Posted on 03/25/2012 7:48:03 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
There are few people less likely to sell drugs than Fred Skinner.
The 76-year-old lives alone on Mc Neeley Road in Victory, getting by with help from neighbors. Much of his home has been quietly abandoned because he can’t get up and down the stairs; his son, also named Fred Skinner, said his mind “goes in and out.”
Since suffering a stroke last July, he speaks haltingly, sleeps with an oxygen tank and has a pacemaker in his chest.
Skinner doesn’t hear as well as he used to, but there was no missing the pair of crashes he heard late in the morning on March 13.
The first was at the outside door to his front porch and the second was at the inner door from the porch to his living room. About eight uniformed police officers burst into his kitchen, finding him at the table with a plate of breakfast crumbs.
“I was just setting there at the table,” he said. “They busted in and said, ‘Don’t move,’ so I didn’t move. I didn’t know what to do — I didn’t know why the troopers were running through the house.”
The officers spread out into the basement and second floor then quickly returned. Someone was handcuffing Skinner’s arms behind his back when they looked through the mail on the table and saw his name.
“They said, ‘Is this your name?’” Skinner said. “I said, ‘Yes.’ Then they said, ‘Wrong house.’”
The officers left as quickly as they came, leaving his doorknob on the porch floor and the two doors broken open. The whole incident took five minutes.
Once they left, Skinner called Barbara Bailey, his neighbor across the street. Bailey saw five or six patrol cars at the house next door to Skinner’s and went out to them.
She asked who they were and what they were doing; they told her they were conducting a drug raid from Rochester, she said.
“I said, ‘What about Fred Skinner’s house?’” Bailey said. “And he shrugged like he wasn’t telling me a damn thing.”
No one was home at the other house, either -- Bailey said the man who lives there is often out of town. The officers left without an apology or information about how Skinner might get reimbursed for the damage.
The raid was conducted by the Rochester Police Department and the Finger Lakes Drug Task Force, which is led by the Auburn Police Department and, in this case, also involved the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office.
No one involved would specify the purpose of the raid or say why the officers broke into the wrong house. No arrests have been made in the original drug case, which is still active.
The Rochester Police Department was the lead agency. Department spokesman Stephen Scott declined to comment but said there is an investigation into the incident.
“We haven’t determined there was a mistake yet; the investigation is still ongoing,” he said.
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How many of your corrupt brothers did you turn in? |
Friggin Retarded Asshats. WTF???? They can’t weed Engrish.
They are such tough thugs they have no feelings?
Completely insensitive to what they effect of their actions might have on a completely innocent and elderly man?
Wouldn’t surprise if several of them drown themselves in alcohol and abuse drugs to assuage their guilt for being men of slight integrity and embarrassed for having such small zibs ...
I’m guessing the old man didn’t have a dog for companionship.
Luckily.
Maybe it’s just me. I try to make things right w my customers. It’s often difficult, but I always try.
These slugs embarass me.
"I didn’t know why the troopers were running through the house."
It appears that they didn't know why they were running through the house either.
Storm troopers is more like it.
I’m wondering...if you don’t have the money to repair the damage done to your house in one of these “mistaken” police raids, what happens? If your door is smashed in and you don’t have the money to repair it immediately are you just vulnerable to criminals?
You can apply to the police department for damages and eventually, IF they admit what they did and pay damages, you can repair the door, but in the meantime, your door is open to any and all criminals passing by.
IOW, it ain't rocket science. The problem here is the failure to do standard police work. This means that if this kind of thing happens at all, it IS a management problem. That makes it political.
Making it cost them buckets of money is the only thing that will work.
Do you have a written department procedure to this effect? If we copied it and got some NGO (such as the SAF) to send it to police departments around the country and monitor the consequences, they will have been notified of a "standard of procedure." Failure to perform accordingly would then cost them dearly in court. The SAF (or its equivalent) might then find a nice income in recovered court costs, just as leftist NGOs do when they sue over environmental crap.
there is a guy, conservative, who has a morning talk show up in Rochester who will shine a light on this disgraceful episode. Maybe the so called peoples elected Representatives to office can put severe restraints on these “peace officers” who dress and act like military assault teams.
Since 911 America has become a police state. The citizens are not the enemy.
The police didn't have a warrant to enter the house they raided. Ergo, "warrantless raid."
If the war on drugs were dropped, we wouldn’t have any of this non-sense. Neither innocent people nor cops would be put into these situations.
I wonder if Lonsberry knows about it.
From the article:
“The New York Police Department, for instance, specifies that the commanding officer be notified immediately and that a uniformed officer stay at the scene until a city contractor arrives to repair the door.
Other agencies will be sure to have a contractor on-call for immediate repairs.”
Just incredible!
Apologized! Well, I guess that makes it ok then and makes our Nazis better than the German version.
We can rest assured, this won't ever happen again...and again...and again, etc.
What would the proper apology be if he had a fatal stroke or heart attack as a result of their storm trooper assault?
It's a good thing he didn't have any pets, b/c SOP apparently is to kill every four legged creature they see during these assaults on private citizens.
As my late father used to say, ""Sorry" doesn't cut it."
These raids are illegal, if not in violation of the letter of law, then certainly in violation of the spirit intended for our law by those who wrote it.
If the war on drugs were dropped, we wouldn’t have any of this non-sense. Neither innocent people nor cops would be put into these situations.
They would go a long way to help the hard working, rank and file LEOs who truly are community servants working for those who depend upon them. They are the other victims of this policy.
They are put into these situations where they do the damage and the harm, but are essentially following their orders and doing what they are trained to do.
They are being turned into the "enemy" thanks to this so-called "war on drugs" that is more accurately a war on liberty, citizens and human nature.
As such, the war on drugs was lost the day it was declared.
And nothing will happen to them. NOTHING.
It's already happened, more then once. The latest that I've heard of was a retired Marine shot over 20 times while holding an AR-15. These things will continue to happen as long as police use tips from low level druggies to snag "dealers". The tipsters seem to make a lot of mistakes in their addresses, maybe because they are druggies!
With most CCW states having "Castle Doctrine" laws, it can only get worse... I will not stand my ground (I will be firing from a prone position!)
Regards,
GtG
They send them here to Quantico and give them all sorts of military and covert training.
I see many visiting cops around here wearing special green Battle Dress and carrying their sidearms. They would never tell me what they were doing but I finally found out through someone on Quantico.
It worries me to see all these Government thugs being trained to subjugate us and they are doing it in partial secrecy.
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