Posted on 08/19/2006 9:08:27 AM PDT by JTN
Dundalk, Md. - The SWAT team shooting death of Dundalk mother Cheryl Noel is part of a national increase in overly aggressive home invasion tactics by police officers, according to a recent study by the Cato Institute.
“It’s troubling,” said Radley Balko, a policy analyst at Cato, a libertarian nonprofit public policy research think tank. “When you give domestic police officers military equipment, train them in military tactics and then tell them they’re fighting a War on Drugs, it’s not surprising that they behave like they’re in the military.”
Noel’s family last week filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against Baltimore County and five of its officers, because of a 2005 SWAT team raid of her home, during which a police officer shot Noel to death in her bedroom.
The raid yielded two charges of marijuana possession against Noel’s 19-year-old son and her husband.
The case is an example of how the Special Weapons and Tactics team raids are “needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping,” said Balko, author of “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.”
Paramilitary raids on U.S. houses have increased by 1,300 percent in the last 25 years, the study states. There are about 40,000 annually in American, the vast majority of which are to serve routine drug warrants, including for marijuana possession as in Noel’s case, Balko said.
Noel’s death is one of at least six botched paramilitary raids in Maryland since 1988 and four since 2002, according to the Cato Institute.
Others include incidents in Baltimore City and Prince George’s County.
Noel, 44, was shot to death during a 4:30 a.m. raid on Jan. 21, 2005. She and her husband, Charles, were asleep in the master bedroom of their row house when the Baltimore County SWAT team stormed through her home.
According to the family’s federal lawsuit, officers had found “trace amounts of drugs” in trash cans outside of the house.
Cheryl Noel feared criminal intruders had broken into her home, grabbed a lawfully registered gun and held it pointed at the floor, the suit states.
One officer kicked in her bedroom door with his boot and, without identifying himself or telling Noel to drop her weapon, shot her three times, including once after she had slumped to the floor, according to the suit.
The Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office ruled that Noel’s death was justified, but Balko said such raids “bring unnecessary violence to nonviolent drug offenders.”
Baltimore police seem really defensive about the Noel case. Two called in to the Ron Smith show earlier this week to excoriate me for daring to suggest that sending a SWAT team into a family home at 5am after finding marijuana seeds in the household trash probably isn't an advisable police tactic.
Another Baltimore SWAT officer just berated me in an email in response to the Examiner article.
You'd think that the prevailing sentiment among Baltimore cops in reaction to an innocent woman's needless death at the hands of one of their colleagues would be empathy, perhaps even regret. Intead, thus far the reaction I've experienced has been to lash out at me for arguing that the case merits reevaluating the way Baltimore-area police use paramilitary tactics.
Ping
WTF?? This is really reaching in my book. On another note who would not respond in the same way at 4:30am as a home owner? Sick...really sick CYA tactics.
If anyone breaks into my house at 5am, then kicks in my bedroom door he's going to do whatever he does next with a face full of buckshot.
If someone breaks down my door at 4:30AM, I ain't about to not defend myself no matter how many times they yell "Police." If I was a home invader, that's just the tactic I would use.
"On another note who would not respond in the same way at 4:30am as a home owner?"
We have been having some hme invasion robberies here in Houston.
Someone busts down my door at 4:30 in the morning as they come down the hall they are going to be met by my 12 guage shotgun.
I feel for our cops and thank them for their service but some of these guys truly get pumping on andrenalin and some of them are truly wannabes. I know SWAT tries to keep the wannabes out but they are not always sucessful.
Fine line we have to walk.
It's been going on for at least a decade.
http://www.theagitator.com/archives/025953.php has some more information.
And a SWAT team was needed for some seeds???!
It's a damn shame this country is so whacked....
Yes but think how much safer we are now that those seeds have been confiscated
Recently had a "big bust" in a small town here in IN. Dug through the guys trash for months, used heat seeking technology with one man planes and ultralights to spot the grow room.
Don't think they used SWAT team, but most dozens of cops to catch a 61 year old guy with chronic back problems and 4 immature plants in his basement.
Our militarized local and federal law enforcement bodies are the standing army our founders feared.
Some people deserve respect, others demand it.
I have seen training given to police officers instructing them that computer evidence, like drug evidence, merits such no-knock tactics since there is some chance that a malefactor might be able to erase evidence before it can be seized.
From me...they'll get what's behind door number one...what u say Monty, that's right... "13 rounds of .45 caliber hollow point..."...and if that buys me time to get to the closet...what is that u say monty, what's behind door number two? "30 rounds of 5.56 millimeter...is what the home invader will aslo receive as a "departing" gift..."
(Not counting reloads, here)
>One officer kicked in her bedroom door with his boot and, without identifying himself or telling Noel to drop her weapon, shot her three times, including once after she had slumped to the floor, according to the suit.
The Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office ruled that Noel’s death was justified,<
Can't have citizens protecting themselves from intruders, you know.
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