Posted on 03/23/2006 10:59:34 AM PST by seacapn
HORN LAKE, Miss. — An unidentified elderly Horn Lake couple were hospitalized Thursday after police burst into their home thinking it housed a methamphetamine laboratory.
The incident occurred Wednesday about 4 a.m., said police Capt. Shannon Beshears. Beshears said it was the right address but the wrong house.
Beshears said a heavily armed Tactical Apprehension Containment Team stormed the house.
"We had good information from a reliable source that had been backed up by a purchase of narcotics linked to the address. However, when we arrived at the designated address, there were two houses on the lot. We hit the larger of the two houses.
"It was the wrong house," Beshears said. "The house was totally dark and the TACT members went through to the bedroom looking for the suspects."
A man and a woman — both in their 80s — were injured as TACT team members secured the house although no drugs were found. There were children in the house also, but they were not awakened, Beshears said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
>>The worst you can say about cops around here is that they don't do enough.
Someohow, it seems that doing too much of the wrong thing and not enough of the right things are linked.
>>You are much more apt to be sickened by the residue of meth labs here, than a victim of police misconduct.
Another overblown media myth. Yes, it is bad for you, but this is like secondhand smoke, as far as real science is concerned. Feel free to post a credible story about someone being sickened from a lab in a neighboring house.
>>No telling what the "cooks" dumped in it. All I know is that there aren't anymore fish now.
Science!
>>You may have a very militarized police force in your area, but thats more the exception than the rule.
Nearly every town of more than 50k (and many smaller) have machine guns and armored vehicles. Paid for by our federal tax dollars. A standing federal army.
BULL SHIT.
Another example of the macho-cop, adrenaline-pumping, tough-guy mentality to infects virtually every officer in every small town police force in the nation. I live in the South and here, it comes with the breeding--macho is a job requirement. We have to recognize that these people are the less-than intellectual high-school dropouts, GED, or bottom of the class winners that couldn't get into college, enlisted in the Army, served their tour as MPs and for lack of any other training went to the police academy. Their only claim to pride and power in their lives is putting on their uniforms and having other people look at them and fear them. Sounds a lot like politicians now that I think about it.
"Militarized police forces have become the "standing army" our founders feared."
Indeed, they are even being quartered in seized homes given to them for
their brave acts of defending the citizenry from flowers from the garden
of God.
I *hope* you mean, never 'tweak' at all.
The spate of home labs in America is a plague. I have long held and still believe that drug rules should be relaxed to permit doctors to prescribe almost anything to their patients, for the purpose of bona fide treatment of disease, so long as they are held liable for untoward results. No suicide medicine, no tripping just for the sake of tripping.
All hail the oligarchy of doctors!
How many instances does it take before the police become a bigger danger than the crooks they're supposed to be fighting against? Especially considering that the more wrongful police raids there are, the safer it will be for criminals to adopt the same tactics.
Is there any reason not to (1) require that all officers involved on a raid personally ensure that the raid they are conducting is authorized by a facially-valid warrant, (2) treat any officer whose actions are not authorized by a facially-valid warrants the same was as an ordinary person would be regarded for doing those same actions, including (3) prosecute under the felony murder rule any agent who takes part in a raid not authorized by a facially-valid warrant if any person is killed in the course of such a raid?
If someone isn't willing to take the time to read a warrant to ensure that it facially authorizes conducting a raid in the planned fashion, that person shouldn't be conducting a raid.
BTW, I believe this country also needs some judges to tighten up on the "oath or affirmation" requirement. The only fact that was attested to under oath or affirmation to secure that warrant on Cory Maye's dwelling was that there was an (unspecified) unusual amount of traffic to the primary dwelling at the residence. There was some hearsay regarding goings-on there, but warrants should not be issued on the basis of hearsay which is not given under oath or affirmation.
Might have saved this woman:
NYC Woman Dies During Botched Police Raid
New York (AP) - A 57-year-old woman died of an apparent heart attack Friday after police detonated a flash grenade and handcuffed her during a raid on the wrong apartment.
Alberta Spruill, a longtime city employee, was pronounced dead about an hour after a dozen heavily armed officers broke into her home at dawn. "We're deeply saddened," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "It's a tragedy. This should not have happened."
An informant said that Spruill's sixth-floor Harlem apartment was being used by an armed drug dealer to stash cocaine and heroin, police officials said.
If judges are willing to issue warrants on the basis of hearsay which is not given (by the original speaker) under oath or affirmation, what is the point of the "oath or affirmation" requirement in the Constitution?
Great Post.
Constitution, shmonstitution ... don't you know there's a War On Drugs going on? Terrorizing innocent seniors is a small price to pay for protecting fools from themselves.
Legalize and regulate, and home labs will be as rare as moonshine stills.
BruceysMom, I agree with you, I'm on the east coast and meth labs are popping up all over the place. It's having a devastating effect on the generation of young adults and there is no one that is immune, all races, all classes, all ages. And yes, elderly people have even been charged with dealing it.
It is awful that these two elderly people were injured, however, if you read the article link to Fox, there is a little more info as well as in several other papers.
The houses were on one lot, which could indicate it's either a rental or family members living in the other one. When they went into the smaller of the two there was a woman cooking up a batch and they arrested her, they also arrested another guy who was probably her spouse. The elderly couple requested that their names not be printed. Was this because one of the people arrested was perhaps their son or daughter and they were mortified? Were the kids sleeping their granchildren who they probably had at their own house because of what their parents were doing? For all we know the elderly couple may be very grateful that the cops raided their house and put an end to the situation. For all we know, they may have been dealing with far worse situation than bruised ribs and a dislocated shoulder if their kids were infact dealing and taking advantage of them. There are two sides to every story and what is printed more often than not is just one side.
Going into a meth lab is an extremely volatile situation, not only because you might encounter a hopped up drug user with weaapons, but also because it is highly explosive and therefore requires protective gear. In fact disassembling a meth lab requires special training as well as a hazmat team.
The guys that go in to do that are also exposed to serious health risks. The residue that the meth lab leaves behind can pose serious health hazards to future occupants and in quite a few states they are introducing laws which hold real estate agents and landlords accountable for the property in which it must be disclosed to buyers or renters. Entire families have become seriously ill from moving into homes that were once meth labs and in which they were not informed of and only learned about from researching the property.
Meth is an extremely devastating drug and I would be much more concerned for my family's safety living next to one than from the cops mistakenly raiding my house.
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