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.
I’m wondering what is going to happen when they do a no-knock at the wrong address and the home owner drops a few of them before he realizes what is going on.
The home owner will likely be among the dead.
And this has probably already happened.
As of now they cannot require that your purchase a product under the Interstate Commerce Clause and then regulate your use of that product.
Once Obama Care is ruled constitutional, then they will be able to do anything that they wish.
Until then, enjoy your Freedom.
(see tagline)
Yes, basically. However, in this case the RPD was acting as part of a regional task force, along with the Cayuga County Sheriff and the Auburn NY Police Department.
It isn’t the sorry politicians...it’s the sorry liberals who vote them into office.
Really? I would sure like to see some data to back that up. It seems to me there are a sparse few not related to drugs or drug trafficking (though offhand I can't think of any in particular).
These raids are AT LEAST 90% drug related I would guess.
Actually, the way the law is written in most of the US, if an LEO “even illegally” breaks into your home and you shoot him, you have committed a crime. It does not matter if they are not uniformed, have not identified themselves, have not knocked, or followed any other “typical” police entry rules.
This has however, become an issue in the state of Indiana.
May 13, 2011 - “Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.”
Importantly, the only difference in this case was that their state supreme court officially recognized what much of the rest of the country has been doing, and this was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. Less than a year later:
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/63dffc10822d468eab13fda64bcfffee/IN—Police-Unlawful-Entry/
March 21, 2012 - “The measure specifies that people are protected by the state’s self-defense law if they reasonably believe force is necessary to protect themselves, someone else or their own property from unlawful actions by a public servant.
“The legislation was passed by strong majorities in the House and Senate and signed by the governor.”
Importantly, though, this only applies in one state as of now, so in the other 49, citizens *may* be held criminally liable for defending their home. If it is a criminal, they are likely free and clear. If it is an identical looking individual who happens to be a LEO, they could be arrested for murder.
“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.”
In other words, it happens often enough that they have to have a contractor on call. If it is happening enough for them to have this kind of policy in place, they don't give a damn about it, since it's not their money. Every one of them should serve jail time. Make it the duty of every single person involved with real personal consequences, and this shit will stop happening.
My tagline.
Until all responsible parties are fired, personally sued, and criminally prosecuted, this won’t stop.
” These raids are AT LEAST 90% drug related I would guess.”
Ask a cop.....these days about 40%.
That is what I’d expect to happen (not rightfully.. just what I see happening) however, if the home owner even farts to loudly and it’s considered a “shot fired!!!” There won’t be a home owner to charge with anything.
That home owner will have 40+ holes in him and will be at the morgue.
Scaring randomly selected serfs into submission or, even better, into a state of medical emergency must occur with regularity in order that order be maintained.
It is surprising that the JBT (jackbooted thugs) just didn’t murder the old guy because they raided the wrong place. Hey, someone has to die and anyone will suffice. Guilty or innocent, it’s all the same to the Rochester PD Drug Task force. Our motto: “Off ‘em all.” /s/
Read enough, lots of cowboys with guns. Who issued the warrant and what was the stated probable cause?
Guess I better double check the size of the number on the outside of my house.
“Scaring randomly selected serfs into submission or, even better, into a state of medical emergency must occur with regularity in order that order be maintained. “
Unfortunately, this increasingly seems to be the case.
Where are the Freeper police officers? Surely this should be an open and shut case for them to condemn.
"Ask a cop" is not evidence for your claim - it's just the additional claim that a cop would back you up.
And even if your claim is correct, I'll note that the percentage of mistaken-no-knock-raid stories in the press not involving drugs is, by my nonrandom sampling, 0%.
“In 1955 there was no “War on Drugs(TM)”, and this kind of **** never happened.”
Because in 1955 the cops didn’t need a warrant at all to kick down doors. They just went and did it, probable cause or not.
Boyz with their toyz paid for with our tax dollars.
It’s time to control our borders; demilitarize the police to protect and defend; limit immigration of ethnic groups such as the Russian mafia and others with a penchant for crime; put more emphasis on violent crime and revise the drug laws; require that no-knock entries be done only where life and limb and endangered; require that police departments and all members be held financially and criminally accountable when they break the laws.
“Since 911 America has become a police state. The citizens are not the enemy.”
9-11 was the excuse that crooked power hungry politicians (both Parties too) have used as an excuse to use the Constitution as toilet paper.
Rochester police bookmark
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