Posted on 05/25/2011 10:50:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
Jose Guereña survived two tours in Iraq, but he couldn't survive his own government.
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik infamously railed in January of this year that Arizona is a “Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
One must wonder if the “prejudice and bigotry” he considers endemic to Arizona is to blame for the death of U.S. Marine veteran Jose Guereña, killed when Dupnik’s deputies gunned him down in his home. They fired 71 shots. They hit him 60 times. And then, as if this wasn’t enough, Dupnik’s deputies blocked paramedics for an hour and 14 minutes from approaching the scene, denying Guereña treatment until he was assuredly dead.
Dupnik’s SWAT team initially claimed that Guereña fired at them while they were serving a warrant — as he slept. They claimed that his bullets hit the bulletproof shield that the entry team hid behind, and that the barrage of bullets they fired back was in self-defense.
Only, Guereña never fired his weapon. Awoken by his wife with screams that men with guns were invading his home and threatening his family, Jose Guereña armed himself with a AR-15 rifle and crouched in the hallway. The SWAT team unloaded upon Guereña on sight. He apparently recognized the home invaders as police. He took 60 rounds, but never — as the Pima County Sheriff’s Department was forced to admit — took off his weapon’s safety as he was being killed.
Prejudice and bigotry?
It was, you’ll recall, a claim Dupnik made in the wake of Jared Loughner’s bloodly rampage at a “Congress in your Corner” event at a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, where six were killed and 14 others were injured — including, gravely, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Dupnik was attempting to blame the conservative Tea Party movement for the shooting when he made the comment. And even after it was revealed that Loughner’s few known political views had been described as “quite liberal,” and were in fact muddled at best, he refused to retract his slur.
So when Dupnik’s teams attempted a complicated four-house raid of minority families looking for drugs, perhaps bigotry and prejudice really was in play.
Perhaps Dupnik’s officers assumed every Hispanic accused of being a drug dealer really was one, and perhaps they assumed that the tenant of a home protecting his loved ones must be a bloodthirsty cartel member waiting in ambush. Is that why they gunned down a tired, hard-working father sleeping off a night shift at the local copper mine? A Marine veteran of Iraq that had the discipline not to fire — a discipline that a trigger-happy SWAT team which has now killed three men in less than a year cannot itself exercise?
Not only has the Pima Sheriff’s Department tried to justify firing 71 shots at one man in a small hallway, hitting him (thankfully, just him) 60 times in a home where his wife and child were present. They’ve attempted to justify their refusal to let a team of paramedics treat Guereña, who was still miraculously alive after being sprayed mercilessly with bullets. It takes a competent SWAT team just a handful of minutes to “clear” a residential home during a raid. Dupnik’s SWAT team refused to declare the scene “clear” for an agonizing one hour and 14 minutes, and not until Jose Guereña had already died.
A cynic might be tempted to suggest Dupnik’s SWAT team was waiting for the only witness to their assault to die. Considering how the Sheriff’s Department has acted since they stormed the home, a rational person might be tempted to agree.
Not content to blame the victim for his own death, they attempted to insinuate he was a drug dealer, even though they were forced to admit under direct questioning that no drugs were found in his home, and that a clumsy cop falling down may have triggered the bloodbath.
Vanessa Guereña claims that neither she nor her husband heard the officers announce themselves as police. As anyone who has ever seen an episode of any popular police reality show knows, no entry team waits 15 seconds after announcing themselves to batter down a door and rush the inhabitants — as Pima County Lt. Michael O’Connor claims his SWAT team did. Identical scenes of immediate entry upon announcement (or after breaching), without giving those inside a chance to react, is a standard tactic captured again and again.
Why Lt. Michael O’Connor decided to tell a mistruth about a well-known, heavily documented, and highly standardized technique isn’t immediately clear. Perhaps it is because of the inevitable wrongful death lawsuit to be filed against the Pima County Sheriff’s Department on behalf of Vanessa Guereña and her two children. Or perhaps it is because of the possible DOJ civil rights investigation. Perhaps Dupnik’s employees simply are unable to act any more professionally after a raid than they do during one.
No-knock warrants are typically used to surprise the target of raids and keep them from disposing of evidence, with possible violence from the offender cited as justification for the military-style use of heavy armor and machine guns.
Jose Guereña’s death was entirely preventable. Over-armed, over-amped law enforcement is causing far more harm to the public than other tactics and techniques possibly could.
The over-militarization of law enforcement agencies and over-use of SWAT teams is an idea that needs to be revisited in a sane society. Too many good people have been traumatized, and too many killed, under the flimsiest of circumstances.
After surviving two tours of duty in Iraq, only to lose his life in an encounter with Clarence Dupnik’s keystone cops, Jose Guereña was buried with full military honors.
Are you ashamed at having to admit supporting the Wickard Commerce Clause? You know, the one that allows fedgov to control education, health care and the environment.
Make that... “run away from”
They probably don’t think he was “innocent”,
because he owned a gun.
I hear the Oathkeepers are having a rally/protest in response to this.
Remember who the Oathkeepers are - military and LEOs who swear to uphold the Constitution, with the unspoken addendum of “against government abuse”.
Your right. The Republicans got their jollies beating up “dirtbags”. They used all the civil authority they could muster to do it. Now when the wheel turns and the dirtbags control the mechanisms of power, well, it comes back on them.
A story from the day. A Mongolian King conquered all the surrounding tribes. He was proud, and used captured princes to pull his yurt. One day, as he was riding along, he noticed one of his princes watching the wheel next to him go around and around. He asked this captured slave why he was watching the wheel go around. The Prince replied, “I was just noticing that what was once on top, is now on the bottom”. From that day forward the King never used princes to pull his yurt.
So for years, Republicans have rode the “law and order” bandwagon. They have built an enormous and powerful law enforcement machine. Built courtrooms and prisons, hired judges, and denounced tricksy lawyers who insisted on enforcing the 4th amendment. So look at where we are today. The infrastructure is built, the streets are crawling with cops, guns and boots and the 4th amendment is seen as an inconvenient speed bump.
The fastest way to be called a “Druggie” around here is to argue for constitutional rights. Your ilk are why the balance of power between the individual and the State is out of wack. Today they come after the “druggie”. Tomorrow they go after you because you (fill in the blank). You won’t be able to do anything about it. Fourth amendment crushed, 2nd gone, fifth amendment gone. But at least we got the damn druggies.
Those Ferrel humans deserve extermination, or at least a good beat down, right Redleg Duke?
You won’t answer the Commerce clause question will you?
Self ping
You comment is an insult and childish. It is obvious to any rational human that the so called "War on Drugs" has done great harm to our Republic. The failed War on Drugs has militarized our police and in the process many innocent citizens have been murdered by government thugs.
The rate of drug use of the populace has not changed since the War on Drugs began. Those who have no faith in people to make the right decisions, who believe that without the War on Drugs everyone in their brother will start taking drugs are the naive fools of our society.
I have NEVER and will never take drugs because I know the harm they can do to the body. Most people are that way. For whatever reason, those prone to take and abuse drugs will do so no matter the legality. There is a segment of any society that have pathologies that lead them to be destructive in their habits. No law can stop that. Funds would be better spent helping those people.
The WOD and the resulting militarization of our society is highly destructive to our Liberties. Only someone who have LITTLE faith in their fellow man would support the utterly stupid, destructive WOD. They wrongly believe that thw WOD is keeping drugs use from exploding.
If somehow our Republic would end the War on Drugs, our society would become much more peaceful and most of the criminal drugs gangs to disappear.
p.s. I am not a Libertarian. I have read much of what Milton Freidman wrote about this matter and agree with his conclusions.
You have a good appreciation of the value of Liberty and a deep respect for our beloved Constitution. Our Founders would be in line with your thinking. See my post #49.
They didn’t think he was innocent because they raided the wrong house.
Wrong-house raids should be severely punished until every raid goes to the correct address and takes out the correct perp(s).
The men on these teams and their leaders simply cannot be allowed ever to commit a crime like this one.
Are they really so stupid, careless, and thoughtless about their egregious error that gunning down an innocent father and patriot means nothing to them?
I may appear to be a little upset about this, but that would be a gross understatement.
You sir, are not a modern conservative. Neither am I. You are a classical liberal like Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, or John Adams.
To a whole lot more of these Freeper geniuses than I would care to admit you are half a commie and a druggie. Constitution be damned.
We should all be as upset as you.
You missed my meaning a bit, I think.
According to the left and the “ruling class”, like Dupnik, there ARE no innocent gun owners. They said in the article that a SWAT style raid was their common practice if the homeowner was a gun owner.
I’d take your “wrong house raid” statement a bit further and say there shouldn’t be any “raids” of private property. No “dynamic” serving of warrants, EVER.
When serving a warrant, they MUST knock, wait for the occupants to answer the door, identify themselves, and present the warrant.
I don’t really care that some criminals will destroy evidence under this scenario. It is far better that that happen than the wrong house be violated, much less an innocent person killed.
[nodding]
You’re right.
No, I got what you meant, and I’m sure they’re going to try to make criminals out of all 80,000,000 of us with their draconian laws.
Spit.
>Heavy fines and jail time are in order, and imprisonment for killing an innocent like Jose Guereña.
Wrong, Death.
US CODE TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 13, § 242. Deprivation of rights under color of law
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; AND IF DEATH RESULTS FROM THE ACTS COMMITTED IN VIOLATION OF THIS SECTION or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or MAY BE SENTENCED TO DEATH.
>Is there a grand jury formed to determine if indictments are forthcoming against the members and leadership of this SWAT team?
F— indictments, they require the government’s involvement; this is EXACTLY the place to use Presentments*.
*The Grand Jury has the authority to investigate crimes itself and is INDEPENDENT of the government.
You’re right. Thank you. Sometimes I get so bloodthirsty that I have to tone it down. In this case, I shouldn’t have.
>>We have now heard from one of our resident libertarians, crying for drug legalization.
>
>So do you think the Commerce Clause delegates to fedgov the authority to impose national prohibition... YES or NO?
As much as I hate “precedent” because it is used, roughly, by the Judiciary to play the childeren’s game ‘Telephone’ with the rights of the Citizen I will use it to my own advantage.
Prohibition *REQUIRED* a constitutional amendment [#18] in order to impose the federal regulation of a substance [Alcohol]; that Amendment was repealed in its entirety [#21], so then: by what authority is this “War on Drugs” federal regulation of substances? The precedence is set that it requires a Constitutional Amendment.
>I think I am pretty well fed up with you druggies.
Would you call me a druggie because I do not believe that the Federal government has the LEGITIMATE authority to regulate those substances?
>I think I am pretty well fed up with the lawless and unreliable libertarians.
And what is more lawless than our Judiciaries where they declare that imagined numbers (”projections”) cover the requirement that Eminent Domain be for “public use” [2005, Kelo v. New London]?
That “We hold that there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.” [20011, IN Supreme Court] — 2nd-to-last sentence on THE FIRST PAGE — http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/05121101shd.pdf
>I think I am pretty well fed up with your pointless challenges.
Yes, because citing the actual Constitutions and court decrees is pointless. [/sarc]
That works for me. In fact my first instinct was far less...restrained.
“Pointless” really means you aren’t up to the challenge.
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