[Dick Bachert]

The report I heard of the story was that these cops were in plain clothes. If you've heard otherwise, please so note. If they DID try to serve a warrant in plain clothes, they should have known better -- especially in that neighborhood.

Sorry for the screw-up, maam. And, oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving and R.I.P.

Trust me, there will be a renewed call for GUN CONTROL by Atlanta poobahs. That MIGHT make SOME sense IF there were more than one cop for every 1,500 of us and YOUR cop could get to you BEFORE you reached room temperature. But he can't. And even if he could, the courts have continually ruled that he has NO obligation to save your butt. Don't believe me? Google "Warren v. District of Columbia" for some fascinating and frightening bedtime reading.

[theDentist]

Cool beans!

[evad]

All Right...what are we not being told here?

How do the LLE officers wind up suspecting this particular domicile?

How about some facts?

[rhombus]

Paging all drug warriors, paging all drug warriors....

But look at the messages we send to our children every single day with cigarettes, alcohol, and an endless stream of drug ads on television and in magazines. Drug culture? You bet we have.

Can I freshen your cup of coffee? This should be a good thread.

[patton]

"A Rand study showed that we can reduce illicit drug usage in this country a specified amount through treatment programs at about 10% of the cost of reducing drug usage by that same amount through criminalization and law enforcement. "

Odd that the amount is omitted.

[DanTheAdmin]

Oh jeez, here we go again! Popcorn time...

[longtermmemmory]

something is missing from this story.

Was anyone else in that house?

The story indicates this is the correct house. Were the drugs found there?

A 92 year old drug dealer is still a drug dealer.

[Lexington Green]

Just more Collateral Damage in the WOD. Are you next?

[Huck]

Not sure Boortz is making much sense here. On the one hand, the drug war is stupid. But what if druggies dont seek treatment? Force them to get treatment? And how do you do that? Prolly need to use force, right? Like go to their house and arrest them? Same crap, different day. Then at the end, he acknowledges we use drugs in our culture every day. So should we treat alcohol and tobacco like the other drugs? Or treat the other drugs like alcohol and tobacco?

[RAY]

Sad, but not bad shooting for a 92 year old -- three out of three! One was saved by his protective vest. Banging down someone's door, while in plain clothing - regardless of announcement, really invites problems. Don't count on her death being a lesson to overzealous narcotic agents.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

I hate the Drug War as much as any other pothead here on FR does, but something about this story doesn't ring true. If all the information on the warrant was correct, and they had articulable, accurate evidence that this 92-year-old woman was selling drugs out of her house, why in the world would the police find it necessary to execute a no-knock warrant (in plain clothes!) to apprehend such an old woman? Why couldn't this warrant have been executed in another way?

Have the cops been watching too much Dallas SWAT on A&E or something? Do they need to act like adrenaline cowboys each and every time they act?

[calex59]

For those of you who think the cops are being maligned here and not enough facts given, get real. This sort of stuff happens all the time in the US now thanks to our WOD and the use of no knock warrents.

The way to end this and the drug gangs is to legalize drugs. No, I am not a libertarian, but I am a person who uses history as a lesson. Drugs and gangs were not a problem in this country before they were outlawed. Prior to the turn of the century most drugs were legal in this country and the drug addition rate was no worse then than it is now, AND we had the added benefit of not having gangs that are financed by illegal drugs.

There are a whole lot of people who use a moralistic approach to drug use instead of the lesson that prohibition taught us, in fact there are some who still believe we should bring back prohibition along with bootleggers and the crime that was rampant during the prohibition era.

Want to end drug crime? Legalize it, take the money out of it and you will stop drug dealers and most of the crime in their tracks, not to mention defunding street gangs. Yes, we would probably still have gangs but we would take the sting out of most of them, without money they would fall apart.

I would be willing to bet that the reason drugs are NOT legalgalized in this country is, in large part, due to the bribing of officials to make sure the golden goose isn't slain. Flame away if you want, but this time maybe, just maybe, you could try using your heads to think with instead of your emotions.

[JamesP81]

For the longest time, I was against drug decriminilization. I've catigated Libertarians about being obsessed with drug legalization more than once.

Now, I'm no longer sure that legalization is a bad idea. Obviously, laws against driving under the influence and similar laws would remain, but I'm no longer convinced society is well served by imprisoning someone who uses drugs in their own home where they aren't messing with someone else while doing it.

I think that programs like those put on by churches, DARE, and the like have done far more to reduce drug use than any amount of enforcement ever did. And our enforcement procedures are making the cops look and act more like military forces or JBTs everyday. I fear where this road leads far more than some guy next door smoking himself to death with crack. If that sounds heartless, then I'm sorry, but that's how it is.

[Mr. Jeeves]

There's just something in the American psyche that demands that drug users be punished instead of treated and rehabilitated.

Puritan heritage.

[absolootezer0]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1742500/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1742448/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1742449/posts

[Gideon Reader]

No. It is not the "Drug War".
It was the stupid and careless execution of a Search Warrant by an alleged law enforcement entity, that did not have its shit together.
I would really like to read the Warrant and the Application and Affidavit for the Search Warrant as well as the ***REQUIRED***specific and particular description of the premises and curtilage to be searched and where they expected to find the contraband.

If anyone has personal problems with the "drug war" and it's connection to the procedures of the search and the warrant procedure, extensively and precisely governed by the Forth Amendment just replace the term "drugs" with contraband, i.e. explosives, child porn, widgets, macaroni, whatever.

It's HOW the search is executed and conducted. Not rocket science but not exactly art either. There is a correct and prescribed manner in which these things are done, with oversight (hopefully) by the supervisory echelon of the law enforcement entity. Mistakes do happen. But they should be rare to the extreme, if the individual executing Officers/Detectives/Agents do their job correctly and accurately.
Generally when incidents of this type occur, it is because of the piss poor selection of personnel by police agencies for their Detective/Investigator units.

[zeugma]

Great shooting by granny in what was probably a pretty intense situation. Unfortunately, she was out numerered by the thugs.

[SampleMan]

And had they gone to the wrong address to investigate a burglary or an armed robbery then this wouldn't have happened?

I fail to see the connection to the WOD.

[Lancey Howard]

The story I read last night was that the police were "approaching the house" when the woman shot at them. Somebody is lying.

[karnage]

I hate drugs. My stepbrother died of a heroin overdose. My big problem with the WOD is the erosion of due process. Seizure laws and no-knock warrants seem to violate the 4th Amendment. The gubmint has used the WOD to expand its tyrannical powers. I don't like that.

A 92 year-old lady is dead, 3 cops wounded. Sounds like a screw-up to me.

Also: did they find drugs in the house? Seems like that would be a big part of the story if they had.