Posted on 09/03/2002 7:41:56 AM PDT by JediGirl
| Those listed below includes innocent victims of police raids. Remember: Some, though not all, of the below victims never engaged in a single drug activity, yet they were still murdered due to the "War on Drugs." Even those who did and do engage in drug use do not warrant death. It was (and is) a personal choice and it was (and is) individual's own bodies. John Adams -- Tennessee A 62-year-old black man was shot and killed by five white police officers in Lebanon, Tennessee after they burst through the front door of his home at 10:00 PM on a Wednesday night. It turned out their search warrant for drugs was erroneous: It should have been written for the house next door. David Aguilar -- Arizona David Aguilar, 44, retired from the military after 20 years and decided to live on his pension so he could be a "stay-at-home dad" to his five youngest children, aged 3 to 15, according to Beth Cascaddan, his neighbor in Three Points, Arizona. "He was extremely devoted to his children," Ms. Cascaddan told reporter Melissa Martinez of the daily Tucson Citizen. Aguilar also coached youth football and baseball. But on the early afternoon of Friday, January 10, David Aguilar sensed something wrong. There was a man sitting in a car parked alongside the road bordering Aguilar’s property. Aguilar confronted the man and an argument emerged. Seeing that the stranger was not going to move along, Aguilar went back to the house and returned with a gun. The children told neighbor Bonnie Moreno their father was simply trying to scare the man away. There is no indication David Aguilar ever fired. When the man in the car saw Aguilar returning, he drew his own gun and, at 2:45 that Friday afternoon, fired multiple times through his own windshield. David Aguilar died that evening in a Tucson hospital, of a single gunshot wound to the chest. The shooter was an undercover agent of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. His name has never been released and he has not spent a single day in prison. Delbert Bonar -- Ohio Police in Belpre, Ohio, got a tip that Albert Bonar was growing and selling marijuana. So, on October 15, 1998, they raided the house where Albert lived, and shot to death his father, Delbert Bonar, 57, a janitor. Police did find a small amount of marijuana -- enough for personal consumption. Albert later admitted the marijuana was his. The police did not find any of the growing plants or large quantities of marijuana the informant allegedly told them about. The informant who gave the false information has not been named. Police told the press that they were just protecting themselves when they riddled the body of Delbert Bonar with bullets. But Carolyn Bonar, daughter-in-law of Delbert, says that all Delbert had in his hands was a water bottle. The elder Bonar was reaching for his telephone, an offense apparently punishable by death when there is a suspicion that marijuana may be on the premises. Delbert Bonar died instantly from 8 bullet wounds from police gunfire. In his 57 years, he had no criminal record and had never even been arrested. Vernia Brown -- New York On Thursday, March 17, 1988, at 10:45 p.m., in the Bronx, Vernia Brown was killed by stray bullets fired in a dispute over illegal drugs. The 19-year-old mother of one was not involved in the dispute, yet her death was a direct consequence of the "War on Drugs". Scott Bryant -- Wisconsin Age 29 at time of death when he was shot by police officer Robert Neuman of the Dodge County Sherrif's Department in Beaver Dam, WI, on April 28, 1995. Bryant was unarmed and did not resist in any way when police with a no-knock warrant charged through the door of his home. His seven-year-old son watched his father die while an ambulance took 35 minutes to arrive. Police later reported finding less than three grams of marijuana (enough for two or three cigarettes). Police claim it may have been an accidental shooting. An accident that has changed the lives of the Bryant family and many others in his state. Troy James Davis -- Texas Troy James Davis, 25, died December 15, 1999 at Columbia North Hills Hospital, about 15 minutes after being shot by North Richland Hills police officer Allen Hill. Police had gone to the Davis home to serve a search-and-arrest warrant in connection with an informant's tip that there were drugs in the house. After the shooting, Davis' mother, Barbara Davis, 49, was arrested in connection with the drug possession investigation. Police broke down the front door of the Davis home when they entered. Police have indicated that no drugs have been found on the home, using the “crime scene” as an excuse for their lack of evidence. One wonders why police broke into the home rather than knocking on the door. What kind of evidence did they have and how did they get it? Who was the informant? Barbara Davis has a defense fund set up on her behalf The Barbara Davis Defense Fund. Anna (Annie) Rae Dixon -- Texas Age 84 and bedridden when she was killed by police in a 1992 drug raid in East Texas. No drugs were found in the home. A 28 year-old officer said his automatic pistol accidentally discharged when he kicked open Mrs. Dixon's bedroom door. Earlier the evening of her death, an informant was given $30 to go into the Dixon home where he claimed he could buy drugs. He emerged with crack cocaine, but police did not search him either before or after the purchase. The informant reported that a few young women and children lived there, but he didn't report about the sick woman. Police got a search warrant and returned to the house just after 2:00 AM. They sprinted up the ramshackle porch and smashed the front door with a battering ram. As they swept in, the officer kicked in the door to Ms. Dixon's bedroom and fell, slamming his elbow against the door and firing the gun. The officer said he collapsed and "started throwing my guts up crying because I knew I had shot somebody that didn't have no reason to be shot." Steven Dons -- Oregon Dons, 37, "committed suicide" while in a medical facilty run by the State. He had been the victim of an unlawful raid by the Portland Oregon Police Department over the heinous crime of "maybe" having had marijuana in the house he was staying in. Dons was not a mild mannered customer. When the police kicked down his door without a warrant, he responed in a way appropriate for the situation. Using a rifle, he killed police officer Colleen Waibel and seriously wounded two other officers. The tragic results of a raid on a citizen who understood the Second and Fourth Amendments. Patrick Dorismond -- New York Juan Mendoza Fernandez -- Texas A 60-year-old man shot and killed by Irving, Texas police serving narcotics search and arrest warrants at his West Dallas home thought officers were burglars trying to force their way inside, members of his family said. He and his wife had been married about 36 years and had four children and 13 grandchildren. Curt Ferryman -- Florida The fatal shooting of unarmed drug dealer Curt Ferryman in a botched sting in Jacksonville was "negligent and unnecessary," but not flagrant enough to warrant criminal prosecution against the federal agent who shot the man, according to State Attorney Harry Shorstein. The August 14, 2000 raid of Ferryman was "poorly planned and poorly executed." Shorstein later admitted that "under Florida law, the killing of Curt Ferryman was excusable homicide." 30-year-old Christopher Sean Martin of the Drug Enforcement Administration accidentally shot Ferryman when the agent knocked on the window of a parked vehicle occupied by the 24-year-old Ferryman. Ramon Gallardo -- California Gallardo was shot 15 times by a SWAT team with a warrant for his son in Dinuba, California in 1997. Ralph Garrison -- New Mexico Ralph Garrison, 69, a video store owner, lived in downtown Albuquerque. In a lifetime of owning small businesses, he put away enough to buy a second house next door, which he rented out. Before sunrise on Monday, December 16, 1996, Ralph Garrison awakened to hear the sounds of someone breaking into his rental property next door. His tenants apparently were not at home. Garrison went outside to ask who these people were and what they were doing. The men -- dressed in black with no visible identifying marks, wearing black "balaclava" hoods which may have been pulled down to conceal their faces, shined lights in his eyes, brandished rifles and yelled at him to get back in his house. Ralph Garrison called 911. But 911 had already arrived. Police reported that police officer H. Neal Terry and county deputies James Monteith and Erik Little -- displaying no badges, dressed in unmarked dark SWAT gear, and possibly wearing their black hoods pulled down over their faces -- saw Garrison come to his back door with a gun in one hand and a cellular phone in the other. All three officers opened fire with their AR-15 assault rifles, discharging at least 12 rounds. Police Chief Joe Polisar and County Sheriff Joe Bowdich said they believe the officers shot Garrison in accordance with departmental policies. John P. Graham -- Wisconsin When Graham, 49, refused to get out of his truck and resisted during an on-site interrogation, he was handcuffed by Sauk-Prairie police officer John Mueller and ordered to remain face down on his driveway. Graham was then shot twice in the back of the head by Mueller with his police revolver. The incident occurred September 16, 1986. Willie Heard -- Kansas In the town of Osawatomie, Kansas (pop. 4,500), Willie Heard, a forty-six year-old man, was shot to death in his bedroom at 1:30 AM by police who had stormed into the home to execute a search warrant. Heard's sixteen year-old daughter claims that the officers failed to identify themselves other than to shout "freeze!" and "get down!" The police, after kicking in the front door, entered the bedroom and came upon Mr. Heard clutching his twenty-two caliber rifle. They shot. He died. The warrant said that the police were to search for crack cocaine and related items. None was found. A probe is underway by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to determine whether police acted improperly in killing Mr. Heard. John Hirko -- Pennsylvania A masked ninja style 'drug task force' squad of police officers gunned down an unarmed drug suspect in his own home in Bethlehem in April, 1996, in what the coroner subsequently ruled a homicide. The cops also set fire to the house, incinerating the body, but claimed to have miraculously retrieved the drugs for which they had a search warrant. Raul Huartado -- Indiana Gary police officer James Ervin, 30, is accused of using his position as a nine-year veteran on the Gary Police Department to take part in racketeering, homicide, and illicit drug distribution from at least the summer of 1998 through August, 1999. Ervin killed or counseled the killing of Raul Huartado and Gil Nevarez on November 19, 1998, as part of a plot to extort more than 5 kilograms of cocaine from the victims. Joey Kessinger -- Tennessee A tangle between the police and the suspect occurred regarding the illegal sale of drugs in July, 2001. According to the medical examiner's report, Kessinger had two gunshot wounds to the left wrist and four gunshot wounds on the back of his body. Bruce Lavoie -- New Hampshire On August 3, 1989, Lavoie lay peacefully sleeping in the room he shared with his young son in the village of Hudson. At 5:00 AM he was awakened by a loud noise as his whole home was shaken violently. A battering ram had smashed his front door and a dark band of armed men rushed into his small apartment. Rising to defend his son, Lavoie was shot to death as his little boy watched helplessly. Officers found one cannabis cigarette butt. Ronald Loop -- New Jersey Age 25 at time of death on March 11, 1988 in Brick Township. Suspected of marijuana dealing, Loop had just picked up a Federal Express package that contained 10 pounds of marijuana. He was unarmed and was shot as he fled from police outside his home. Ismael Mena -- Colorado Kirk Massie -- Oklahoma Officers shot and killed an armed Sparks man hiding in his bathroom one Tuesday morning in mid-2001 as a search warrant was served at his home. Kirk Massie, 49, was armed with a double-barrel shotgun when agents entered his Lincoln County home at 7:50 AM to serve a warrant for methamphetamine. Massie operated a meth. lab in a bunker on the property. His life was taken because of it. Pedro Oregon Navarro -- Texas Acting on an informant's tip, members of the Houston Police Department gang taskforce stormed into an apartment last month they believed illegal drugs were being sold. When the man who lived there locked himself inside his bedroom, the officers kicked in the door and began firing. Thirty-three bullets later, 23 year-old Pedro Oregon Navarro was dead, shot a dozen times, including nine times in the back. But the investigation in the wake of the fatal shooting shows the officers had no warrant, the informant was not registered with the police as required by Department rules covering drug informants, police found no drugs in Mr. Oregon's apartment and a gun officers said Mr. Oregon had pointed at them never was fired. "They went knowingly and consciously in search of their own heroics and forgot to abide by the rules," says Tony Cantu, a hispanic activist in Houston. "The bottom line is they shot an innocent young man in the back after in illegal entry," Mr. Dovalina said. Gil Nevarez -- Indiana Gary, Indiana police officer James Ervin, 30, is accused of using his position as a nine-year veteran on the Gary Police Department to take part in racketeering, homicide and illicit drug distribution from at least the summer of 1998 through August 1999. Ervin killed or counseled the killing of Raul Huartado and Gil Nevarez on November 19, 1998, as part of a plot to extort more than 5 kilograms of cocaine from the victims. Mario Paz -- California A 69 year old grandfather died a brutal death at the hands of police looking for marijuana on August 9, 1999. No drugs were found. It was an hour before midnight when an El Monte police SWAT team, serving a search warrant as part of a broad-ranging narcotics investigation, undertook what it called the "high-risk entry" of a Compton home -- shooting the locks off the front and back doors. Their warrant, which named no one specifically in the Paz home, says police expected to find marijuana and cash belonging to a suspected member of a drug ring who had allegedly used the house as a mail drop. They found no drugs, but in the course of the search they shot a retired grandfather twice in the back -- killing him. The widow was hustled out of the house in nothing but panties, a towel, and plastic handcuffs. She and six others were later taken away and intensively interrogated, but no one was charged. Ten thousand dollars in cash was seized as evidence, along with a .22- caliber rifle and three pistols, according to investigators for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The family said that the money was patriarch Mario Paz's life savings and that he kept firearms for protection in the high-crime neighborhood. Robert Lee Peters -- Florida Age 33 at time of death in St. Petersburg in July, 1994. Deputies did not identify themselves before breaking into the house as the family prepared to watch a movie. Friends and relatives say Peters may have mistaken them for burglars. Deputies did not know there were two children and his ailing stepfather (who had a heart attack after the shoot-out) in the house at the time of the no-knock raid. The police tried to smash through the front door with a battering ram. Peters fired a .357 magnum through the door and was struck three times by the SWAT team. Two pounds of marijuana were confiscated from his home. Records indicate that a confidential informant bought 7.3 grams of marijuana. An undercover detective purchased 27 grams. His brother George was charged and did not resist arrest. George said his brother wouldn't have resisted either, had he known they were deputies. "All they had to do," he said, "was knock on the door." Manuel Medina Ramirez -- California When Ramirez, a 63-year-old retired golf-course groundskeeper, was routed from his slumber at 2:00 AM by armed men breaking down the door of his modest Stockton home, he instinctively reached for his bedside pistol. Shooting into the darkness, he brought one of the men down; the others returned fire, and Ramirez was shot dead in front of his son and daughter, who had also been awakened. The armed men turned out to be a Stockton police anti-drug team who had obtained a warrant for the house after a friend of the Ramirez family was found with marijuana in his car and gave the police the Ramirez address as his own. The officers claim they had identified themselves, but the Ramirez daughter says her father spoke poor English and couldn't understand them. No drugs were found in the house. "These were very quiet people," said a neighbor. "I never saw anything going on that could indicate drugs at all." Donald Scott -- California Michael Swimmer -- Georgia While Swimmer stood naked by his own bed, drug warrior police burst through his front door and riddled his bedroom with machine gun fire. Swimmer was shot ten times and died a few hours later. The authorities all agreed killing Swimmer, who had no police record, was just fine because an unidentified informant said that he had 368 tablets of ecstasy. Rev. Accelyne Williams -- Massachusetts Retired Methodist minister Accelyne Williams was chased around his Boston apartment by members of a police team looking for drugs and guns when he collapsed and died of a heart attack at the age of 75. Acting on a tip by an informant, the police conducted a no-knock raid. No guns or drugs were found, as it was soon discovered they raided the wrong apartment. George Timothy Williams -- Idaho Officer Phillip Anderson, 23, and his partner, Cpl. James Moulson, 30, were killed in the shootout at the Eden home of George Timothy Williams the night of January 3, 2001 while attempting to serve a search warrant for illegal drugs at Williams' home. Williams, 47, a suspected drug dealer, was also killed during the fight. About four grams of marijuana were found in Williams' home after the raid. Rusty Windell -- Texas |
Well - those bullies! Gosh - I guess they just risk their lives for the fun of it huh? Each time they go in on a raid, they have the chance of being shot dead. Then the police get to pay death benefits to the family.
Guess you would expect the police to turn that over to the maligned good citizen drug dealers wouldn't you?
Just maybe those funds are used to pay salaries, supplies, weapons, bullets, equipment to pay for these men to try and control the illegal sale of drugs in our society. Or, are they supposed to just let the drug dealers have free reign and do what they want?
I'm sure people enjoy the crack houses where the dealin' is done around their homes. Don't expect the police to do anything about it huh?
You might want to ask yourself why you think drug dealers should have free reign to cripple our adults, to abuse any in their way.
I use to be for legalization merely to get the crime and the big bucks out of the drug trade. However, I finally decided I did not want to pay taxes to support all those drug addicted maligners who won't or can't work because they have to do drugs. I don't want to pay for raising their children or for agencies to come in and be sure the children are fed or are not murdered in a drug induced state by their loving mother and father.
I finally decided that since we can't depend on people to be smart enough to know that drugs are slave masters that will rule the lives of those opening the gate from then on, how would it help to make the slave master's product cheaper so more people could use their deep intellect to CHOOSE to willfully live their lives looking for the next fix?
This society needs productive healthy people - not dopeheads draining society.
They should be responsible - yes. But, with an addictive drug, their lives are owned by the need for the drug. They then can no longer hold a job. I wonder why? Could it be because they are a danger to other people depending on them at work? Why does a corporation have to spend millions of dollars a year to have a drug control program to prevent these dope heads from killing other employees or customers?
Wonder where that money comes from? Maybe it is added to the cost of products like gasoline. Maybe we - the working population that manages to control our desire for a life altering addiction - get to pay these extra charges so that bums can have the freedom to suck on some chemical for a high.
Maybe we - the working crowd - get to pay for the nation wide services to pick up the care for children left behind in their parents quest for euphoria. Maybe we even get to kick in and pay for welfare so they can continue their descent of non-responsibility.
The only way I would be agreeable for them to partake of the joy of drugs is if they deposit the funds for their medical care, their children's upkeep and education into a fund for future use SHOULD they be one of the very few that got addicted to something so tame as a chemical constructed by unregulated people in their kitchens for sale to those wanting future horror in their lives.
I cannot believe the sheer stupidity of their quest for such a chemical. The only possible reason for this quest is that they have already been fed a starter addictive dose through some tame form of entertainment. Otherwise, they would not touch that stuff ever. Nobody could even pay me to take a substance that is concocted in someone's dirty garage by dirty hands, with bug ridden ingredients.
Yet - these same people see nothing wrong with suing a drug company for a reaction to a FDA approved medication put together under the highest controls.
OK, what about people that actually do work for a living, raise a family, pay taxes, etc. and go home after work and smoke a little herb. You think they're a 'drain on society'? Sorry, I have to disagree.
I do agree with you that crack, coke, heroin, etc. are very dangerous, and they should be outlawed, but marijuana? Come on! If marijuana were so dangerous and addictive that it should be illegal, the same should go for alcohol and cigarettes, which, IMHO, are far more dangerous than marijuana.
In the top paragraph, I described myself, by the way.
In your following words:
How about a list of all that have been killed by bad drugs on the street? How about a list of all the children abused by parents who enjoy the freedom of spending food money on drugs? How about a list of rehab charges submitted to insurance companies for payment?Substitute alcohol or tobacco for the word drugs and you have similar sentiments, similar problems and similar issues.Drugs are destructive to society. To ignore this fact and set you and your family up for the horrors of drug addiction is idiotic. Any one with any sense would stay as far away from drugs and the gateway to the drug culture as they could. It is interesting to note that once they have partaken of drugs - the realization of all the danger subsides and they walk in sprouting that drugs won't hurt me.
Someone would have to pay me big bucks to take any of that junk. Life is hard enough without that downtime.
Are we to outlaw those too? Some folks are pushing for it for sure. We tried one of them once, and it didn't work. Too many people were turned into criminals. It's happening again. (And let me add here that I also believe that those substances of alcohol and tobacco are bad and should be avoided at almost all costs too ... bit not at the cost of all of our liberties and constitutional rights). Are we to create laws that allow for abject constitutional violation in order to uphold the outlawing of those substances? You can't legislate or "buy" moral security anymore than you can phyiscal security. when you try, you tend to lose both.
To me the issue is not whether or not one should or should not partake of these substances. Clearly, one should not. But can we force the issue and say that one cannot. I believe that what an adult does in the privacy of thier own abode, that does not have an immediate harmful impact on another, should be left alone. Even if it is sinful. The "does not immediately harm another" is the key. As soon as those individuals, as a result of their addiction or stupor, go out and do something to hurt another, lower the boom on them for that specifc crime. And lower it hard.
Let the states pass their own laws accordingly (ie. don't go after consumption and regulate dissimination just like was done with alcohol), and then the Feds only role is the regulation of the interstate trade.
Hopefully then, we can keep the truly violent in jail, get the unconstitutinal laws for search and seizure, no-knock warrants, warrantless searches, assett forfeiture, annonymous witnesses and informants off the books and use our Christian principles of persuasion and teaching to help educate others away from such a lifestyle.
I know this does not sound like a good solution in the current environment, but it would not have sounded good during the prohibition days either ... but it is essentially what we ultimately came to. And it is far better IMHO, than the increasingly rapid erosion of our rights in a mistaken (and I believe in many ways contrived) attempt to "secure" us all by increasingly intrusive laws that violate us all.
I do not believe you can enforce morality of such choices that do not infringe on the rights of, or harm, others and still call it moral. Punish those who commit crimes of infringement and harm to others. In a free society as envisioned by the founders, people had to be free to make their own choices as long as they did not harm others. Vices are like that ... as much as I believe them to be morally and even individually repugnant ... we either allow people to choose, knowing that there are some who will not change ... or we create a police state trying to enforce every jot and tittle of what the majority feels is "right" at any particualr moment. Ultimately that gives the power to create a tyranny by democracy which ultimatlely leads to true tyranny and totalitariansm IMHO.
This does not mean we call it right. It isn't. It just means we try and persuade and teach people of the wrong so they can make their own choices about their own personal choices. In so doing, we should plainly call it what it is ... a vice and wrong and then try and get people to recognize this and choose the correct path. Then we lock up the ones who can't handle their choices and go out and commit crimes as a result ... and we lock them up for a long time (Note: This should also be applied to drunken drivers and the like).
Just my two cents.
So you agree with a system that allows people who are never even charged with, much less convicted of, a crime to have property seized from them and redistributed to police forces, because the police have a hard, dangerous job? Of course they have a difficult job. Do you also think they should be able to steal evidence? After all, look at everything their poor wives go through - don't they deserve a shiny new diamond ring taken from a murder victim's hand?
You apparently believe that everyone who has ever been accused of a crime is in fact guilty of said crime. That deep belief in the Almighty Good of The State is apparent in the rest of your post, wherein you freely acknowledge that your support of the WOsD is based on your feeling that the government's job is to protext people from themselves.
If the JBT's are breaking into a house, wearing black suits and wearing black hoods, they deserve to get their asses shot! Most no knock raids aren't commited because of fear of the occupant, but because the cops want to play Rambo and show how tough they are so they can justify their existance.
My Daddy always told me "Boy, only a thief needs a mask." And that's what most LEO's are today, except it's legal theivery. Who are you going to call when the police are robbing you?
But I know many smokers who are good men and women, better than me in some other areas far more important (at least IMHO) than the vice they have given into. A vice that is very liable ultimately to kill them.
In such instances, I do not castigate ... but I do try and directly witness to them and influence them through persuasion and long suffering away from it, while extolling their other very good traits.
... they also know that while in my house they cannot engage in their habit and they respect that.
Yes.
You might want to ask yourself why you think drug dealers should have free reign to cripple our adults, to abuse any in their way.
I'm not yours.
This society needs productive healthy people - not dopeheads draining society.
Reading that makes me want to start a serious hard drug habit so that I can do my part to destroy this pagan "Society" arch-demon that communists are always invoking.
It's not being left up to the states! If a state passes a law permitting the medical dispaensing of any scheduled drug, as several have, the federosaurus will pull any prescribing doctor's license to practice.
Bingo, you hit the nail on the head with the above italicized comment.
Many drugs are not addictive. Many.
Many abused drugs are legally prescribed. Many.
Your perception of drug abusers being incapable of holding jobs is ludicrous and naive. The Betty Ford clinic wasn't established for welfare recipients. A great many drug abusers are extremely high functioning individuals who knock down major bucks and hold positions of responsibility in the community. Face it, these are the guys who can afford coke and the 'best' drugs.
If it weren't for the increased costs of law enforcement, most street drugs would be much more affordable and wouldn't require theft to support a drug habit.
Alcohol prohibition spawned organized crime. Drug prohibition made it a career path.
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