police state…
There is a fellow languishing in a Virginia prison today because of potted Japanese maple trees. Somehow a jury decided he had premeditated enough to be guilty of murdering the policeman who kicked in his door. The old saying about trusting your life to people too stupid to get out of jury duty comes to mind…
When do we decide we’ve had enough?
Have a link to that story?
I will be honest, I’ve only seen growing hemp plants in pictures, but I’ve seen many a Japanese maple, and they’re striking trees.
The two don’t look a LICK alike!
Weer’d,
Here you go – Ryan Frederick of Chesepeake, VA.
http://reason.com/archives/2008/03/18/another-drug-raid-nightmare
Wow, that’s exactly the abuse of power I fear.
Scary story!
But the gun grabbers tell us to trust the police with our safety. Don’t we all have a warm and fuzzy feeling now?
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